from Hacker News

Standalone Signal Desktop

by rouma7 on 10/31/17, 5:45 PM with 309 comments

  • by nikisweeting on 10/31/17, 11:11 PM

    Why no web app? Moxie closed https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop/issues/723 without giving any reasoning. Can someone link me to a blog post that explains why Signal is refusing to release a web version?

    I cannot run another Electron app on my computer, I simply do not have the RAM left. Signal as a web-app would allow me to put it inside of Franz or Rambox, where all my other chat services live.

    Right now Signal is the only chat service that I cannot run in Rambox or a browser.

    All the other major chat services provide a web-app that can run in a browser:

    - messenger - whatsapp - wechat - hangouts - skype - zulip

    These apps all have web versions for good reason, a website is the most versatile, portable way to share an application with users who's devices you cant support individually. If a user's chrome extension gets hacked a steals their messages that's their fault, it should be the choice of the user whether they run the app in an insecure environment. After all, you're relying on them to not have keyloggers or rootkits on their computers that run the desktop app.

    I don't see any reasoning for Signal to not follow WhatsApp's model and release a web-app that links to your phone.

  • by smcleod on 11/1/17, 2:22 AM

    Other than the memory usage - these are problems I've encountered thus far:

      - It said it was 'Importing contacts and messages' when I signed in without first prompting me if that was OK.
  - Importing contacts and messages failed.
  - Manually importing contacts fails.
  - Conversations show up, but each message just shows as an error.
  - Deleting a conversation doesn't delete it, it just makes it as read.
  - Messages marked as read randomly reappear as unread.
  - Incorrect unread message count next to conversations list.
  - Messages often don't arrive at all, seems at random.
  - The application loses it's 'link' to your account seemingly at random upon launch and needs to be relinked.
  - Appears to use an outdated version of electron with published security vulnerabilities.

  • by lewisl9029 on 11/1/17, 2:52 AM

    Any reason why there's not more support for the Progressive Web Apps standard on desktop browsers [1]?

    It seems to me that many Electron apps these days are super-thin wrappers around a web app that don't actually need the full desktop access offered by Electron (things like local filesystem access, multi-process execution, multi-window management, arbitrary node APIs, etc).

    They just need a way for users to "install" the app so that it 1) has a separate shortcut and appears in a separate window from the browser, 2) can send notifications through the native notifications stack, and use a fallback on systems where one isn't available, 3) is available for use offline.

    The Progressive Web Apps spec has answers to all of these problems, and it would vastly improve the resource usage model compared to Electron because each PWA would share the same browser runtime as the user's browser of choice, which is more likely than not running 24/7 anyways.

    Security-minded apps like Signal might need more guarantees such as asset verification and version pinning on install, but surely those could be added to the spec, as they would be beneficial for other Progressive Web Apps as well.

    I know PWA was designed with mobile apps in mind originally, but it'd be a shame to limit it to that use case, as there is clearly a lot of demand for building desktop apps with web technologies, and PWA sounds like an excellent alternative to the current status quo that's dominated by Electron.

    [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Apps/Progressive

  • by tmikaeld on 10/31/17, 9:10 PM

    Another 205MB Electron App to the collection, at least it's 50MB smaller than Wire.

  • by kome on 10/31/17, 10:02 PM

    Signal Desktop is not really standalone, because you still need to pair it with your phone. And the phone should be turned on.

    I am very privacy conscious, and I don't use a smartphone, at all, because it's basically a spying device in your pocket.

    Why Signal is all about privacy and then it forces me to pair it with a telephone?

    Telegram desktop is really standalone. They require a telephone number too (and that's very annoying), but they don't require having a smartphone or keeping your phone open. My phone number on telegram is not even my phone number anymore, and it doesn't make any difference... Privacy wise is far from being perfect, but it's already better. At least it's usable.

  • by unicornporn on 11/1/17, 6:56 AM

    I so wish more people discovered Matrix or https://riot.im.

    To me it's simpler and works better than Signal while being decentralized and federated. It has excellent clients for all platforms (and these keep measages in sync with each other) and does not require a phone number.

  • by dbrgn on 11/1/17, 12:05 AM

    Does it still store all data unencrypted on the disk? https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop/issues/1017

  • by jsnar on 11/1/17, 1:26 AM

    Using Electron is a bad idea: it's not secure. Electron has many security vulnerabilities. The latest version is still based on old Chromium (58 & 59) so it inherits many of the security vulnerabilities published in Chromium 60, 61 and 62

  • by openfuture on 10/31/17, 8:38 PM

    I want to say "finally!" but they're deprecating the chrome extension so now my chromebook won't be connected anymore but at least I'll be able to get rid of chromium on my desktop.

    Guess you can never please everyone.

    But in all seriousness thank you for the great work, this is excellent news!

  • by verbify on 10/31/17, 9:39 PM

    It's ludicrous that you need javascript enabled to download a secure messaging app.

  • by mrmondo on 10/31/17, 9:39 PM

    Was happy to see this as it was the only reason I had Chromium on my machine - launched it and right off the bat it uses 350MB of memory!

    Inspecting the app, it appears to be just another Javascript app (Electron).

  • by noja on 10/31/17, 10:21 PM

    > Linux distributions supporting APT, like Ubuntu or Debian

    Oh come on guys. Don't forget Fedora. Fedora means SELinux. SELinux means you are getting the people who value security.

  • by etiam on 10/31/17, 9:57 PM

  • by asdojasdosadsa on 11/1/17, 12:10 PM

    A lot of people have given negative feedback(because of electron?). I for one, am happy for this. I am in the middle of migrating slowly to Mozilla Firefox from Google Chrome, and one of the hardest things, is to have some of the apps as standalone. I couldn't use my MacBook for anything else if I wanted to chat using signal (..and have chrome running in the background).

    Maybe that's just me, but it's good news!

  • by csomar on 10/31/17, 11:33 PM

    Privacy. Privacy. Privacy. Bla, bla, bla... Now we are going to ask for your phone number.

    Am I the only one who thinks this defeats the whole point?

  • by xwvvvvwx on 10/31/17, 10:56 PM

    Signal is fantastic. Huge thanks to the team for their efforts.

    Really happy to have it as a standalone app outside of Chrome now.

  • by laretluval on 11/1/17, 12:13 AM

    It's still insane and confusing that you need a phone number to use Signal. It's almost as if they want to make it hard to be anonymous.

  • by nullc on 11/1/17, 12:44 AM

    More "security" software that blindly accepts effectively unaudible binary updates from a third party.

  • by iwalsh on 10/31/17, 9:39 PM

    What does this mean for ChromeOS users? Will Signal be maintained for ChromeOS or will those users no longer be able to use Signal?

  • by BlackjackCF on 10/31/17, 10:50 PM

    Finally! Here's to hoping the desktop client outperforms the Chrome extension.

  • by captn3m0 on 11/1/17, 9:34 AM

  • by tomc1985 on 10/31/17, 9:31 PM

    Not more Electron garbage!

  • by touart on 10/31/17, 9:39 PM

    Is there a web version available? web.whatsapp.com come in handy if you don't like electron apps.

  • by j7ake on 10/31/17, 9:04 PM

    Does signal do search for text as well as a way to view all images exchanged within a chat ? The only way I found was to scroll up while keeping my eyes focused on certain key words or images. Not a pleasant experience.

  • by andyjh on 11/1/17, 8:45 AM

    No proxy support, so I can't use it in my corporate environment.

    https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop/issues/1632

    Also a bit annoying that it can't be run in the background, at least on Windows.

    https://whispersystems.discoursehosting.net/t/new-desktop-ap...

  • by kethinov on 11/1/17, 8:47 AM

    Another Electron app, another thread full of people complaining about Electron.

    The solution is to build a common Electron runtime that all Electron apps can use. But it seems nobody is working on it despite all the complaints.[1]

    I really don't understand why there isn't anybody working it. If that got implemented, it would put a swift end to the biggest complaints about Electron.

    [1] https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/673

  • by geokon on 11/1/17, 2:07 AM

    The weird thing that isn't supported is Signal on 2 Android devices. I tried to install in on my tablet, but if I put in my phone number it blocks the app on my phone... bewildering..

    Kinda the Wechat model

  • by teekert on 11/1/17, 6:17 AM

    Great! But it found back some old groups with the same logo as a new group (what a pain if someone changes their phone, but I understand it is for security reasons), took me some tries to find what is what. It's doesn't sync back my older messages apparently, again, probably for security reasons. I was also unable to delete the old groups although they were long deleted from my phone, they popped up there again. After deleting them on my phone, they still remain on the desktop.

  • by fiatjaf on 10/31/17, 11:21 PM

    "If you’ve never used Signal Desktop before, this is a great chance to start. Download the app, pair it with your phone, and experience private messaging with all ten fingers."

    So it is not _really_ standalone. You still need a phone. This is still a geeky version of WhatsApp.

    In fact, why would I want to use this instead of WhatsApp if they're basically using the same encryption features and I have to trust the same people (who assert that)?

    (I don't use WhatsApp, I think it is the worst mankind nightmare.)

  • by JshWright on 10/31/17, 11:21 PM

    So now rather than being able to use my existing browser runtime with the Chrome extension version, I get to run yet another browser runtime that only runs Signal...

    Yay...

  • by drudru11 on 11/1/17, 10:02 AM

    How does whisper system make money?

  • by teekert on 11/1/17, 5:49 AM

    Why an apt package for Debian derivatives only, where they could have opted for a snap and supported a lot more distros: https://snapcraft.io/

    I'm very happy with it nonetheless!!

  • by Dowwie on 10/31/17, 10:20 PM

    can't I just be able to freely remove and add contacts? I'm not asking for much

  • by davexunit on 11/1/17, 1:54 PM

    I can't tell from the page if the client can be run without using any nonfree software. Does anyone know? The Android application unfortunately requires nonfree components.

  • by mtgx on 11/1/17, 3:37 PM

    I see that you still can't drag and drop an image on the new desktop app. It's not a huge issue but it's quite an inconvenience.

  • by Igor_kh on 11/2/17, 10:52 AM

    Guys, have you heard about checksums? Do you really want me to download and install that bulky zip/exe on my laptop ?

  • by flareback on 11/1/17, 1:58 AM

    I was ready to get excited, I installed the app and one contact showed up. Looks like it only works between signal users.

  • by JoeCoder_ on 11/1/17, 2:50 PM

    No option to minimize to system tray? So I have to have a Signal App taking up room in my taskbar all the time.

  • by nickpp on 10/31/17, 9:26 PM

    Can we please stop calling Webapps that come with the whole browser desktop apps? The fact that you give me to install a dedicated browser for your web app does not magically make it desktop app. It makes it a worse web app, which does not even share the browser runtime with other web apps.

    Desktop apps are supposed to be: native code, well integrated in the OS, still working when the net is down and using system widgets and OS look&feel.

  • by tclover on 11/1/17, 8:45 AM

    yay another electron app

  • by petre on 11/1/17, 5:56 AM

    Still requires pairing with my phone, thus not standalone.

    Thank you but I'll just keep using Wire on the desktop and Signal + Wire on mobile. Too bad, because the mobile version is really good.

  • by MattSteelblade on 10/31/17, 9:17 PM

    I'm thrilled, it now finally works over 443.

  • by biostasis on 11/1/17, 1:06 AM

    Design is somehow looking related to Telegram...