[kwlug-disc] Skype

[Chris Irwin]

On Tue, Nov 28, 2017 at 10:58 PM, Gary Walsh <gwalsh at notw.ca> wrote:

> I discovered Signal today when it was mentioned in a news article. It is an
> open source secure encrypted messaging app that does SMS, audio and video.
> On
> cell phones it replaces your default SMS app. It works on the Linux
> desktop,
> but only Debian. See https://signal.org/.
>

It's an electron app (basically, a stand-alone chrome app). It can easily
be extracted from the debian package for other distros:

https://www.reddit.com/r/signal/comments/7a3x3z/signal_desktop_on_nonubuntu_distributions/

Additionally, it is available in flatpak format on flathub, which is how I
run it:

https://flathub.org/apps.html

I'm a big fan of signal on my phone. It's quick and simple, and I have a
few friends who converted to it. I still prefer XMPP, but I never managed
to convert anybody over to it (and security in XMPP is not the default).

That said, their desktop client is kind of crap.

* It doesn't have full functionality compared to the mobile client
* It is somewhat slow (especially if you share images in discussions)
* Only does signal->signal chats, since it doesn't tunnel through your
phone. So no SMS functionality
* Requires account linking through your phone. You can't just get started
with the desktop app

-- 
Chris Irwin
<chris at chrisirwin.ca>
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