Snapchat for Web | Hacker News Reader

Snapchat for Web

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76 pointstech234a81 comments

Ah, Snap loves being weird for the sake of being weird. Snapchat was a constant struggle for me (Gen Z) to operate before I stopped using it. The latest reminder for how hip and weird they are (in their world): The text "web.snapchat.com" is blue, underlined ... but not actually a clickable link. How cute, quirky and hip! The youngsters will love it.

There is an anchor around the domain text - just missing an href attribute. Probably due to the rich text editor used to draft the blog post.

>> Snapchat was a constant struggle for me (Gen Z) to operate before I stopped using it I am not gen z but I struggled with the anti-intuitive and weird interface. I grant that its quirkiness may be part of its appeal and the kids seem to love it. Could you not open in active camera mode though? That was just one annoying feature, I could list the things that just drove me bonkers.

They're driving content creation.

If anyone reading this doesn't understand how well this works, you absolutely must go spend time with some people less intelligent than yourself.

The state of the world could depend on it.

The url works in Firefox, it might not in other browsers because they nested bold and underline tags:

    <a href="https://web.snapchat.com/"><b><u>web.snapchat.com</u></b></a>

(as the other person mentioned probably because they used a rich text editor).

But they say you should use chrome. Ironic.

(Should work in chrome too)

If anyone from Snap is reading this.

I can't login to web.snapchat.com because I don't remember my password. I can't reset my password because (1) I don't have an email on the account (FaceID), and (2) the number on my Snap account is from like 4 years ago (FaceID). In order to update the email or update the number, I need a....password.

Someone should fix this.

Mind sharing your Snapchat username (or email me at vinay.kola@snap.com)? I can raise this to the right folks.

And just to let you know how absurd Snapchat's login flow is -- I managed to remember my password!

But then I get the "This login seems suspicious, enter your phone number for verification" XD. This is a cruel joke and should be fixed.

"Snapchat for Web is available to Snapchat+ subscribers now in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, and Snapchatters across Australia, and New Zealand. We can’t wait to bring it to our entire global community soon."

I'm sure they couldn't wait to... install that geoblock? Sounds logical

I think Snapchat+ is only available in those countries.

To use web.snapchat.com, one must obtain a subscription to Snapchat+ for $3.99/month. This seems to be a reasonable fee for someone that avidly uses the service. I pay $4.99/month (or something) for Reddit Premium, which not only grants me 700 "reddit coins" per month (can be used to purchase awards, etc.), but access to the r/lounge VIP space, and most important of all: removes all advertisements from my Reddit experience; worth every penny.

Snap's press release is vague about what $3.99/month buys you. Specifically, I'm curious whether the paid subscription eliminates advertisements and/or affects how Snap collects and shares paid subscribers' data.

The paid tier has primarily cosmetic features [0], and it does not eliminate advertisements [1].

[0]: https://support.snapchat.com/en-US/article/snapchat-plus

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/29/23187132/snapchat-plus-su...

That's the killer, I'd happily pay for no ads.

> access to the r/lounge VIP space

Bunch of nerds pretending to be upper class British people for some reason. Pip pip cheerio old bean gold coloured bowler hats am I right lads. Haha yes my monocle has arrived.

If you're wondering, you're missing nothing.

to remove all advertisements isn't old.reddit.com + uBlock Origin the same?

>Reddit Premium, which not only grants me 700 "reddit coins" per month (can be used to purchase awards, etc.),

Fake money to buy fake awards for people online? Eh, if you like it I guess

> but access to the r/lounge VIP space

That place is insufferable. Worst kinds of nerd in there.

>removes all advertisements from my Reddit experience; worth every penny.

This should only be an issue if you're using Reddit without an ad blocker on PC, or using the official app surely? Both of which are pretty insane

> whether the paid subscription...affects how Snap collects and shares paid subscribers' data.

hahahaha

Good for Snap. I suspect this won't move the needle on young users - but I suspect it will probably help them recruit old sysadmins like myself. It's a sign of a still-directed-by-instinct and not KPI-uber-alles, which makes me happy to hold on to SNAP.

Will they permaban your account if you use this without first uninstalling your adblocker, under their "no modified clients" rule?

Or if you have *gasp* a rooted linux desktop?

What is a "rooted Linux desktop"?

Same as a rooted linux android except it's not plastered with warning messages about how you're voiding warranty, how dangerous it is, how you can't run certain software anymore, etc. Having control over your own device basically.

Edit in case I'm being too obscure: just the having of any regular linux distribution means you have a rooted device, i.e. a normal regular laptop/desktop/whatever. Or for Windows you could call it administratored or SYSTEMed or something, which is also the norm

lusers truly are better off with locked-down devices. But there should be an effective escape hatch.

I think this is still relevant for young people. I.e. graduating college and wanting to retain your popularity & digital social life as you work your 9-5 on a company computer .

They indirectly make early adopters upgrade to Snap+ just to see that it's still not available!

Why are they asking to use Chrome when I would suspect a big chunk of their base uses Safari?

Presumably they're using some form of DRM that only works in Chrome.

Now that they have a web client they should consider making an official Tor service like Facebook and Twitter have. It has been used for activism in the past.

I don't know if that's irony, but do you really think that putting a service which cannot be trusted on Tor makes it trustworthy?

No, but there is a use case for people whose threat model allows for identifying themselves to Snapchat but not for being identified by their ISP or government. Access has also been blocked in various countries over the years and a Tor service restores access.

> Tor service like Facebook and Twitter have.

Pardon?

Facebook: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_onion_address

Twitter: https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/8/22967843/twitter-tor-onion...

It is not a trap from the government?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(network)#Eavesdropping

When you use a Tor hidden service you don't use an exit node, your connection ends within the Tor network. As for the internal communication attack there is no reason at the time of writing to believe one has occurred, and it's unclear if their statistical attack on Tor's crypto would work or if it is possible: https://blog.torproject.org/rumors-tors-compromise-are-great...

This is quite good! I can't wait to try this out, use Snapchat with my partner quite often and might pay to use it from my laptop.

I was interested by a web version few years ago... Now I think it's too late, I lost all imterest/curiosity for it.

I've got Snapchat+ and I've logged into my account, but it still says it's unavailable. Sad, must be a bug.

Same. In USA here... I'm guessing they're rolling it out gradually across the Snapchat+ subscriber base. We'll see if it's available in the morning...

Maybe they want to quietly move into social/gaming space on desktop? (ex: Discord)

Isn't that a bit... too late?

Or a step back in the right direction when everyone else has been moving in the opposite direction for the last decade.

I love snapchat for silly group chats and close friend checkups. Streaks make me talk/ping to my best friend every day, no matter how they or I are feeling during the day.

Why are all the pictures young women?

Teenager girls are Snap's target audience.

What about Firefox?

no one wants this.

(saying that cuz it seems, atleast in my friend group, that snap is being replaced by whatsapps disappearing messages, and the main draw is the camera app which people only use on phones anyway.)

>Open your laptop and head to web.snapchat.com using Chrome

Wow Chrome really is the new IE. Developers are really shooting their future selves in the foot by only developing for Chrome. I don't know about you guys, but I don't want a web (de-facto) controlled by a giant ad company.

Just migrated to Firefox from Edge Chromium last night.

I know it will "burn" me one day but having the first one being Snapchat for Web makes me feel a little good.

IE was forced upon us by Microsoft, the biggest OS vendor. It was good to hate it and MS.

Chrome is forced upon us by the same developers that frequent this forum. Chrome is bad, but webdevs that keep developing Chrome only sites should get the biggest share of the blame.

At the risk of getting downvoted by the Chrome fans, shame on you for pushing forward the Google agenda and its monopoly over the Internet. I guess testing on Firefox or Safari is oh just so hard.

>I guess testing on Firefox or Safari is oh just so hard.

I'd be willing to stipulate that the testing isn't hard. It's the fixing of the quirks when they arise that is the hard part.

Quirks? These days quirks are few and far between, especially with Firefox. It's not the IE6 era anymore.

No, it's the Chrome 72 era

Business don't care. Business say PRODUC NOW 0 DAYS DEADLINE SPRINT FAST. Developer open in Chrome, LGTM, push. Dev blame dev, investor laugh in corner.

Mozilla did nothing to stop it and they were themselves ahead at one point. They were laughing all the way to the bank with Google and years later, Mozilla was thrown under the bus and sabotaged by Google and Chrome became the dominant browser. Now Mozilla is on life support.

How could Mozilla be so naive to sit on Google's money to let them propose for DRM standards, privacy violating APIs and suffocate Firefox into irrelevance? Mozilla did that to themselves for years and now they are crying.

Today, Firefox has become extremely irrelevant and totally overtaken by the Chromium derivatives and Safari. The best part is that the users do not care and companies like Snap will favour the most used browser and that is Chrome.

That there is the hard fact of the matter and the web just went from one behemoth (Microsoft) to another (Google). As long as those companies are sitting on the W3C dictating the direction of these web standards, the so called 'open web' is a myth.

Chromium is open source and is adopted by Microsoft via Edge. So if Google stops working on it, I'm sure MS will take up development. I think one standard is better for developers, but maybe not for diversity.

Well that's cool for users with rooted Android devices, which are currently blocked from logging in with an obscure error message.

It's not meant for mobile phones (who can install the Snapchat app already), clearly targeted for desktop users as a companion app

I wouldn't normally bring this up but in this case it's a significant oversight: Did you read the comment you've replied to?

Grandparent comment explicitly states a rooted android phone cannot install the Snapchat app.

Snap has ensured it cannot work on a rooted device (as bank apps also do) to make it difficult to mess with the binary and end up saving or harvesting temporarily viewable content like snaps of genitalia or whatever people use snap for.

> to make it difficult to mess with the binary and end up saving or harvesting temporarily viewable content

Which is funny because it's trivial without any modifications to the device (at least when I last used it). Just record the screen.

For extra points, record it while in airplane mode, then delete the app. Snap now has no idea and cannot tattle.

IIRC, screen recording or screenshotting will bubble an alert to the other party about what you've done, unless you disconnect from the network or some other shenanigans.

Of course, taking a regular old picture of the screen of a DRM'd device is still a thing in your own private home. DRM goes only so far, though deterrence does help to some extent I'll admit. Question is if we're willing to accept DRM'd devices following us around all day long so that we can have nudes via a not-e2ee messenger with slightly less risk of the other person sharing it.

About some other shenanigans if you really care about recording the screen you can use another phone or a camera, possibly on a tripod to keep it steady and the distance constant. That's lower quality than a screenshot but it's basically undetectable.

And how about running in a VM on a desktop? Does Snapchat allow that?

on my Pixel screen recording doesn't notify the other user.

Interestingly, my GF asked me a few hours before if I knew (I did in fact not) that users get a notification when you screenshot their stories from Instagram.

Just root with Magisk and add the app to the DenyList. Poof.

Can you please explain what this means? Is this a way to bypass rooted device detection aka attestation?

This will only work until Google starts mandating TEE attestation of bootloader status for SafetyNet.

Which will then be bypassed using some other way, just like every DRM so far ended up being cracked.

Sure, but can it be done in software, or will it require a scanning tunneling microscope?

This is a reminder that technology isn't the issue anymore. (we solved messaging since the AIM days). The only thing slowing down technology today is wall gardens.

You can't count how many years too late Snapchat is. Even if you use both hands.

> The only thing slowing down technology today is wall gardens.

Hopefully with the EU's DMA this will change.

》Hopefully with the EU's DMA this will change.

Does it enforce unified communication protocols allowing the good old Trillian days?

It enforces Open APIs for gate keepers

https://matrix.org/blog/2022/03/25/interoperability-without-...

Snapchat is the only widely used messaging system in the U.S. that's delete by default. That's huge for young people. Like Snapchat or not, its messaging model is an innovation, and an important one.

Young people know how to take screenshots though

They do everything but release a DAMN DARK MODE for Android

> Everyday 332 million people open Snapchat on their phones, and with our camera, can start conversations with their real friends. Today, we’re introducing Snapchat for Web, a new way for our community to stay connected through our camera when they’re at their computers.

> Open your laptop and head to web.snapchat.com using Chrome to start a call or pick up where chats left off on mobile.

And those 332 million people are being told to use Chrome and not Firefox. Indicating that Firefox has become totally irrelevant.

Yup, they may add support for Safari and call it a day. Hopefully they don't treat Firefox the same way they treated Windows Phone.

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