SURPRISE ! SURPRISE ! i guess when you’re constantly in the media for being big-brother there comes a point when you’ve had enough and just call everybody out “you’re in or you’re out !”
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There’s a lot of idealism in this thread, but unfortunately (in some countries) Whatsapp is necessary. I moved out of the US last December, and in my new country the following is all done via Whatsapp:
- Insurance
- Doctors appointments
- Opticians appointments
- Setting up mechanic’s appointments
- Creating appointments at electronic repair shops
- Submitting prescriptions to pharmacies
- Notifications of deliveries
- ISP tech support
- Reporting power outages
- Book contractors / home repair
…and I could go on.
So, it’s not a question of “educating family and friends”. The power company simply doesn’t have Signal or Telegram.
I left Facebook in 2009 over their privacy practices and have never rejoined (nor am I on Instagram), so am I thrilled that Whatsapp has made such deep inroads in society here? No. But is it really useful to have a single source to interact with any service? Yes! It’s far easier this way than it was to interact with call centers in the US. Sometimes hold-your-nose pragmatism is necessary. Life is rarely black and white…there are many shades of gray.
So, if there’s not a good, working solution to Whatsapp, entire countries are placed outside of Librem’s reach. It’s much better to be able to de-googlify your life thoroughly and still be able to use Whatsapp, rather than still be on Apple/Google + Whatsapp.
Anybody have luck with the libpurple/matrix approaches? The anbox solution looks viable, but I am not in love with the idea of downloading an APK from a random site.
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The reasons you cited are valid, but idealism is a path to changing the current monopolies and abuses. But I think we all understand that an interim solution needs to be found. 
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I did find that they ship an official APK: https://www.whatsapp.com/android/ – which is great, because now I know it’s not backdoored by anybody except Facebook
And, on Ubuntu I was able to install Whatsapp on Anbox pretty easily. So if Anbox runs on OK Librem them that seems like a reasonably clean path.
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couldn’t agree more on your point Joadri
If the open source community wants to become successful, in the sense to a more privacy safe way of digital connection, the tools should be accessible, convenient and easy to use.
otherwise, as many open source initiatives, it will remain in the shades of the internet. Thus failing is main objective.
so the question regarding whatsapp is more then fair.
btw: I use Singlebox [https://singlebox.app/en/] on my Linux mint. Which is an Opensource option as well. It handles many apps such as telegram, whatsapp, google chat, teams etc etc. Impressive list of apps. [only not signal]
Singlebox sandbox each app makes it quit safer. So developing such an app, or single box for L5, would be a viable option.
Anyone any insight on this?
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I like the idea of Singlebox and Webcatalog. It is similar approach as GNOME Web (Epiphany) installable apps. However GNOME Web does not currently work with WhatsApp web on Librem 5 Librem 5: web.whatsapp.com not working in GNOME Web (Epiphany)
big sigh. why is it again so complicated. Just create simple plug and play solutions. Which is quite possible with linux
so again I pass
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Possible doesn’t always mean feasible.
It is about being customer oriented. or not…
In this case there is no such question. Purism has to make more important stuff for customers and gives us the possibility to solve such individual things by our own (community). WhatsApp is something not every customer needs or even wants, but other things like stable OS and other OS improvements like stable suspend are.
In fact, I would even tell to all people who want to force me into WhatsApp “this app does not work with (mobile) Linux, but you could use Matrix, that works on every system” etc.
To be more clear: Purism only supports open source and privacy-by-design software and WhatsApp is nothing they even mind to support in any way. I think you misunderstood something about their mission if you think they should provide such support. A lot of people are here because they want to escape from things like WhatsApp and other proprietary spyware and Purism thinks similar.
But Matrix supports bridging to WhatsApp if you can’t live without (also not easy to setup, but there should be tutorials to do so).
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This is outdated. Currently, Waydroid works sufficiently well.
Until we can get camera access in Waydroid, I don’t think that’s really a complete option. Unless I missed something while looking at these commands…
from Purism statements: " … with quality services and products that people will find convenient to use and beautiful to look upon."
So it is about customers oriented [convenient] being blind for what happens in the digital world, will make Purism obsolete.
And what i suggested is open source software with privacy by design. It combines 2 worlds.
and if things are not easy to setup, they are not compliant with Purism own statement. And that is the continuous problem with open source. Either live up to today’s world or be another failed story
Since we are talking about Whats-app here…
Purism states:
“The Purism Librem 5 is designed with security in mind and has privacy protection by default.”
Can’t say that the mentioned app falls into that category.
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It is what shopping4purism said. The focus is on privacy and security and that is something unique on the market (in this quality). So a lot of customers bought the L5 to avoid bloody software, too.
Purism was speaking about an OS that can be used by everyone without knowing command lines for terminal (for example updating apps) and is easy to use. They also planned to make it possible to install default desktop apps and give app-devs the tools to adjust them easily to little screens. This way they provide that nearly everything important can be done on L5.
You just over-interpreted what they tried to say. However, you don’t even need Purism to get access to WhatsApp. The community is working on Waydroid, Anbox and Matrix bridges as far as I know. Sooner or later you will find a solution for you without Purism working on that stuff.
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What’s the status with Whatsapp via anbox, does video work?
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In Waydroid at least, there is no current camera access
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