Signal supports desktop clients now, no?

How are you framing this? It’s an Electron app so it exists but doesn’t integrate or perform great. Last I recall you still were required to provide a SIM to sign up & you needed an iOS or Android primary device to even use the desktop client. Can you use a standalone, fast desktop application like you can these other protocols? I would say no, so “support” has shades of gray to it.

This is how I got kicked off LINE… they had a Chromium app that I could use tethered to an app, they disabled support for LINE Lite (which had light/dark theme, E2EE, texting, voice/video calls, debatable trackers (Firebase), even stickers & sending a location @ 8MiB instead of 200MiB+ of the “heavy app”), I refused to “upgrade” as it was a downgrade to me, & since I was no longer registered with a “primary” device, I was booted from the network. I don’t think I want these mobile-duopoly-required apps to be my primary means of communication with folks—especially now that my primary phone isn’t Apple or Google (luckily Open Whisper lets WhisperFish exist).

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drnick1 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

The Signal desktop app works fine, but you are right, it is still tied to a mobile account and a phone number. This is the main downside to Signal. I read that the Molly fork will support multiple accounts and a self hostable server. It probably won't be federated, but that is not really a problem when you can use multiple accounts and avoids a lot of headaches that come with federation.

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simgoh an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> but doesn’t integrate or perform great.

Curious what you mean by this. I use the Signal Desktop app. It does what it's supposed to - send and receive messages in a timely way with no lag.

What poor performance are you seeing? What doesn't integrate?

	▲	DaSHacka 12 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Not GP but I've also had issues with the Signal Desktop app (installed from the Arch repos). Its overall a little sluggish in general (like most Electron apps though, in fairness) and occasionally clicking and dragging images onto the application will cause it to freeze and eventually crash. Plus, the general usability issues present in all variants of the signal client (like no easy way of restoring previous messages on a new device). It's not terrible or anything, but it's just a solid 6/10 application. I personally wish they were more open to 3rd party clients, so I could have something that integrates with my desktop environment a little better and is snappier, like my Matrix clients.

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jeroenhd an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Has done for years now, but its desktop support is far inferior to even Matrix chat clients. It works in a pinch but you have to lower your standards quite a lot to use it as a true alternative.