@typst
I've been suspecting that something faster and "easier" than #LaTeX (no hard feelings: TeX is enormously old and has lasted really long!) must be possible -- thank you for confirming that.

I get the utility of web-based collaboration, but ... I really really want a desktop GUI because sending each button press across half the world is *so wasteful*, not to mention privacy issues. The only maintained desktop app costs money, looks spartan and seems to use #Electron

The Blink engine is being used in a lot of places. If I'm not mistaken this is also the engine used in #Electron.

WebKit in itself can be found everywhere in the open source world, but it is also maintained by #Apple.

But what about #Servo? The former Mozilla project turned #LinuxFoundation project based on #rust. There is no Servo web browser in the wild so far, that I know of.

But in essence, thems the only 3:
1. Blink
2. WebKit
3. Servo
4. Gecko (but... #Mozilla)

@manchicken
VOIP numbers do not receive SMS.

But in any case, Signal has been known to be a shitty option for years:

https://github.com/privacytools/privacytools.io/issues/779

And just today a 15 y.o kid discovered Signal was foolish enough to proxy through Cloudflare, which enabled the kid to denonymize users:

https://gist.github.com/hackermondev/45a3cdfa52246f1d1201c1e8cdef6117

Regarding @Lockdownyourlife’s question -- both are terrible options.

I favored Wire over Signal for years b/c Wire folks did not make the embarrassingly stupid decisions that Signal folks made. Wire did not impose phone number registration. But Wire’s app was shit quality. #Electron -- need I say more? Ok, i will. Their AOS app was inflicted with designed obsolescence. Buy new phone hardware or gtfo. Then they ditched their desktop users entirely, by accident, and never corrected the accident. Oops. Just one day Wire quit working. But it was a blessing in disguise b/c Wire has the quite nasty defect of silently dropping messages. The sender thinks a msg was sent but the recipient never sees it. It was a chronic problem. It’s worst kind of defect a msging app can have.

Snikket is the right answer, generally.

/cc @starraven

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(edit) an accurately named “manchicken” replied to this with a hit-and-run chickenshit msg then blocked me so that replies would be blocked. Yet his comment gives poor guidance. So apparently I have to reply to that by editing the msg he replied to. This is my reply:

A single corp protectionist cloudflare-dependant project masquerading as a non-profit despite pushing walled gardens on people to collect statistics is not what should be built upon or invested in by the community.

Signal was a shit show from start with phone number reg, neglecting that in many jurisdictions around the world mobile phone subscriptions require registering national ID to phone number.

If you want to improve the commons and protect privacy, XMPP is open standards, decentralised, and welcomes community efforts. Signal cannot be salvaged. XMPP is where resources should be invested with maximal community benefit.

@north As I tell people everytime this comes up... Pidgin is the #GTK frontend to libpurple, Finch is the #ncurses frontend, and Quail, while experimental is the #QT frontend.

If you want an #electron frontend to libpurple, there's is literally nothing stopping you from doing it right now instead of bugging me to do it.

@kris @heals

I tried Delta Chat by @delta some years ago and liked it.

But it still does not have a usable, native (i.e. GTK, not #Electron!) client for my OS, #Debian, therefore it's not my cup of tea.

Maybe I can interact with Delta Chat users soon, using this Email #XMPP gateway by @Goffi?

https://nlnet.nl/project/EmailXMPPgateway/