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Centigonal

From the article:

What can this do? Using Valent (and KDE Connect), you can:

- receive Android phone notifications on your desktop and reply to messages

- sync the clipboard between your Android device and desktop

- control music playing on your desktop from your Android phone

- share files between your desktop and Android device, and browse your phone from the desktop

- send SMS from your desktop

- execute predefined commands from your Android phone to run on your desktop

- control your desktop's mouse and keyboard from the Android device

- browse your Android device filesystem from your desktop wirelessly

- and more

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There’s also an iOS client, though it doesn’t have all features implemented due to limitations in Apple’s APIs. However it’s still the most convenient way to transfer files between an iPhone and a Windows or Linux computer.

Signal "note to self" is another way.

Telegram's "Saved messages" is another.

Only if you trust telegram (you shouldn't)

Without context this is just noise.

Also when you say: don't trust Telegram, while not saying anything about WhatsApp, you are, on average, pushing people from a solution that isn't proven to be trustworthy to a solution that is proven to be untrustworthy.

Because unless you simultaneously point out that WhatsApp is worse, that is where people will go if they listen to you and avoid Telegram.

I think in this context, WhatsApp is better than Telegram. In Telegram, you'd upload your files in a way that the server can see them. In WhatsApp, the server won't be able to see the contents.

(Even in general, I think that Telegram is no clear win over WhatsApp, and in fact I'd consider it worse in terms of chat message security.)

WhatsApp has a documented history of all kinds of shadyness from uploading unencrypted (yes, unencrypted) backups to Google under an agreement that let Google rummage through them(!) to their "send the data in a sidechannel directly to Facebook for analysis while also sending it end-to-end-encrypted to the recipient".

I really can't understand why you bright folks here on HN falls for WhatsApps marketing.

E2E means absolutely nothing as long as the messages are siphoned away in broad daylight.

That said: avoid Telegram all you want. But if you mean no one should ever touch it, I hope you are also against physical mail which is way less secure and also email which is way less secure than Telegram.

> WhatsApp has a documented history of all kinds of shadyness from uploading unencrypted (yes, unencrypted) backups to Google under an agreement that let Google rummage through them(!) to their "send the data in a sidechannel directly to Facebook for analysis while also sending it end-to-end-encrypted to the recipient".

I don't have that backup enabled. Does that mean that WhatsApp is secure for me with everyone who also has that disabled?

I don't see how Telegram is better in that respect; the server sees all messages directly. It doesn't even need a documented backdoor like you described.

> under an agreement that let Google rummage through them(!) to their "send the data in a sidechannel directly to Facebook for analysis while also sending it end-to-end-encrypted to the recipient".

*EDIT*: Can you give a link to that agreement? It'd interest me. :)

> But if you mean no one should ever touch it

That's not what I said.

> I don't have that backup enabled. Does that mean that WhatsApp is secure for me with everyone who also has that disabled?

As long as no one of them enables it, probably.

I don't know if this agreement is in place any longer, but you should be able to find references to it using a search engine.

> I don't know if this agreement is in place any longer, but you should be able to find references to it using a search engine.

I've not found it quickly. I found this article which doesn't mention it: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/10/where-whatsapp-went-wr.... Since you made the claim, I'd usually ask you to substantiate it.

Hi again. Yes, I agree you should ask me, it wasn't as easy to find as I first thought, but here[1] is a thread on HN that discusses it and a bit down the thread you find a link to the Verge [2] which in turn links to the case papers [3].

I admit the links I found now are less clear than I though and I don't have more time now, but there is clearly reason to be suspicious when 1.) Facebook stops encrypting data before upload 2.) Google accept to keep the data without counting it against the users quota 3.) sources claim there was a deal. None of these three carries too much weight on their own but together they paint a picture that something is going on.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28485312

[2]: https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/17/22180258/google-whatsapp...

[3]: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20428869-the_state_o...

Thanks for tracking down the links.

You seem like a sincere person so be sure to note that what I found now was less damning than what I thought I would find which suggests either it hasn't turned out so bad or they have covered it well up.

Telegram is not e2ee.

And? WhatsApp is e2ee-but-sends-your-data-brazenly-to-google-and-facebook-by-sidechannels.

So far Telegram hasn't been caught once the last decade while WhatsApp has been caught at least twicem

Telegram has a Secret Chat. It's on the 3 dots menu in the screen for a contact. Secret chats are available only on one device, they don't sync to the other devices of the user.

It'll work but that will upload your files to the cloud. If you're on cable internet or even DSL, transferring video files that way will take significantly longer than just using the local connection KDE Connect provides.

Of course, there are many local alternatives as well. I just can't see cloud upload features as an alternative to a local network transfer mechanism.

This ruins your images or videos via terrible recompression that you can't disable.

If it's not private file.io gives you a handy qr code and supports <2gb

iOS app does also support Samba.

I really with the Photos app did. I don't think a "Pro" phone is a Pro phone without that feature.

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