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It's a cool idea and I'd love to be able to use my phone as a full Linux desktop like the Steam Deck. But ultimately I mainly use my phone for the following:

It's a cool idea and I'd love to be able to use my phone as a full Linux desktop like the Steam Deck. But ultimately I mainly use my phone for the following: - Banking and government authentication - e.g. with BankID and Kivra in Sweden. This is necessary to send money, make payments, file taxes, etc. There's no way around it unless you want to deal with going to the few remaining bank branches in person and sending letters. Same for buying and using train + metro tickets. - WhatsApp - it's massively popular in Europe for communication and even some services. That said it is slowly losing ground to Telegram (and to a lesser extent Signal and Matrix). - As a camera. Most high-end smartphones have incredible cameras which means you never need to carry a camera with you for most things, this is pretty indisposable too. And unfortunately none of the GNU/Linux phones come close to solving those use-cases. Desktop convergence is great, but it's not worth giving up all of those. And if I have to carry an Android anyway, then I may as well just use my Steam Deck for the convergence (and gaming).

kop316 4y ago
Depending on how motivated you are, Element One/Element Home is a good solution for WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal: https://element.io/element-one https://element.io/element-one You can bridge all of those to a Matrix account and use a Matrix client.
- zaik 4y ago
  It should however be noted that this does not work with end-to-end encryption and stores your conversations on those apps on their server.
mxuribe 4y ago
> ...That said it is slowly losing ground to Telegram (and to a lesser extent Signal and Matrix)... As an admitted fanboy of matrix, I sure hope it gains more popularity. Not just because i like the protocol and associated technologies, but also because it can represent usage of something not propriatray for citizens. The more big insitutions like banks and gov. services that allow for use of non-propriatary tech stacks means that maybe more people can leverage them for engaging in more digital (and safe) ways. Further, i looke at the wechat model in China, where so much is done over that platform. Now, imagine as much can be done over an open, secure protocol..which if implemented optimally can perhaps in the future allow for phones/mobile devcices to be built still performant but lower cost allowiong for more folks on other side of digital divide to be able to buy and use them...to engage with orgs/insititutions/gov. for their benefit. (Clearly, my wishes here have lots of "ifs" and dependencies...but, hey, i can dream, right?)
- zaik 4y ago
  Why not just build on the already standardized XMPP protocol?
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    Matrix is pretty popular so now it doesn’t make sense not to use that over XMPP. My Q would be why XMPP over Matrix when Matrix is working great in recent times.
    - zaik 4y ago
      Is it that popular? If any provider like WhatsApp decided were to federate (I assume the goal is to get existing providers to federate and not convince every single person of your new protocol) it would essentially make Matrix irrelevant. And I don't see WhatsApp adopting a custom protocol like Matrix, especially since they already run on fork of ejabberd and XMPP is the established IETF internet standard. The same thing applies to Google, Facebook, Zoom, Jitsi, etc. which all use or have XMPP experience for their chat products.
      - skinnymuch 4y ago
        Some of these have changed their Code so much in relation to XMPP, I’m not sure how much it matter that they use it. FBM never could do XMPP group chats. Not once in its dozen+ year life. Google and FB purposefully removed federation, so it doesn’t make sense for either of them to add it. So WhatsApp is out. — I wasn’t saying WhatsApp or any chat app specifically should implement Matrix natively. I don’t trust big tech. I am saying, Matrix works well enough and isn’t dependent on the whims of big tech.
        em-bee 4y ago
        if the EU passes a law to force federation, which, as i understand, is being discussed, they are going to have to put it back in.
  - 4y ago
olau 4y ago
I wouldn't know about the situation in Sweden, but in other Nordic countries, you can get a little hardware TOTP device for bank and government authentication since they're not comfortable requiring everyone to have a computerized phone. You press a button and it spits out a 6 digit key that you enter. I realize this may seem backwards to some people, but I think using a hardware key is actually on the forefront of future best security practices. More complicated devices are simply too easy to hack.
dvdkon 4y ago
I agree about the picture quality, it's just too convenient to have a good-enough camera in my pocket, and I'll suffer with proprietary drivers if that's what it takes right now. I have to ask about banking and government apps, though. Here most (all?) banks still allow web access with 2FA through SMS or a physical key. Has that been phased out in Sweden? Our e-government services likewise have multiple authentication options, with a phone app, smartcard, USB key or other proprietary dongle serving as the second factor. I'm pretty sure this is implemented according to some EU standards, is this not the case elsewhere? I actually got a free USB and NFC FIDO 2-certified key as part of a promo, which I use for government services. I know it's not a panacea, but I trust it more than my smartphone.

kop316 4y ago

Depending on how motivated you are, Element One/Element Home is a good solution for WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal: https://element.io/element-one https://element.io/element-one You can bridge all of those to a Matrix account and use a Matrix client.

zaik 4y ago
It should however be noted that this does not work with end-to-end encryption and stores your conversations on those apps on their server.

mxuribe 4y ago

> ...That said it is slowly losing ground to Telegram (and to a lesser extent Signal and Matrix)... As an admitted fanboy of matrix, I sure hope it gains more popularity. Not just because i like the protocol and associated technologies, but also because it can represent usage of something not propriatray for citizens. The more big insitutions like banks and gov. services that allow for use of non-propriatary tech stacks means that maybe more people can leverage them for engaging in more digital (and safe) ways. Further, i looke at the wechat model in China, where so much is done over that platform. Now, imagine as much can be done over an open, secure protocol..which if implemented optimally can perhaps in the future allow for phones/mobile devcices to be built still performant but lower cost allowiong for more folks on other side of digital divide to be able to buy and use them...to engage with orgs/insititutions/gov. for their benefit. (Clearly, my wishes here have lots of "ifs" and dependencies...but, hey, i can dream, right?)

zaik 4y ago
Why not just build on the already standardized XMPP protocol?
- skinnymuch 4y ago
  Matrix is pretty popular so now it doesn’t make sense not to use that over XMPP. My Q would be why XMPP over Matrix when Matrix is working great in recent times.
  - zaik 4y ago
    Is it that popular? If any provider like WhatsApp decided were to federate (I assume the goal is to get existing providers to federate and not convince every single person of your new protocol) it would essentially make Matrix irrelevant. And I don't see WhatsApp adopting a custom protocol like Matrix, especially since they already run on fork of ejabberd and XMPP is the established IETF internet standard. The same thing applies to Google, Facebook, Zoom, Jitsi, etc. which all use or have XMPP experience for their chat products.
    - skinnymuch 4y ago
      Some of these have changed their Code so much in relation to XMPP, I’m not sure how much it matter that they use it. FBM never could do XMPP group chats. Not once in its dozen+ year life. Google and FB purposefully removed federation, so it doesn’t make sense for either of them to add it. So WhatsApp is out. — I wasn’t saying WhatsApp or any chat app specifically should implement Matrix natively. I don’t trust big tech. I am saying, Matrix works well enough and isn’t dependent on the whims of big tech.
      - em-bee 4y ago
        if the EU passes a law to force federation, which, as i understand, is being discussed, they are going to have to put it back in.
- 4y ago

olau 4y ago

I wouldn't know about the situation in Sweden, but in other Nordic countries, you can get a little hardware TOTP device for bank and government authentication since they're not comfortable requiring everyone to have a computerized phone. You press a button and it spits out a 6 digit key that you enter. I realize this may seem backwards to some people, but I think using a hardware key is actually on the forefront of future best security practices. More complicated devices are simply too easy to hack.

dvdkon 4y ago

I agree about the picture quality, it's just too convenient to have a good-enough camera in my pocket, and I'll suffer with proprietary drivers if that's what it takes right now. I have to ask about banking and government apps, though. Here most (all?) banks still allow web access with 2FA through SMS or a physical key. Has that been phased out in Sweden? Our e-government services likewise have multiple authentication options, with a phone app, smartcard, USB key or other proprietary dongle serving as the second factor. I'm pretty sure this is implemented according to some EU standards, is this not the case elsewhere? I actually got a free USB and NFC FIDO 2-certified key as part of a promo, which I use for government services. I know it's not a panacea, but I trust it more than my smartphone.