Why are there good mods for Discord (Aliucord, Vendetta…) and YouTube (Revanced), but no good mods for WhatsApp?

I feel like all apps by the user-stalking company Meta are not modded enough, though they are some of the most-used apps.

  • Lobo6780@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    Meta is really “protecting” their apps integrity and APIs. Tried many Instagram mods and got banned on all of them. Because WhatsApp is now in Meta’s hands they have same policy for WhatsApp probably never tried but if you don’t want to get banned don’t try mods, at least not at your main account.

  • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
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    11 months ago

    I’m using a Matrix bridge for WhatsApp through their connected apps mode. That works just fine and allows for a lot of customization because I have my own copy of all of my messages.

    WhatsApp likes to keep control to give more guarantees for self deleting messages and to keep the fake WhatsApp messenger malware out, and I understand that completely to be honest. There’s a lot of money to be made in the world of stalkerware for modded WhatsApp clients that send copies of all messages to a third party.

      • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
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        11 months ago

        I’m using various Matrix clients to access WhatsApp. In theory I could turn my account into a bot, but I don’t want to deal with WhatsApp’s bot detection. I could theoretically comment out the code that makes delete requests/retractions propagate or even warn that there was an attempted deletion, but I don’t feel the need to.

        This setup doesn’t support calling, which is a shame. Maybe one day.

    • NicerLemmyUser@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      How does one go about to connect whatsapp to matrix and send msgs via it? Is there an article that I can read up on?

        • ninchuka@lemmy.one
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          11 months ago

          I’m fairly certain the whatsapp matrix bridge supports end to bridge encryption

          • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
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            11 months ago

            It supports WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption and it supports Matrix’s end-to-end encryption, but the two are not compatible.

            The bridge receives the end-to-end encrypted messages from WhatsApp, puts them into end-to-end encrypted chats on the Matrix side, and the other way around. The messages get decrypted into memory where they’re readable (for a short while).

            Until WhatsApp enables some kind of cross-platform messaging protocol (MLS/MIMI perhaps?), the temporary decryption is essential for the bridge to work.

  • iso@lemy.lol
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    11 months ago

    I’ve used GBWhatsapp, WhatsApp+ etc. before. They’re banning modded apps.

  • Jeena@jemmy.jeena.net
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    11 months ago

    I’m also one of those who use a matrix bridge for WhatsApp and never see the real app only use it with Element.

      • Jeena@jemmy.jeena.net
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        11 months ago

        You have only one UI for all text chats, no need to remember on which app you talked with your cousin and on which app you talked with your friend. All of them are in this one app.

      • guts@lemmy.ml
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        11 months ago

        Not sure why you are getting the downvotes, Matrix is really an underated app.

        • LollerCorleone@kbin.social
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          11 months ago

          Yes, it definitely seem underrated.

          About the downvotes, this is not the first time that has happened. I have been repeatedly getting downvoted on some of the tech or related communities on Lemmy instances recently for completely innocuous comments. Since I am on kbin, they don’t impact me in anyway, but I have been puzzled about it. The only explanation I can come up with is something I wrote at some point offended someone and they are just down voting whatever post they see of mine with multiple accounts.

      • flauschke@kbin.flauschke.de
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        11 months ago

        It’s also nice because you only need one messenger for WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal combined.

        Plus all of those chats are searchable and backed up in one single location

        • LollerCorleone@kbin.social
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          11 months ago

          Not very familiar with using Matrix bridges, can they handle WhatsApp calls? (Not asking about Signal because I would like to keep using it)

          • flauschke@kbin.flauschke.de
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            11 months ago

            I’ll try and report back

            Edit: It does not seem to work. Incoming Calls only send a text message “incoming call”

            • LollerCorleone@kbin.social
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              11 months ago

              Okay, so you will get a notification that there was a call but can’t really attend it. That’s still pretty neat!

  • Chewy@discuss.tchncs.de
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    11 months ago

    About ten years ago I used WhatsApp+ which had unheard of features like rounded profile pictures. At some point they banned me for a day, then it worked again until they banned for 3 days and after a ban of two weeks I finally gave up.

    Nowadays it’d be still great if there were patches to e.g. schedule messages like Signal does, but imo there isn’t much missing anymore.

  • idkman@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    11 months ago

    WhatsApp was build upon XMPP protocol. You can look into XMPP clients.

    Besides that WhatsApp is not the way to communicate anyway. Normies use it because it is put up on their face and considered to be widely acceptable among them, while rhey don’t understand how privacy invading it is.