I actually tried pidgin maybe 6 months ago just for kicks if it could handle whatsapp, signal and telegram, and whaddaya know, it could. It was ugly as hell, but it could be done.
For whatsapp, my experience with Pidgin was terrible. Stickers had to be downloaded as photos, group chats would only show up once someone sent a message, contacts would only show as the full international phone number, all existing chats were horizontal tabs, like a browser.
That was the time when all the apps were standard XMPP. It didn’t have proper encryption back then.
WhatsApp is still XMPP nowadays, but excluding federation and non-standard implementation on Meta servers and so on
It also powers the communications / presence on many gaming avenues as well like Fortnite, League of Legends, & whatever Nintendo is using for notifications + online status (assuredly a lot more games).
XMPP is old, stable, & massively scalable for industrial applications – while maintaining decentralization + efficiency & allowing for extensibility like OMEMO encryption which is covering most folk’s chat use cases. Since the XMPP foundation don’t put budget into marketing & hype, a lot of folks weirdly assume it’s dead or not being used. It’s strange to me how folks seem more interested in RCS & Matrix despite their histories/ownership/flaws rather than embracing what is already good.
Yeah, there was a nice period when Pidgin could easily handle all the chats. Then providers siloed their apps 🫤
I actually tried pidgin maybe 6 months ago just for kicks if it could handle whatsapp, signal and telegram, and whaddaya know, it could. It was ugly as hell, but it could be done.
For whatsapp, my experience with Pidgin was terrible. Stickers had to be downloaded as photos, group chats would only show up once someone sent a message, contacts would only show as the full international phone number, all existing chats were horizontal tabs, like a browser.
Yup indeed, it wasn’t a pleasant experience. Self-hosting Matrix with all its bridges is kinda nice tho (although a bit lacking).
You can bridge to all of the apps in the image from Matrix
Or Slidge
That was the time when all the apps were standard XMPP. It didn’t have proper encryption back then. WhatsApp is still XMPP nowadays, but excluding federation and non-standard implementation on Meta servers and so on
OTR predates all the commercial platforms adopting XMPP, so that’s not exactly true.
Was OTR a protocol where the server had zero knowledge of the unencrypted content? Or was it basically like SSL?
OTR is E2E, it’s the direct predecessor of OMEMO/Signal on which they are both based.
Fun fact, iMessage is also XMPP based!
My brother in Christ do you know what fun means
Federated XMPP is fun yes, defederated XMPP is, indeed, not fun.
Also I’m no Christ’s brother, thanks. Beelzebub maybe.
So is WhatsApp, Zoom, Jitsi
Had no idea about Zoom!
It’s kind of crazy that all these services use it, and on the federated side of things, Signal killed it.
It also powers the communications / presence on many gaming avenues as well like Fortnite, League of Legends, & whatever Nintendo is using for notifications + online status (assuredly a lot more games).
XMPP is old, stable, & massively scalable for industrial applications – while maintaining decentralization + efficiency & allowing for extensibility like OMEMO encryption which is covering most folk’s chat use cases. Since the XMPP foundation don’t put budget into marketing & hype, a lot of folks weirdly assume it’s dead or not being used. It’s strange to me how folks seem more interested in RCS & Matrix despite their histories/ownership/flaws rather than embracing what is already good.