Signal-desktop: Feature Request: Registering From Desktop App

[Xashyar]

• [x] I have searched open and closed issues for duplicates
  

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I know many people who either don't have a smartphone or use Blackberries and Windows Phones, who are willing to use Signal on their PCs but are simply unable to do so.
I recall when back in 2014-2015 a messenger attracted millions of people just by allowing them to Register from Desktop.
I've read the related Signal Community and #2063 Threads but I'm not sure i understood what might be the real issue against implementing the feature, I'm guessing it might be Privacy related.
either way any further elaborations would be much appreciated.

Expected result:
Ability to Register from Desktop Using a Feature Phone.

Platform info

Signal version:
v1.11.0-beta.3

[Trolldemorted]

Windows phones users and desktop only users can use Signal by using third party clients. In the community forum there are many suggestions how to use Signal without a smartphone.

[KarolTrzeszczkowski]

Soon there will be a phone with Linux, Librem 5, and it won't be able to run signal Android but why not Signal Desktop? It would be great if the desktop version was capable of registering a new phone number if this "desktop" is a phone. It would be good if one could make phone calls with.

[JohnD28]

Purism Librem 5 dev call for volunteer to code a native Signal client in Gtk. With the adaptative interface, the same app could be used both on smartphone and desktop.

I'm actively recruiting volunteer devs for a native Signal / Signal-like client in Gtk, in the hopes that we can bring it to the @Purism Librem 5 phone. Please contact sean.[email protected] if interested.

PGP/GPG: FA9D 40F1 5FE1 D8AB 8312 4AAA 77E3 1447 CD1F C3F6

https://mastodon.social/@diggity/101046739048944068

[Xashyar]

Purism Librem 5 dev call for volunteer to code a native Signal client in Gtk. With the adaptative interface, the same app could be used both on smartphone and desktop.

I'm actively recruiting volunteer devs for a native Signal / Signal-like client in Gtk, in the hopes that we can bring it to the @purism Librem 5 phone. Please contact sean.[email protected] if interested.
PGP/GPG: FA9D 40F1 5FE1 D8AB 8312 4AAA 77E3 1447 CD1F C3F6

https://mastodon.social/@diggity/101046739048944068

@JohnD28 @seandiggity
plz take a look at:
https://github.com/MartinDelille/signal-qt

[petterreinholdtsen]

There are even people without mobile phones that would like to use Signal desktop. It would be great if it was possible to register without having to receive an SMS.

[Flohack74]

Please also see https://github.com/nanu-c/textsecure-qml which is the current state of a Signal app for the Ubuntu Touch OS. There is definitely the need for clients outside Android and iOS ecosystem.

[torpak]

Soon there will be a phone with Linux, Librem 5, and it won't be able to run signal Android but why not Signal Desktop? It would be great if the desktop version was capable of registering a new phone number if this "desktop" is a phone. It would be good if one could make phone calls with.

The Problem with Signal Desktop is that is a horribly slow and memory hungry monstrosity based on node-js.
So while i agree that the desktop version should allow one to register (for example using a dumb phone), it is no where near efficient enough to be useable on a phone.

[Flohack74]

This issue is open for more than a year now, and still the pressing question is, why it is so hard for Openwhisper to see the need for alternative clients? I get a ton of questions why there is no well supported Signal app for Ubuntu Touch. Hopefully this pressure will increase when the new Linux-based phone hardware will be on the market.

As with Telegram and Matrix, open-source the APIs for fast, efficient communication with your servers, and allow the possibility for push service gateways. People do want to use Signal on all those new platforms, but they can´t. Eventually they will move on to Threema or Matrix. I do not feel that new developments are welcomed by Openwhisper at all. Lock in the people to their own product, but that idea is form the 90ies.

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

Please move discussion to the forums: https://community.signalusers.org/

[Be-ing]

Considering the Librem 5 and Pinephone are now shipping, I have two proposals for how to approach this, both using the existing phone number based addressing system Signal currently depends on.

1. Allow the user to manually enter a phone number to register. The server then sends an SMS to that number with the verification code. The Electron app then prompts the user to manually enter the code received in the SMS. The disadvantage of this is that it could allow the user to send Signal verification codes to arbitrary devices, which might not even happen maliciously but could happen with a simple typo. However, it would allow anyone who can receive an SMS on whatever cheap phone they can get to use Signal if they have a device that can run Electron.
2. Get the phone number from the system. I'm not sure what software does this, is it ModemManager? Then the server sends the verification SMS and the user manually enters the verification code into the Electron application. Maybe it would even be possible to read the incoming verification SMS automatically like the Android application, but that wouldn't be strictly necessary.

@scottnonnenberg-signal would either of these work? Would you accept a pull request implementing one of these? If so, which one? There are lots of people interested in getting Signal somehow working on these new Linux phones. I hope we can find a way to make this happen that aligns with the upstream development roadmap. Running the Android application in Anbox is another plausible direction, but adding this feature to Signal-Desktop may be easier.

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

@Be-ing Signal Desktop is not designed to work standalone. There are a lot of things which wouldn't work at all, settings which aren't exposed and therefore can't be changed, etc.

[Be-ing]

Thanks for the quick response. As a user unfamiliar with the technical architecture of Signal, it's not clear to me what wouldn't work. Are they issues that would require changes to the network protocol to overcome? Are those architectural issues of the desktop client? Features that are intentionally not implemented, or features that you just haven't had time to implement yet? All of the above? Are these things the community could help with?

[petterreinholdtsen]

For the record, Signal Desktop can work standalone. One must just accept that there is no way to edit the address book or modify chat groups. Not a big deal for me. :)

Also, note that not everyone have (or want) a mobile phone, and thus have no ability to receive SMS messages, so the (already implemented) approach of dialing up the phone and reading out the kode should be kept to register Signal Desktop users too. It is also used with Android devices that lack a mobile modem.

[Be-ing]

I forgot Signal Desktop can't yet manage contacts. Registration from Signal Desktop wouldn't be very practical without that. But could it still receive messages even if it couldn't start conversations?

The lack of ability to manage groups would be a clunky limitation but groups aren't essential (or even used at all) in many use cases.

[petterreinholdtsen]

[Be]

I forgot Signal Desktop can't yet manage contacts. Registration from
Signal Desktop wouldn't be very practical without that. But could it
still receive messages even if it couldn't start conversations?

It is no problem to start conversations, one just need to enter the
phone number and send the message or do a video/audio chat. But one can
not update information about the contact, so only only get to see the
name the other end added there for each contact. Not a big problem as
such.

The lack of ability to manage groups would be a clunky limitation but
groups aren't essential (or even used at all) in many use cases.

Yes, but it would be nice to have it when needed. :)

Registering Signal Desktop to a phone without SMS receiving capabilities
give a fully working messaging and video chat solution.

--
Happy hacking
Petter Reinholdtsen

[Be-ing]

It is no problem to start conversations, one just need to enter the
phone number and send the message or do a video/audio chat. But one can
not update information about the contact, so only only get to see the
name the other end added there for each contact. Not a big problem as
such.

That's clunky but it would still be functional.

[EvanHahn-Signal]

We’re working on ways to make it easier to make your phone number more private on Signal, but Signal Desktop (and Signal at large) is not designed to work without a primary mobile app. Among other things, we want to reduce spam by requiring a phone number for registration. There are also numerous features that aren’t designed to work with a linked device, like Desktop or iPad.

We don’t have any plans to add a Desktop-only experience, so I’m going to close this issue.

I wish we could say “yes” to everything, but there are some feature requests we won’t be able to address.

[Be-ing]

Well then it sounds like you're doing a lot of work on a new feature that is beside the point. People here are not asking here to hide their phone numbers for privacy reasons. I'm not disputing that is useful for some people in some situations. But what we are asking for is a way to not need Android or iOS. That does not require changing the phone number based registration and addressing system, only implementing an interface for it in the Electron client.

[petterreinholdtsen]

[Be]

Well then it sounds like you're doing a lot of work on a new feature
that is beside the point. People here are not asking here to hide
their phone numbers for privacy reasons. I'm not disputing that is
useful for some people in some situations. But what we are asking for
is a way to not need Android or iOS.

Exactly. We would like to use Signal without having to connect it to a
mobile phone. Using a land line instead is a limiting compromise. It
would be even better if Signal Desktop could register also on devices
with no phone available.

With individual Jami addresses and get them to send me encrypted
notifications using the provided dbus API, because Jami nodes are not
connected to mobile phone numbers. I would love to use Signal Desktop
like this too. Not everything nor everyone have a mobile phone.

--
Happy hacking
Petter Reinholdtsen

[Be-ing]

There are also numerous features that aren’t designed to work with a linked device, like Desktop or iPad.

Can you elaborate what those are? As a maintainer of another application, I understand delaying feature requests until preliminary work has been done first so the feature will end up being a good experience. But without explaining what those obstacles are, you leave the community frustrated and unable to help do the work to get there.

[Flohack74]

Risking to going off-topic, but the current limitations in clients still forces one to use an Android or Apple device, if you really want to use the App for what it was designed: Being a mobile yet secure alterantive for all communication needs.

The mobile world is changing however, and alternative mobile operating systems are on the horizon, if not already used by people day-to-day. It will be necessary for OWS in the future to also consider building clients for mobile Linux, at least for 2 or 3 variants that will evolve over the next 2-5 years.

I totally get that OWS does not want 3rd party apps developed by "untrusted people" on the internet, as this can harm securiy. But what´s the alternative? You have to do it yourself one day, as the users will demand more and more to move off Android platforms. And we are not talking about just installing LineageOS or other derivatives, these will be hardware devices free of any Android-like APIs and code fragments, but running mainline kernels and Linux display stacks.

So, please, by all means, react to that wave that is building up, by investing a little bit of your dev time to create those clients. A basic messenger, well supported, without too many slick features, would be already enough. As I am working for Ubuntu Touch I have to answer the same question since 3 years: When will Ubuntu Touch get a well working Signal client? And I must admit, I tend to say "Never".

[Be-ing]

I realize now that registering from the Electron client could become a bad user experience if the Android and iOS clients do not support linking to another device that did the registration. But I think that could actually be a nice feature for the Android and iOS clients regardless of its impact for the Electron client. It could allow people to switch from one Android device to another without needing to reregister and have to explain to their contacts why their safety number changed.

[duartemvix]

I have a phone number but I'm unable to download signal since both my devices are cheap old iPhones running iOS 9. Can I still run Signal on desktop without the app?

[torpak]

There is a way, though it is not recommended:
https://ctrl.alt.coop/en/post/signal-without-a-smartphone/

[duartemvix]

There is a way, though it is not recommended:
https://ctrl.alt.coop/en/post/signal-without-a-smartphone/

Thank you!

[Be-ing]

There is a way, though it is not recommended:
https://ctrl.alt.coop/en/post/signal-without-a-smartphone/

Awesome! That takes care of the immediate need for this to be implemented in the Electron client, although that's not a great user experience. For the time being, I think most people who are using Linux phones could handle that. Now, can we get the Electron app to be responsive #2454?

[torpak]

I haven't looked into the code but electron apps tend to be hard to optimize.
Building something native based on signal libraries or signal-cli could be easier.
(but we are getting seriously off toppic here)