5 ms·

IMO author shouldn't have censored the app names. The world deserves to know.

• Tepix 2y ago
  I agree! They call out Apple, Samsung and a few others, but not app vendors.
  • grishka 2y ago
    The messaging app with an updater is clearly Signal. The checkmark icons gave it away for me.
• koito17 2y ago
  Querying an exact match of a few strings on Google shows me that Slack is the very first example given in the blog post. For additional confirmation, the "6-byte message" screenshot lists an xoxc token and rich_text object, both of which you will frequently encounter in the Slack API. To be honest, I was expecting it to be Jira at first since I was unaware of Slack's size. Searching for an exact match of "PRL_ERR_WEB_PORTAL_UNEXPECTED" gives away Parallels as the first example of a hard-coded HTTPS timeout. So on, so forth.
• future10se 2y ago
  Those I recognize (from interface, branding, strings, etc.): * Slack -- https://brr.fyi/media/engineering-for-slow-internet/load-error-01.png https://brr.fyi/media/engineering-for-slow-internet/load-err... * Signal (main screen) -- https://brr.fyi/media/engineering-for-slow-internet/in-app-downloader-progress-01.png https://brr.fyi/media/engineering-for-slow-internet/in-app-d... * 1Password (config/about page) -- https://brr.fyi/media/engineering-for-slow-internet/in-app-downloader-02.png https://brr.fyi/media/engineering-for-slow-internet/in-app-d... * Zoom (updater screen on Mac) -- https://brr.fyi/media/engineering-for-slow-internet/in-app-downloader-03.png https://brr.fyi/media/engineering-for-slow-internet/in-app-d... * Parallels Desktop ("prl_client_app" is the binary name) -- https://brr.fyi/media/engineering-for-slow-internet/hardcoded-timeout-02.png https://brr.fyi/media/engineering-for-slow-internet/hardcode...
  • voyagerfan5761 2y ago
    You got all the same answers I did, which helps me determine how good my sleuthing skills are. I used exclusively strings, either API routes, error codes, or version/build numbers.
  • astro-throw 2y ago
    My experience is that Slack worked great last winter, when the broadband satellite was up. When it's down, folks use an IRC-style client to cope with the very limited & expensive bandwidth from Iridium.
  • djtango 2y ago
    Yes - name and shame. Slack is INFURIATING on intermittent connectivity. That is simply not good enough for a product who's primary value is communication. Anyone who has tried to use Slack: - in the countryside with patchy connection - abroad - in China - on the London Underground Can attest to how poor and buggy Slack is on bad internet. These aren't weird edgecases - London is a major tech hub. Remote workers and open source communities rely on Slack around the world. China is the second largest economy in the world with a population of 1.7B (incidentally it's blocked at least it was when I was last there but even on VPN it was weird and buggy). How aren't these kinds of metrics tracked by their product teams. How isn't WhatsApp the gold standard now for message delivery, replicated everywhere. Neither email nor WhatsApp have the weird consistency issues Slack has with simply sending a message with dodgy internet. Not to mention the unreliable and sometimes user-hostile client state management when Slack can't phone home which can sometimes lead to lost work or inability to see old messages you literally were able to see until you tried to interact with stuff.
    • lawgimenez 2y ago
      Telegram also works well in remote places.
      • djtango 2y ago
        I doubt I'll ever work with a place that uses Telegram but yes its clear that resilient message delivery is a solved problem nowadays but Slack is still hopeless at the one most important key feature of its product. Now that WhatsApp also has groups there's even less of an excuse for Slack to perform so badly