Curious and I just have to ask why would anyone want a highly rated privacy phone and join Whatsapp? Isn’t that like shooting a hole in your rights to privacy?
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Potentially, but it really depends on what your goals are. I definitely like the anti-Whatsapp feelings but sometimes things are worth compromising on. For me I think it’s going to be Uber - of course obviously they already know location and identity for obvious reasons…
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It is your Librem 5, so feel free to do what you want.
Compatibility with a user’s social network. Some people only use SMS, Facebook Messenger, iMessage, WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, and/or so on.
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There’s a flatpak in the Software app. I don’t know if it works or not.
Unfortunately, WhatsApp has become the default mode of communication in many parts of the world, even to the exclusion of mobile network calls, SMS, and MMS. From what I understand, lots of people, whole communities, and even businesses buy data-only mobile plans and then use WhatsApp for all calling and messaging, in order to save on costs. That has been going on since WhatsApp first appeared on the scene.
When the app was eventually bought by Facebook, it should have been a huge red flag to all users, but apparently didn’t cause a massive shift to alternative apps, because WhatsApp had become so entrenched.
Then again, billions of people still use Facebook, too, despite the privacy abuse.
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Yes. One should also note that while there are tons of privacy issues with meta-data (where, when, from, to, …), the messages themselves (audio, texts, pictures) are end-to-end encrypted. And apparently that encryption is pretty solid.
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Also worth noting is that WhatsApp uses Open Whisper Systems/Signal’s’ encryption protocol, and that one of the creators of WhatsApp, Brian Acton, initially moved to Facebook when the app was acquired, but ultimately left due to disagreements with Facebook, and started the non-profit Signal Foundation with Moxie Marlinspike. WhatsApp - Wikipedia and Signal Foundation - Wikipedia.
Still, I would never in a million years use any product owned by Meta/Facebook, or even touch their websites. I hope that eventually, WhatsApp will divest from Meta, or be forcibly divested.
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Interesting. I knew whatsapp and signal used OWS, but I didn’t know about the Signal Foundation. There’s so much info these days, it seems impossible to keep track of even the important stuff. Or I’m just getting slower/older.
A million years is a long time — I would posit “never” would be about the same! The last time I used whatsapp was in 2018 (my son was traveling in Europe and it was his only reliable mode of communication).
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Can’t pass camera on Waydroid… Been an issue for a while. Also seems to be a problem on the Librem 11
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You mean for Uber? I never used the camera for their app. Only thing I give it I think is GPS/location.
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For anything
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On the other hand it reads your whole address book and in Europe you have to ask everyone on your address book if it is okay to send your data to Facebook (except those who are also using this app), otherwise you’re breaking laws.
The reality: it’s fully ignored in nearly any case, because
a) people don’t know or
b) people don’t want to do harm to friends and family or
c) they’re using WhatsApp themselves.
The API work is not done yet. Things that will come at time. Currently this happens to everything except the camera app.
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Even passing the camera to Firefox doesn’t seem to work currently. But is that also an API issue?
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Jep. Once the camera is internal handled as “webcam”, every app will have access to it. It will also include a security layer which can disable the camera to specific apps (settings stuff). If you want to use a camera right now, just plugin a common usb camera - it works out of the box.
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Thanks for the info
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I’m probably traveling abroad later this year and after failing to install Android dual boot on SD on a test backup L5, I went ahead and installed evil GAPPS Waydroid on an SD for my daily driver. This is of course tainting what I had long aspired to be a taint-free machine, but I aspired to escape the compulsory “Android phone in a faraday cage for backup just in case” idea that I sometimes used on shorter travels.
A friend who plans to travel overseas later on on a different trip than me said they were told to use Whatsapp as their main communication tool overseas. After I sent them a long blurb about how Ive never used it but I reckon its just a Facebook rebranding of Signal, and Signal is already some CIA funded thing (probably honeypot), after giving my piece about how that means Whatsapp sucks, I downloaded it in my evil GAPPS Waydroid dual boot to practice being forced by other people to use an app I don’t like for what it might be like when I’m overseas.
My friend tried calling me and their was no audio in either direction. I restarted Waydroid with the HKS set to power on Audio but still no dice. Is that expected? Is the microphone expected to work in waydroid?
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Yes when I used Waydroid it had mic access
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What do you need the GAPPS for, if I may ask?
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I figured that I am likely to travel later this year and when I do, someone in my travels will most likely push me to run one of the corrupt apps from their society that require this.
Then once I already had that evilness set up so that I could throw the kitchen sink at the problem of using Waydroid, I installed a few things there that probably don’t actually require GAPPS
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Btw. apparently EU regulation is making Meta consider allowing Whatsapp messages via third party apps, which could lead to that particular channel opening in Linux and L5 friendly apps.
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