We’ve been using Session ( https://getsession.org ) for the Damus translation team and it seems to work pretty well. It’s a fork of Signal and doesn’t require phone number or email either.
I've used Session for some specific use cases and it's worked well, although it's not really been a fork of Signal for the last three years. They started from the same codebase as Signal in 2019, but the team has made it clear that it's deviated significantly since then. It seems like it became a major selling point for them, as they didn't believe Signal's protocol was a good fit for their decentralized environment anymore.
They migrated from Signal's encryption protocol and developed their Session Protocol, dropping Perfect Forward Secrecy behind along the way (which SimpleX grants). Relating to identifiers, the main difference between Session and SimpleX is that the IDs are fixed in Session between users you communicate with, while they can be random and require no identifiers in SimpleX to connect in the first place.
There's more that differs, including their decentralization and server ecosystem from what I understand. I believe SimpleX provides a structure for more interesting growth, but that's just my humble, unsolicited opinion, and based on what I value I guess 😂. I see it being more interopable and aligned with the goals of nostr. I'm sure the founder of SimpleX (Evgeny) could expand even more on their differences if people wanted to know.
Just thought I'd share in case you're interested, here's some links relating to Session's move away from Signal:
https://getsession.org/blog/session-protocol-explained
https://getsession.org/blog/session-protocol-technical-information
And here's an Opt Out episode from nostr:npub1tr4dstaptd2sp98h7hlysp8qle6mw7wmauhfkgz3rmxdd8ndprusnw2y5g with Evgeny about SimpleX. Really interesting stuff:
Desktop GUI is on it's way in 2023 according to lead dev. Profile syncing like Signal (leader and follower device) is on the roadmap and mentioned here:
https://github.com/simplex-chat/simplex-chat/issues/425#issuecomment-1349617910
2nd round of Amethyst logo proposals by nostr:npub103vypyhddrad9289zp8lf2dxlkkrmq3e0utx3qg449ea8x2wel6sas2700. Thoughts?
PS: zaps to this post are sent to nostr:npub103vypyhddrad9289zp8lf2dxlkkrmq3e0utx3qg449ea8x2wel6sas2700
I like the design direction. I'd be curious to see the triangle from the second iteration in the place of the circle. Or even the lightning bolt within an "amethyst", similar to the ostrich in the third rendition. I honestly have never liked the connection between nostr and ostriches. I understand the playful nature of it, the wordplay, but moving forward, I view it as an obstruction from a protocol branding and innovation perspective. The ostrich for Amethyst has always looked like a goose to my eye, and has no relation to what the possibilities of the protocol, platform, or app are capable of. This is all just my opinion, just thought I'd share. I could understand why some enjoy it and prefer to keep the design less straightforward.
A bit off topic from the design options offered, but I think I'm viewing design from a functional perspective, I don't feel any nostalgia for the ostrich. I believe it can and should play a role within the community, but it doesn't have to be the iconic symbol associated with every new platform utilizing nostr, nor does purple need to be the only color used (I think this is where something like Material You theming and monochromatic icons could actually be a great thing to take advantage for Android developers, as this will personalize their apps even more to all users. There's no need to figure out the universal consensus on color theming, users could just choose for themselves).
Same with the iconography and names being associated with Bitcoin lore, like Plebstr and their logo. I think starting out, these served as useful identifiers to unify efforts and goals, but now as we attempt to create an infinite micro ecosystem, I don't see how they would help. I believe holding to these design principles will prove to be an obstruction for creating the wild things we imagine with the protocol.
Hope this made sense, 🤙
(this emoji can serve as an example of something that can and should be a part of this movement going forward, but doesn't have to directly affect all the design and branding decisions. It's just another part of the social culture that we recognize and enjoy).
Anybody tried out Mullvad's browser yet? They partnered with Tor for this project.. the concept intrigues me. Going to give it a deeper look soon.
As far as I know, some aliasing providers support PGP encryption, like SimpleLogin. Now that Proton owns SimpleLogin, it's a bit of a useful negotiation, as we can continue only trusting one party, if you're already using Proton Mail. Of course, it's useful, only as long as your threat model allows you to trust that party in the first place.
Currently it doesn't. Here's the devs responses on the issue tracker when asked about it in case you're interested:
Shout-out to Imran. I've got a bit over 80 apps in my feed at this point. I'm running GrapheneOS without Google Play Services and I've got most of my bases covered. It's allowed me to consolidate almost all my apps together. I still use Aurora Store for some things that have no external release path (like banks), but on his issue tracker it seems Imran recently said that he might look into adding Google Play as a source as well.
He originally created this with the intent to make apps auto (unattended) update like Google Play Store, but he's using Flutter and there isn't a compatible plug-in yet. But he's still planning for that it seems, even considered the possiblity of making his own plug-in.
Cool things coming for app distribution on Android. Checkout Accresent as well, it's still in Alpha, but it solves most of the security issues that F-Droid introduces. Molly is already being distributed there by their dev.
On the releases section of the GitHub repository.
Yeah, y'all found it. Sorry for the late response, still figuring nostr out 😂
Checkout Obtainium. You can track your applications .APK releases (GitHub, Gitlab, Codeberg, HTML, etc.) and download/install them from within Obtainium. Kinda like an RSS feed for GitHub releases, but less manual work
What do you consider too much? You'll just have to source a Pixel. You can have a Pixel 6a for under $250 in my area. I got one new for $200. Although, location could drastically affect the price of course..
Their refreshed web installer makes it so the phone is unbrickable when flashing. No google services with privileged access by default is an incredible change, no need for any accounts in the first place. But the Google play services are optional and fully functional/sandboxed if you need them for any reason.
It's completely changed mobile device usage for me 🤯