[Alpha] Greenline - A qml Whatsapp client for Ubuntu Touch
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On Android, the official client uses a sandboxed storage to protect those keys, so only the app or a root user can access the keys. But as far as I know there's no such mechanisms in Ubuntu Touch for us to use.
oh thanks a lot for this remark. Finally I'm getting a glimpse of what is meant by 'our banking app can only work on secure devices'. I know that Google Play protect has other mechanisms but I did not see what could not yet be done on Linux phones.
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as far as I know there's no such mechanisms in Ubuntu Touch for us to use.
Have you seen the secret-tool package? It's similar to using GNOME keyring.
You can also write your own keyring mechanism assuming your daemon starts before any app. It will store the keys in plain text when the phone is powered off and thus rely on full storage encryption. When the device boots up, the daemon will read the key from the file, store it in its memory and encrypt the file with the file's content as key. This daemon will communicate with your app via dbus or similar and send the keys only to the appropriate app id.May the source be with you
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Ok so another confined app does not have permission to access your messages and data, via this Unix socket?
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Have you seen the secret-tool package? It's similar to using GNOME keyring.
Though it is to be noted that a porblem we have currently with App-armour profiles, is that it won't let you communicate with the keyring in DBus via the api libsecret. It is a problem for browsers like "Chromium for UT" or "Min Browser" that get non-functional password manager because of that.
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Have you seen the secret-tool package? It's similar to using GNOME keyring.
Though it is to be noted that a porblem we have currently with App-armour profiles, is that it won't let you communicate with the keyring in DBus via the api libsecret. It is a problem for browsers like "Chromium for UT" or "Min Browser" that get non-functional password manager because of that.
I am currently packaging Aria (Misskey client) and ran into the same problem. Had to patch it to store the credentials in a JSON file under
~/.local/share. -
Ok so another confined app does not have permission to access your messages and data, via this Unix socket?
Confined apps cannot access files outside their specified directories (config, data, cache), so they cannot use the socket.
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as far as I know there's no such mechanisms in Ubuntu Touch for us to use.
Have you seen the secret-tool package? It's similar to using GNOME keyring.
You can also write your own keyring mechanism assuming your daemon starts before any app. It will store the keys in plain text when the phone is powered off and thus rely on full storage encryption. When the device boots up, the daemon will read the key from the file, store it in its memory and encrypt the file with the file's content as key. This daemon will communicate with your app via dbus or similar and send the keys only to the appropriate app id.I'll look into it, thanks! In an ideal scenario all 3 SQLite databases should be secured against an unconfined process. Not sure if this will be possible tho.
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I've just installed the app and synced with my iPhone. I really like it and especially the notifications, they're near instant.
It does take a while to fetch all data/contacts and stuff, some profile pictures don't load and there's no indication on how much it's fetching and what.
Also, replying on specific messages doesn't seem to work or I can't find the gesture and messages from the same person all show their name. But other than that, it's sweet! I love how it integrated with the rest of the OS, finally no web app!
Running on FP5 24.04.2x daily
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@777X hey thanks for using the app! Feel free to report any other issues.
The avatar sync module needs more love, currently it populates slowly as you use the app, at some point they'll will be there.
And replies are not implemented (yet). But hopefully soon it will be implemented
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a porblem we have currently with App-armour profiles, is that it won't let you communicate with the keyring in DBus via the api libsecret
is there a good reason for that ? is the API open to exploitation by a malicious client or is there some mechanism to prevent that ?
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Thank's I will test the app in details, this week when I have time.
This week, I will also make a youtube video on my canal to present Whatsnew, I will mention your work as one of the (upcoming) alternative for Whatsapp.
Thank you!
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New alpha with more quality of life features:
https://github.com/brennoflavio/greenline/tags
- Integration with lock screen with number of messages read [needs qa]
- Full background sync, faster startup times
- Tapping on a notification opens the chat of that notification
- Support for messages that are only links
- Call notifications
- Only notify the last message of a chat room
- Clear notification for the chat room once chat is opened
- Notification badge support (unread count in the side bar)
- Messages from groups should notify the group name in the title, not the person name [needs qa]
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So I've tested the app! I think it is great!
There are great features that whatsnew does not have and probably will not have anytime soon: notifications when the app is closed, the possibility to consult messages online, the app is way more fluid and has a "native app" feeling that whatsnew does not have (Although some conversations take time to load in greenline), and it starts up incredibly fast.
There are also features that are lacking in comparaison to whatsnew (like calls, sending and reading audio messages, editing messages, deleting messages, transferring messages, archived conversations, polls, and I guess a lot of advanced features that whatsapp web has )
I think the two are complementary. Also I think it's always good to have two alternatives, because both of them can break at any moment when Whatsapp make changes, so it's good to have two of them.
I hope to see it soon in the openstore, I will mention your app in my upcoming video!
Thank you very much for your work!
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Ps: An imporant feature for me would be to be able to enable/disable notifications globally. Because right now if I don't want to get Whatsapp notification, it is a problem if I have greeline installed.
Ps2 : I see that Whatsapp recognizes greeline as an Android client, not a Whatsapp web client.
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@pparent Thanks for the feedback, 100% agree with you. I think Whatsnew will always be ahead in terms of features, the goal of this project is to have a more "native" chat experience, specially while we don't have Mir 2 in stable branch.
There's still a ton of work to be done, as you noticed. Need to support all message types, improve the performance and usability of the pages and decide on which features from whatsapp web implement here. My goal is to have the essentials to have a good chat experience in UT, this will stay in alpha for a while
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@sahirul the ability to login with phone number is added in the latest alpha
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@brenno.almeida “I will try it. Thank you for making it happen.”
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New alpha with features:
https://github.com/brennoflavio/greenline/releases
- Pair Whatsapp with phone number + code
- Settings page now correctly uninstall the daemon from the device
- Block all notifications globally, regardless of Whatsapp configuration
- Text input now correctly renders more than 2 lines
- Show "typing" indicators in the chat page header
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More features:
https://github.com/brennoflavio/greenline/releases
- Now you can reply to messages
- Text input box now renders correctly
- Contact messages now renders correctly, and you can send contact messages
- Chat page should load faster now
- Chat list page now updates when you receive a message and app is opened in background
- User metrics should work now
- Really big text messages should render now, and be collapsed
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Updated release:
https://github.com/brennoflavio/greenline/releases
- Now bringing the app to the foreground while a chat is open should update the chat
- "view once" messages are now rendered and notified (not possible to see the content, Whatsapp limitation)
- Mentions should render correctly now
- Some scroll fixes when you open the chat page or click on the button to scroll to bottom
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