[landr0id]

> Contains no proprietary blobs, unlike Signal

What "proprietary blobs" does Signal have?

I'll also just add: it's probably not a good idea to use any modifications to an E2EE messenger unless you are comfortable with those privacy/security guarantees possibly being violated by the 3rd party code.

The only exception to this would be if I really trusted the goals of the 3rd party, like Graphene.

[grishka]

> What "proprietary blobs" does Signal have?

As they say in the Github readme, FCM and Google Maps.

FCM doesn't technically require a blob — it's just that Google wants you to think it does. I reverse engineered their library and it turned out to be a criminally over-engineered wrapper around two broadcast receivers. So, the Mastodon app is proudly the first app ever to both support FCM push notifications, and be 100% open-source.

[gpvos]

FCM = Firebase Cloud Messaging, a messaging and notification service run by Google. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firebase_Cloud_Messaging

[cyberax]

I reverse-engineered the notification infrastructure in Android, but for me it was the desire to be able to use customer-provided Google API keys ("google-services.json").

The protocol itself was easy, but my problem was that Google Play Services have a special permission to exempt itself from power management. And more importantly, grant that permission temporarily to the individual apps when they have a notification. I don't think I ever found out how to work around this.

[landr0id]

>As they say in the Github readme, FCM and Google Maps.

Thanks, I didn't notice that. Reading this, I'm kind of surprised that Signal doesn't offer an OpenStreetMaps build as it seems like it'd be more inline with their philosophy.

[nicoburns]

Oo, do you have a link for your implementation? I will soon be looking at creating a library to support FCM (android push notifications) in Android apps written in Rust. And having a simpler interface with the OS (esp. if it therefore doesn't require building a non-syste library) would be incredibly helpful.

[inputmice]

Maybe the first but not the only one. Ltt.rs (an email client using JMAP) does this as well. BTW you can also directly deliver WebPush notifications to FCM servers. No need for a proxy/rely run by the app developer.

Ltt.rs has support for both UnifiedPush and FCM and is fully open source. The code difference between UP and FCM is very very minimal since - as I said - both are just WebPush endpoints.

[anonym29]

Firebase, GMS (Google Mobile Services). The Alphabet Corporation is part of many security and privacy conscious users' threat model, and these users aren't generally thrilled about leaking even limited message metadata like timing to their adversary, particularly when that adversary is known to cooperate with global passive adversaries.

There are actually two builds of Molly: Molly and Molly-FOSS. IIRC Molly uses regular Firebase, which can be faster and more reliable but comes with the above tradeoffs, while Molly-FOSS uses UnifiedPush.

Your point about exercising caution with forks of encrypted messaging apps is a great rule of thumb, and in general, social proof should NOT substitute for competent software security specialists reading and evaluating source code, but given you seem to trust GrapheneOS, it's worth noting that they've formally endorsed Molly: https://xcancel.com/GrapheneOS/status/1769277147569443309

[landr0id]

> Your point about exercising caution with forks of encrypted messaging apps is a great rule of thumb, and in general, social proof should NOT substitute for competent software security specialists reading and evaluating source code

Also a great point :) And thank you for the reference.

[t0bia_s]

UnifiedPush not works if you not use Molly exclusively on one device. So of you sync between Signal on Win desktop and Android device, your battery drain faster.

[TeMPOraL]

OTOH it's nice to have an alternative client. If E2EE messenger system is going to lock itself down hard, trying to "protect" itself from the user even harder than third party adversaries, then I personally see no point - might as well use Whatsapp.

I miss the times IM software respected, or at least didn't fight hard to defeat, the end-user's freedom to computing on their own device, which includes viewing and sending messages through whatever interface they see fit, including indirectly as part of a script/automation. But that was all before E2EE era, hell, before mobile dominance.

[godelski]

  > might as well use Whatsapp.

  - still scrapes metadata
  - run by company who's entire objective is to profile you

Stop being so ridiculous. You can criticize Signal (and there's plenty to critique) but that's just silly. What, should we also just use telegram where E2EE is off by default?

You know signal is open source, right? That's why Molly exists. They can run their own servers too.

Now I wish you could do both. Talk in both signal and the decentralized molly servers. I wish signal had a mesh like feature since it's way harder to snoop on conversations if you have to be physically near. I even wish Signal made the signal sticker site accessible from inside the app. There's tons of things they should do but let's not pretend that just because they're not perfect that we should use apps from a company whose motto might as well be "be evil".