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Mercurygram: a Telegram FOSS fork with Material You themes and additional features

GitHub - Mercurygram/Mercurygram: Unofficial, FOSS-friendly fork of the original Telegram client for Android

https://github.com/Mercurygram/Mercurygram

Unofficial, FOSS-friendly fork of the original Telegram client for Android - Mercurygram/Mercurygram

GitHub - Mercurygram/Mercurygram: Unofficial, FOSS-friendly fork of the original Telegram client for Android

Yes this is a Telegram client and yes it will break the Lemmy's downvote world record but I still find this one very nice and "actively" maintained. There are not many good Telegram FOSS forks without Google integrations and similar stuff out there.

30 comments

Engywuck

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Looks interesting. I don't fully understand how unified push works, though. I'm I right in reading that the author have set up an UP server themselves?

Yes this is a Telegram client and yes it will break the Lemmy’s downvote world record

Because most people live in a echo chamber. Just ignore them.

Shamot

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Thank you for your comment. Since I deactivated Google Play services, I don't get notifications on many apps. I didn't know there were alternatives. Unfortunately, the app server must be compatible, but if I can have it at least for Telegram with this fork, it would be a good start. I'll take time to compare the different alternatives and see if other push servers are compatible with more apps.

For what I understand, there are self hosted push servers, like NextPush that works on Nextcloud, and some that provide you a server, liked ntfy. For the latter, you have to check the privacy policy to see if it's better than the default Google firebase server.

helenslunch

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No, it means you need to set up your own server.

Engywuck

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Thanks

dingdongitsabear

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do any of these forks support E2EE? I don't mean the OG "private chat" thingy that Telegram supports.

I mean like an add-on, the way pidgin had an OTR plugin that enabled private comms over Google's unencrypted XMPP servers.

as a consequence, that would also encrypt everything in the cloud and prevent your chat history being ingested for LLM training and whatnot.

jol

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That would require the other user to use the same app as you right? Could be interesting.

wurstgulasch3000

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At that point why not use a different app that supports E2EE natively?

dingdongitsabear

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because Telegram's UI/UX is second to none; possibly iMessage or whatever it's called is close, albeit with way limited functionality. Signal and friends look like a PoC from 2015 in comparison. also the apps, on mobile and on desktop, have a low memory footprint with no bloated electron crap, the cross-device sync is phenomenal and there's the virtually unlimited cloud storage. if an addon could piggyback off of that, that would be spectacular.

however, OP's insight as to this being against ToS is obviously a deal breaker. seeing as how they're adamant about leaving all your shit unencrypted in the cloud I'm looking for other havens, begrudgingly; I've been a user from the early days.

semperverus

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The options are basically:

Matrix if you want a Discord-like experience

XMPP if you want a whatsapp/google talk like experience (both of those are based on XMPP)

Signal if you want hyper-secure chat and don't mind some mild inconveniences in things like registration or desktop apps.

All three support or can support E2EE.

dingdongitsabear

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well yeah, just a simple private/public key solution for encrypting chat and cloud. transfer your private key to a forked desktop app and access your encrypted chat history from there as well.

just basic stuff, not something for people running from nation-state actors, but to prevent LLM ingestion and mass surveilance. but OP says that's against Telegram's ToS, so no dice here.

GolfNovemberUniform

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E2EE is prohibited by Telegram's TOS (you can't make any feature that requires users to use your client to access it).

nossaquesapao

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Whoa, they not only won't implement it, but will work on not letting anyone else do it. They're more shady than I thought.

GolfNovemberUniform

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They're not shady. They just don't want to lose the market share and I think if they made Telegram really secure, there'd be even more illegal stuff on it and the government wouldn't like it.

blindbunny

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"They're not shady." Begins to describe the shady shit they do

timbuck2themoon

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How is it "shady" to not want to lose market share and keep illegal stuff off of it?

You could argue it's "shitty" (perhaps, but it is their servers after all) but I don't find it shady.

blindbunny

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How is it "shady" to not want to lose market share and keep illegal stuff off of it?

Market share shouldn't be a concern with encrypted chat. If it is then I don't trust it.

If you're making an encrypted chat, you're going to have illegal things on it. If only the chat owners have the keys then that shouldn't be the server owners concern.

semperverus

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I would strongly recommend libaxolotl/OMEMO over OTR, far stronger algorithm.

kirk781

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I used this client recently and found it decent. Though for some reason, Google Play Protect always(wrongly I assume) picks it out despite downloading from F Droid.

American_Jesus

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Using it for some months

ashaman2007

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What are you using for the Unified Push setup? I tried using ntfy and could never get notifications to come through on GrapheneOS

kosmoz

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I use ntfy and have no problems. It's very reliable. No idea about graphene though

Eyck_of_denesle

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Have you tried changing server? The default server is overworked.

GolfNovemberUniform

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I use LineageOS without any gapps and notifications often work.

yessikg

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What's the difference between this and Materialgram?

GolfNovemberUniform

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Materialgram is for desktop and this one is for Android.
Mercurygram is based on the Telegram FOSS project that removes proprietary bits from the client, making it more privacy-respecting.
Mercurygram adds some new features that stock Telegram doesn't have (though idk anything about them because I'm not a power user).

yessikg

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Cool

ICastFist

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Does it have tools to easily remove deleted accounts from groups? Or selecting several contacts from your contact list and deleting them? Because those are big features missing from telegram

GolfNovemberUniform

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I think you want a CLI client for that.

ICastFist

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For the group thing, I would expect at least a way to search/filter those accounts while looking at the group's participants, even if I do have to manually remove them. Having to endlessly scroll a list with no apparent order is not fun.

GolfNovemberUniform

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I'm not familiar with any clients that have the feature. Make that feature and a merge request yourself I guess.