web browsers should be redone from the ground up

[hipsterelectron@circumstances.run]

• web browsers should be redone from the ground up
• cloud services shouldn't be required to exist
• email should be redone
• encrypted messaging should be pluggable like email
• encrypted messaging should compete on terms of metadata resistance as well

[hipsterelectron@circumstances.run]

this is kinda my entire reason for whining about signal hate i wanna see someone actually building the alternative lol

[be@floss.social]

@hipsterelectron Out-of-touch nerds love to hate Signal and suggest "alternatives" that don't even come close because they've missed the point of why people use Signal.

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@be @hipsterelectron i hate signal because it forces text based conversation onto my phone that would otherwise have been on my laptop, and typing on my phone is slow and hurts my hands, and I miss people's messages all the time

[be@floss.social]

@aeva @hipsterelectron Do you know there's a Signal desktop client? I use it all the time to type with 10 fingers.

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@be @hipsterelectron yeah the crappy electron app woo

[operand@todon.nl]

@be @aeva @hipsterelectron I don't think you can argue that the Signal desktop experience is first-class when the only way to use the desktop app is through registering with an Android or iOS device first

[hipsterelectron@circumstances.run]

@operand @be @aeva i think that's because of the phone number restriction—which i think is really frustrating because there should be a detailed description of why and how signal uses that, because users deserve that and it signals a degree of contempt/unprofessionalism not to do so

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@hipsterelectron @operand @be so wait is that why I can't just fire up pidgin and use signal there? funny seeing all my foss friends cream themselves over a proprietary messaging system

[meejah@mastodon.social]

@aeva @hipsterelectron @operand @be I think in principal someone could use signal-cli https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli to write a pidgin/LibPurple plugin?

Looks like there _were_ a few attempts, with this being one that's not "archived"? https://github.com/hoehermann/purple-presage

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@meejah @hipsterelectron @operand @be ah wonderful! the readme makes it sound like it has some rough edges but probably more or less supports the basic feature set I actually use. I will try it out some time this weekend. thanks!