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Even now, when I see Briar's name anywhere, I think of this as "ah, that Android only app" and that imho is saying something for a privacy messaging app. I am n
by crossroadsguy 2y ago
Even now, when I see Briar's name anywhere, I think of this as "ah, that Android only app" and that imho is saying something for a privacy messaging app. I am not saying it has not reason (Apple's unsound, unfair, and consumer hostile tight control is the reason! [1]) to be Android only, I am just saying - it's very unfortunate and unfortunately defeating.
[1] In the name of privacy theatre which they have actually been able to defend by spending both on PR and lawyers.
- forty 2y agoThe simple fact that you generally need to have Apple hardware to make iOS apps is a reason enough
- vips7L 2y agoLooks like a lot of it is JVM based, which makes it hard for iOS since they disallow running JITs.
- maqp 2y agoYup, from what I hear, the problem is Apple doesn't allow process forking which means Tor would have to run inside the same process as the messaging app which is ridiculous.
- jszymborski 2y agoI always think "Ah, that one E2EE chat app that made a cameo on Mr. Robot"
- celsoazevedo 2y agoiOS vs Android is a bit like ChromeOS vs Windows/MacOS/most Linux distros. There are benefits to more restrictive operating systems. For example, iOS not allowing apps to run in the background essentially stops any apps with malware from doing stuff in the background, but it also stops apps like Briar, Syncthing, etc, from working well. I assume Android isn't a problem for most Briar's users. They're likely running a deGoogled Android version (GrapheneOS, LineageOS, etc) and downloading/updating the app via F-Droid or something like that. They don't rely on Google (or Apple) to run anything.
- mmwelt 2y agoThe problem is the networking effect. Since so many people use iOS, even Android users often have to contact people on iOS devices, resulting in Briar likely remaining very niche.
- kragen 2y agoVery few people in my country use iOS devices. Maybe 5%.
- SahAssar 2y agoThere are like 15 countries where iOS market share is below 5% according to https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/iphone-market-share-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/iphone-ma... Granted, a few of them are very large/populous like india, bangladesh, pakistan and ethiopia, but in the grand scheme of things iOS is probably more popular than you think.