First (feels like) everyone complained about apps (for example restaurants) and demanded a web page.
Then there’s a fully functional web page and everyone looses their mind because nothing of value (seriously, what could the native app do better?) was lost.
So, like Steam, half of all (“native”) E-Mail clients and almost all Markdown readers? I mean, there’s a fucking Bash script around to correctly display Markdown in the shell.
i use the web version and it works just as well, while also benefiting from not being a native program that can steal more data than just a tab in your browser
A friend told me they had a laptop that just suddenly stopped working and took forever to boot up.
Turns out it was a W10 laptop and it prompted them to install Windows 11 which basically made it non functional. Took 10+ minutes to boot and could barely open a single browser window. I installed Linux and suprise surprise the laptop worked perfecly fine.
Woah, woah, last time I checked, for $500 you could get pretty decent specs. Though, the last time I checked was in 2019 when I was shopping for a 2 in 1 for school. Since then I’ve bought used and haven’t looked back.
Still, I think you’re thinking in the $150 and under range. Anything more than that for a device with 4gb of memory would be straight up robbery.
my mother had a windows 7 laptop for work, she upgraded it to windows 10 (microsoft did a similar nagging back then) and not only did it become atrociously slow, a bunch of hardware drivers also stopped working, including pretty important stuff like USB
unfortunately linux wouldn’t have been an option cause the software she needed was (and still is) windows only
Tip: you can use the WhatsApp web site for text messaging (I don’t think it works for audio/video?) and if you want to use it in a standalone window you can “install” it as a web app (in most browsers). It’ll use way less RAM running in your existing browser than running a separate electron instance.
I have never had anyone “require” it of me… I’ve had a few ask me about it, and I said I don’t use it… No more problem there, we find another way to communicate.
That’s bullying talk. It’s the same everywhere… and what matters is the “almost” part. If people need you, they find a way. It might be SMS, it might be email, you might be left out from groupchat but you can still be reached.
In Latin America most public services, banks ans bussines uses whatspps as their main support line.
To give you an example, if you have no water in your house you need to report on wp. No other way.
And this is the standard for a lot of services, wp is the ONLY way to ask for support.
Also, if you are a freelancer or have a bussiness, your clients expect you to have whatsapp, 90% of inquiries and sales goes through wp.
It’s a nightmare, i really want to get rid of meta services but it is impossible for my case.
I have decided to decouple what i can, and use different phones for meta services, but i suspect that they still correlate and collect data. (Based on location, wifi, mac of iot, browsing etc)
Anyways, i ask people to be aware that for some of us, our situations makes impossible to remove some of the meta, microsoft or google services.
My aproach for now is to only use the minimum neccesary, i still search for ways to gradually switch out what i can.
Whatever i can’t rid off, i have another phone for it, how effecrive this is idk but for now is the best solution i found.
Thanks for the clarification, i read you wrong, and you are completely right.
Whats worse is that even if you are a bit savvy or informed is hard to fully get away from them.
But anyways, even if i cant escape them i will try to give the minimum data possible.
even if i cant escape them i will try to give the minimum data possible.
Yep, one has to be pragmatic. We all wish our behavior was perfect at all time but sadly we must compromise and come to term with it.
Accepting that is important. I believe what can also help is to :
avoid is possible
if not, not provide unnecessary information (maybe the real name is NOT actually needed)
delete what can be deleted locally (short history) and remotely (e.g. GDPR request)
to data takeout regularly to be ready to move away any time
isolate the problematic app (container, other device, emulator, etc)
… and finally, most importantly, minimize the actual negative impact. For example if one does provide data to Google or Meta then at least while blocking ads then their actual business model, namely selling your profile to advertising company, is lost.
To give you an example, if you have no water in your house you need to report on wp. No other way. And this is the standard for a lot of services, wp is the ONLY way to ask for support.
whatsapp requires phone numbers. surely they can be called
It’s a nightmare, i really want to get rid of meta services but it is impossible for my case.
if you have tech skills, try running a matrix bridge for whatsapp for yourself. take it slowly if you need it, you are not in a hurry. your own server, federation off. keep using whatsapp as you did before, and check for a month or two if the bridge is running stable. subscribe to notifications for github releases of the bridge to know if there’s an important update.
you won’t be able to leave whatsapp behind, but at least you’ll be able to get rid of its apps that do whatever that’s not for your benefit
whatsapp requires phone numbers. surely they can be called
Sadly the phone number is only for messages, in most cases it’s automated with a bot giving you options.
if you have tech skills, try running a matrix bridge
I didn’t know about matrix bridges. To be honest i’m not familiar with matrix but i have been learning about networking and self host on the side. I could make it part of the project.
Thanks for the suggestions! I should interact more with the community, i have been receiving lots of good feedback recently, i was always a lurker on reddit.
I have a bunch of friends from most corners of Europe, most highly educated, all of them use WhatsApp. I use Signal with those who are on there, but 90% are only on WhatsApp, so I am too.
Worse yet, my friends and family in my home country are almost all only on Facebook Messenger. I stopped using that entirely, and clumsily reach out on SMS whenever necessary. It has absolutely made it harder to stay in touch with people I care about.
I also avoid a lot of other social networks that would have been nice in order to keep in touch with my friends in other parts of the world, which is pretty much all of them as I travel. Pixelfed is nice, but my friends are still on Instagram. Or even Snapchat, even though I’m in my 30s.
Not all my friends are privacy nerds, and I wouldn’t want them to be either. So I just gently push for Signal whenever I can while I hold my nose and continue to run WhatsApp.
@Core_of_Arden@Appoxo The only people I know who don’t use WhatsApp are the very technophobic or rich, antisocial Apple users. It’s ubiquitous. It is the standard method of international texting. I know a few people who use Signal (mostly who work in or around FOSS or security) and a few who use Telegram. They’re all nerds. But friends and family and social contacts and to a degree companies are WhatsApp.
The US is one continent sized country. The ROTW is mostly lots of small countries and lots of movement between them. That means that SMS costs money, sometimes a lot of money, and the Google and Apple systems mean you need to know what type of device the recipient has. If you don’t know, don’t care, and don’t want to know, then you WhatsApp them.
I’m sorry I have to spell this out for you, but in other parts of the world WhatsApp is The messenger. As in, since companies are easier to approach though it than, say email.
Bundle that with the network effect, and it’s effectively self-ostracising to go without.
Having said that, I still do that, but I’m antisocial, and am okay with being excluded from group chats. But at least I don’t go around showcasing my ignorance/incomprehension at how other people do things differently.
It’s kinda scary that Europe is so willing to let all of their private messages go through an American data broker company that is well known for doing sneaky things to get data they aren’t supposed to have.
Said like a truly ignorant person. There are countries where work teams discuss almost everything on WhatsApp. My mom is a teacher, and all communication regarding work that doesn’t justify an entire official mail happens on whatsapp. Literally everyone’s on whatsapp. Also, it’s not really that hard to just use whatsapp on the web.
Literally everyone I know, is not on WhatsApp… And most of those I have known to use it, don’t anymore… Why would you, really? You do know that change start with you, right? Or are you too ignorant to know that?
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I usually only used the webversion anyway?
First (feels like) everyone complained about apps (for example restaurants) and demanded a web page.
Then there’s a fully functional web page and everyone looses their mind because nothing of value (seriously, what could the native app do better?) was lost.
Thankyou Microsoft
This part actually doesn’t depend on Microsoft
??
So, like Steam, half of all (“native”) E-Mail clients and almost all Markdown readers? I mean, there’s a fucking Bash script around to correctly display Markdown in the shell.
What a time to compute.
deleted by creator
It’s called enshittification for sure.
It’s beyond that. It’s surveillance software
That’s part of enshittification I’d say. It’s all about squeezing your users for as much money as you can, and surveillance is part of that.
Cut Meta some slack. They’re not Nvidia. They’re only a $1.5T company. They can’t make everything native.
hahah, 1.5T ! peons !
Lol trash
Shame, would something like Ferdium fare better in that case?
Can’t get upset if I never used WhatsApp.
This could mean great news to Linux WhatsApp users.
i use the web version and it works just as well, while also benefiting from not being a native program that can steal more data than just a tab in your browser
Can it do video and audio calls?
oh I genuinely have no idea actually, I don’t do calls on desktop
deleted by creator
TBH that happens when there is enough RAM available. I’d be surprised if the usage didn’t
getgo down under memory pressure.And they sell laptops with 4 GB RAM and pre-installed Windows 11 here. No idea how they work. :)
They don’t!
A friend told me they had a laptop that just suddenly stopped working and took forever to boot up.
Turns out it was a W10 laptop and it prompted them to install Windows 11 which basically made it non functional. Took 10+ minutes to boot and could barely open a single browser window. I installed Linux and suprise surprise the laptop worked perfecly fine.
I don’t understand windows business model for these low end laptops.
They just make windows look bad (not that it’s good).
So many people have “windows slow” imprinted on their brains because they buy a $500 or less computer and expect it to be as good as a 1500 MacBook…
Woah, woah, last time I checked, for $500 you could get pretty decent specs. Though, the last time I checked was in 2019 when I was shopping for a 2 in 1 for school. Since then I’ve bought used and haven’t looked back.
Still, I think you’re thinking in the $150 and under range. Anything more than that for a device with 4gb of memory would be straight up robbery.
No surprise there!
Then they sell useless OOTB laptops. Those laptops desperately need Linux (or BSD).
that’s not even a new thing…
my mother had a windows 7 laptop for work, she upgraded it to windows 10 (microsoft did a similar nagging back then) and not only did it become atrociously slow, a bunch of hardware drivers also stopped working, including pretty important stuff like USB
unfortunately linux wouldn’t have been an option cause the software she needed was (and still is) windows only
Windows upgrades sound like a nightmare anyway, no way I’d trust an upgraded installation. Fresh install or nothing.
Tip: you can use the WhatsApp web site for text messaging (I don’t think it works for audio/video?) and if you want to use it in a standalone window you can “install” it as a web app (in most browsers). It’ll use way less RAM running in your existing browser than running a separate electron instance.
it does
Since when? Because last I used it Video and Audio calls required their native app (their excuse was their encryption couldn’t run on the website)
I thought you meant attachments
Are there seriously anyone in here, that uses WhatsApp? If so, please revise your life…
I hate WhatsApp. But there are several of my clients that use it and require me to.
I have never had anyone “require” it of me… I’ve had a few ask me about it, and I said I don’t use it… No more problem there, we find another way to communicate.
Here in Brazil whatsapp is almost mandatory, if you dont have it you cant talk to anyone
Sounds really sad to be so dependent on it…
That’s bullying talk. It’s the same everywhere… and what matters is the “almost” part. If people need you, they find a way. It might be SMS, it might be email, you might be left out from groupchat but you can still be reached.
Yeah, if they need you, but maintaining friendships is hard enough work if one doesn’t actively exclude oneself.
In Latin America most public services, banks ans bussines uses whatspps as their main support line.
To give you an example, if you have no water in your house you need to report on wp. No other way. And this is the standard for a lot of services, wp is the ONLY way to ask for support.
Also, if you are a freelancer or have a bussiness, your clients expect you to have whatsapp, 90% of inquiries and sales goes through wp.
It’s a nightmare, i really want to get rid of meta services but it is impossible for my case.
I have decided to decouple what i can, and use different phones for meta services, but i suspect that they still correlate and collect data. (Based on location, wifi, mac of iot, browsing etc)
Anyways, i ask people to be aware that for some of us, our situations makes impossible to remove some of the meta, microsoft or google services.
My aproach for now is to only use the minimum neccesary, i still search for ways to gradually switch out what i can.
Whatever i can’t rid off, i have another phone for it, how effecrive this is idk but for now is the best solution i found.
Right, I’m not saying it’s necessarily bullying by people, it can be precisely by those companies. They make themselves as hard as possible to ignore.
Thanks for the clarification, i read you wrong, and you are completely right. Whats worse is that even if you are a bit savvy or informed is hard to fully get away from them. But anyways, even if i cant escape them i will try to give the minimum data possible.
Yep, one has to be pragmatic. We all wish our behavior was perfect at all time but sadly we must compromise and come to term with it.
Accepting that is important. I believe what can also help is to :
… and finally, most importantly, minimize the actual negative impact. For example if one does provide data to Google or Meta then at least while blocking ads then their actual business model, namely selling your profile to advertising company, is lost.
whatsapp requires phone numbers. surely they can be called
if you have tech skills, try running a matrix bridge for whatsapp for yourself. take it slowly if you need it, you are not in a hurry. your own server, federation off. keep using whatsapp as you did before, and check for a month or two if the bridge is running stable. subscribe to notifications for github releases of the bridge to know if there’s an important update.
you won’t be able to leave whatsapp behind, but at least you’ll be able to get rid of its apps that do whatever that’s not for your benefit
Sadly the phone number is only for messages, in most cases it’s automated with a bot giving you options.
I didn’t know about matrix bridges. To be honest i’m not familiar with matrix but i have been learning about networking and self host on the side. I could make it part of the project.
Thanks for the suggestions! I should interact more with the community, i have been receiving lots of good feedback recently, i was always a lurker on reddit.
A lot of people in nations that rely on WhatsApp have data-only plans because they’re cheaper.
Or worst because Meta itself make such plan cheaper, or even free, when data is used on their platforms.
I have a bunch of friends from most corners of Europe, most highly educated, all of them use WhatsApp. I use Signal with those who are on there, but 90% are only on WhatsApp, so I am too.
Worse yet, my friends and family in my home country are almost all only on Facebook Messenger. I stopped using that entirely, and clumsily reach out on SMS whenever necessary. It has absolutely made it harder to stay in touch with people I care about.
I also avoid a lot of other social networks that would have been nice in order to keep in touch with my friends in other parts of the world, which is pretty much all of them as I travel. Pixelfed is nice, but my friends are still on Instagram. Or even Snapchat, even though I’m in my 30s.
Not all my friends are privacy nerds, and I wouldn’t want them to be either. So I just gently push for Signal whenever I can while I hold my nose and continue to run WhatsApp.
USA =/= rest of the world.
You are right - USA is not the rest of the world… What’s your point?
@Core_of_Arden @Appoxo The only people I know who don’t use WhatsApp are the very technophobic or rich, antisocial Apple users. It’s ubiquitous. It is the standard method of international texting. I know a few people who use Signal (mostly who work in or around FOSS or security) and a few who use Telegram. They’re all nerds. But friends and family and social contacts and to a degree companies are WhatsApp.
The US is one continent sized country. The ROTW is mostly lots of small countries and lots of movement between them. That means that SMS costs money, sometimes a lot of money, and the Google and Apple systems mean you need to know what type of device the recipient has. If you don’t know, don’t care, and don’t want to know, then you WhatsApp them.
I’m sorry I have to spell this out for you, but in other parts of the world WhatsApp is The messenger. As in, since companies are easier to approach though it than, say email. Bundle that with the network effect, and it’s effectively self-ostracising to go without.
Having said that, I still do that, but I’m antisocial, and am okay with being excluded from group chats. But at least I don’t go around showcasing my ignorance/incomprehension at how other people do things differently.
Well, how did it become that way? If it is that way…
And don’t worry, you are excused.
It’s the de facto communication medium in Europe. It’s not much of a choice. Even work related groups are usually over WhatsApp.
It’s kinda scary that Europe is so willing to let all of their private messages go through an American data broker company that is well known for doing sneaky things to get data they aren’t supposed to have.
Scary indeed.
Phone carriers are to blame. Unlimited SMS plans weren’t common when whatsapp took hold of our communications.
Now, I live in Europe, and my family, friends and others, don’t use WhatsApp… So it is much of a choice.
Said like a truly ignorant person. There are countries where work teams discuss almost everything on WhatsApp. My mom is a teacher, and all communication regarding work that doesn’t justify an entire official mail happens on whatsapp. Literally everyone’s on whatsapp. Also, it’s not really that hard to just use whatsapp on the web.
Oh, you are truly ignorant - sorry to hear that.
Literally everyone I know, is not on WhatsApp… And most of those I have known to use it, don’t anymore… Why would you, really? You do know that change start with you, right? Or are you too ignorant to know that?
There are so many better alternatives than both meta and windows. It’s enshitification personified.
Thinking on going back to linux sooo bad. lol