Hi there, is there any chance to get Delta Chat in a feature or dumb phone?
I see old conversation about a KaiOS version in github and this forum, but I have no idea if this has actually been done. No idea if this can be possible at all…
Lot of users nowadays are coming back to dumbphones, focusing on digital detox and/or having less dependency on technology (and toxic apps), but still they would appreciate to stay in touch with friends.
This would also align with the “principle of security and anonymity” of DC, that could be run in a device without Android, iOS etc…
I would personally love that, as I have an SPC phone and a Nokia with S30+… but I would be happy to buy any other dumb phone if it is possible to install DC, as the only way now is to use SMS (really bad from a security perspective)
hi @skamu the “Tips and Tricks” category is for people to provide/publish tutorials, guides, tips and tricks, not to ask questions, what you want is probably “mutual help”
you can already install Delta Chat on mobile without Android/iOS, get an Ubuntu Touch phone, it fits the bill of a “dumb phone” to some level, compared to Android/iOS there are not much you can use it for and there is DeltaTouch client for delta chat there
yeah, but… an Ubuntu Touch phone is a great alternative as smartphone… but still it is not a dumb/feature phone. I wish it was possible to install Ubuntu Touch in a dumbphone like an old Nokia, balckberry, etc…
My experience of mobile Linux is that you cannot run banking apps etc., but you can do most of things you can do on a desktop; there was even someone on Reddit running Blender on their phone (it didn’t fit the formfactor very well ). The functionality is also continually expanding. If you want a phone with very limited functionality, I cannot recommend mobile Linux.
But if you want to avoid the toxicity of Big Tech apps and platforms, I would recommend mobile Linux. It is much easier to use alternatives and hack your user experience. The functionality is not aimed at addicting you to the OS owner’s products.
A dumbphone app would be good, especially since people buying phones in poorer areas of the world often use dumbphones (and KaiOS, which used to be open source). This is a growing group of users with a need for secure communications.
@lk108, do you know anything about what will run here?
A dumbphone app would be good, especially since people buying phones in poorer areas of the world often use dumbphones (and KaiOS, which used to be open source). This is a growing group of users with a need for secure communications.
I truly love and echo this part of your answer, thanks @Minim
Hi @Minim , that is just a brand of feature phones, similar to Nokia (but much smaller company). Sorry I should have mentioned it. I carry that with me (instead that my smartphone) usually during the weekend or when I want to have quality time with the people I hang out with (friends and family). That is why, in an ideal world, I would have a feature phone plus only DC. Thanks!
At some point there was a prototype that ran on my rooted Nokia KaiOS phone.
It is possible, because that phone can run chatmail core, the only thing missing is a web based ui that is optimised for those phones (there is no touch screen so it needs to be controlled via the keyboard) and an installer or easy to follow installation instructions.
Personally I still plan to make a real installable prototype at some point, but currently I don’t have the time to do it. Maybe I’ll get to it spring or summer next year, but no promises.
The low interest (less than 5 people showed serious interest) and the slow development of kaiOS itself (that looks like it is dying) are not useful in finding collaborators on such a project. @farooqkz is the author of the chooj matrix client and wanted to help me with a dc client, but meanwhile gave up on KaiOS and chooj completely. Saying goodbye to KaiOS and to chooj — farooqkz
Other minimal phones sometimes don’t even have apps or an SDK, because they are so minimal.
“Dumb phones” are not necessarily more secure or private. Even the dumbest phones can run malware. See for instance an article about reverse engineering dumb phone (in Russian, but automatic translation should be good enough to get the idea) by ValdikSS (author of GoodbyeDPI). Many dumb phones were found to phone back (literally) to notify about the number of phones sold or even had built-in malware that drained the account by silently sending SMS messages. Most of these phones run proprietary OS and the vendors are not interested in supporting them or open sourcing the OS so users can support it and repair. KaiOS is not much different as far as I understand, it is a brand so likely does not ship malware, but it is still proprietary and only get reverse engineered and have some community around it because the phones with it are cheap and the number of phones running it is large. It may be interesting to support it because a lot of users already have it, but if you can afford a phone running postmarketOS or at least Ubuntu Touch (which runs on more phones but depends on Android blobs) then it is a better option than supporting some dumb phone company that will not care about supporting your phone.
If your goal is not depending on a smartphone with Android or iOS, then straightforward solution is to just use it less, e.g. run Delta Chat on your laptop and take your time answering messages once or twice a day. Delta Chat runs just fine without any phone at all. Running it on a dumb phone does not solve the problem of being constantly online and draining your time into typing messages on a small keyboard with typos or shortcuts that make the messages hard to read and then wasting time of readers in turn to decipher all the typos, autocompletion errors and omitted details.
It is fun I see this now, because today I forgot my Android phone at home. I was tempted to go home before goint to the office, but then I thought I should leave it at home and go straight to the office. Making my morning coffee at the office I was thinking that maybe I should move to a dumb phone. A dumb phone with delta chat would be great.
Thanks for your message and I agree with you on the security side.
I was more considering the fact that a dumb phone doesn’t need an account to be created (personal info, email, etc) and giving the cost, can be thrown away as needed, but yes, that it is not more secure.
About the “detox perspective”, I see that from a different perspective… a dumbphone would allow you basic functionalities with the benefit of staying in touch with your friends, regardless of what countries they live in (standard calls/texts would mainly apply when done in the same country, or you may have crazy costs). Not everyone has a laptop.
Anyway I get your point, it is more an “edge” user case that probably doesn’t justify the huge amount of work that should be done to build/maintain.
However, I still love the perspective coming from @Minim , related to poorer areas of the world.
Mobile Linux like Ubuntu Touch also does not require any personal data or linking to Google accounts, accepting to their user “agreement” etc.. It is exactly like setting up a desktop. For security and privacy and avoiding market concentration, mobile Linux is a good solution.
I did not know that dumbphones managed to have such security issues; thank you, link2xt. It would be nice to have an open-source dumbphone distro. KaiOS is a proprietized derivative of Firefox OS. Wikipedia lists something called MuditaOS, based on FreeRTOS, which is now under an MIT license and thus could also be proprietized. Mudita was very clearly a toxicity-avoidance product, but does not seem lively. Any other suggestions?
On cost, a Pinephone and accessories including SD card is less than 200USD last I checked. A dumbphone can be obtained for less than 30USD. If you are living on a dollar a day, this is a huge price gap.
Deltachat would be a killer app for those who can’t afford smartphones: the bots would give you encrypted access to those parts of the internet that use open standards; HTML, RSS, Epub, etc.. You are still locked out of proprietary apps, but if this encourages the use of open standards it will also benefit even the richest.
If you can call do audio and video chat over DC, you can get by with a phone that does not have an SD card or current network standards. This is much cheaper.
Maybe a compatibility layer to run KaiOS/boot2gecko web apps on PostmarketOS help with app availability a bit.
Or just get a used second hand Android with custom ROM and custom minimal launcher that removes distractions.
Pinephone is not worth the money unless you want to to tinker, it is way too slow IMO (I have one). I would look for used devices instead like an old google pixel, which has good custom ROM support and you get a much better specs for half the price.
If they only have this phone, then they can not install a custom ROM, so you would need to install the ROM beforehand and that work costs extra money.
The reality of those internet enabled phones is that most of the time, they only have the proprietary internet pre-installed: like facebook, tiktok, youtube, google maps.
Making a delta chat version that is an installable app for KaiOS would require atleast chatmail core compiled to wasm or rewritten in javascript, since you can’t run native apps on KaiOS without rooting the device.
Whatsapp had an exception for the use of their libsignal encryption library, but it costs a lot of money to get your app pre-installed onto new devices, so unlikely they would cooperate for free with an open source project. (BTW WhatsApp gave up and is no longer available on KaiOS AFAIK)
Since Delta Chat is offline first and stores all messages you need at-least some gigs of device storage + 14-60mb ram and a decent CPU for fast crypto. If the phone is too cheap it may not fit the requirements. (see What would be needed for a Standalone web version without a server component? for what’s needed to run chatmail core under WebAssembly)
If this is about making DC popular, then we could think about trying the Delta Chat for Cloud Phone idea, but that kinda defeats the purpose of end to end encryption, since the app would run on some cloud server and would only be streamed.
I still think it would be nice to have a delta chat client for kaiOS phones, but I would be happy with the experiment an proving that it is possible on rooted phones.
I don’t have any hope or expectations that it could change the world, based on my impression of the state of these “dumb” feature phones.
). The functionality is also continually expanding. If you want a phone with very limited functionality, I cannot recommend mobile Linux.
