To be fair, Signal, Threema and Discord use Electron, and therefore are just crappy bullshit on Wayland.
Using a dedicated FF instance uses less RAM, CPU and disk space, and gives you more control over the application/website.
Discord has a web version, even if it doesn’t support some features, so I use it in FF. WhatsApp has a web version, so I use it in FF.
Signal does not. So it’s barely usable on my Nvidia desktop.
We do not need ““native”” Applications, made with a mix of a web version and a D tier browser engine, if we could just use the already installed, better and perfectly working browser.
Discords Electron was outdated and vulnerable for years, FF would be patched in days or hours in case of a zero day.
Electron uses much more resources than FF.
Because every company thinks they need a custom version of electron, every app brings its own bloaty electron environment, despite there being a system one.
Electron/Chromium is extremely buggy on Wayland + Nvidia, to the point I cannot use Spotify, Discord or Steam correctly.
Discord on Xorg is a mess too. It’s not even the electron part, the app itself is really bad.
Not only it’s inefficient, but (at least in Arch) it doesn’t auto update on big versions. And instead of just warning you, it refuses to start until you manually install the new update. And god forbid if the package mantainers need a day or two to update the package, because until then you can’t use it.
The funniest thing is, there’s a file in the app’s directory called “build_info.json” which contains the version number, and with a simple edit you can make it think it’s updated, and it suddenly works without problem.
I really don’t know what they’re updating, but I have a version from 2021 running on my phone (it’s old and the new app is really slow), and it still works fine. Even after the account handle change and several other additions to the app.
Oh, and for the Arch users: there’s a discord version on the AUR called “discord-canary-electron-bin” that uses system wide electron, so it should be updated faster than discord’s own bundled electron. I don’t know if there’s a non canary version of it, tho.
If you don’t like having multiple windows open, you can keep them in dedicated container tabs on you main Fx (or favored Fx fork). I have a couple pinned like this in Librewolf now.
To be fair, Signal, Threema and Discord use Electron, and therefore are just crappy bullshit on Wayland.
Using a dedicated FF instance uses less RAM, CPU and disk space, and gives you more control over the application/website.
Discord has a web version, even if it doesn’t support some features, so I use it in FF. WhatsApp has a web version, so I use it in FF.
Signal does not. So it’s barely usable on my Nvidia desktop.
We do not need ““native”” Applications, made with a mix of a web version and a D tier browser engine, if we could just use the already installed, better and perfectly working browser.
Can we have electron, but based on gecko and unable to ship its own gecko?
Check tauri out. It’s not exactly that but it uses built in web renderer in os
Discord on Xorg is a mess too. It’s not even the electron part, the app itself is really bad.
Not only it’s inefficient, but (at least in Arch) it doesn’t auto update on big versions. And instead of just warning you, it refuses to start until you manually install the new update. And god forbid if the package mantainers need a day or two to update the package, because until then you can’t use it.
The funniest thing is, there’s a file in the app’s directory called “build_info.json” which contains the version number, and with a simple edit you can make it think it’s updated, and it suddenly works without problem.
I really don’t know what they’re updating, but I have a version from 2021 running on my phone (it’s old and the new app is really slow), and it still works fine. Even after the account handle change and several other additions to the app.
Oh, and for the Arch users: there’s a discord version on the AUR called “discord-canary-electron-bin” that uses system wide electron, so it should be updated faster than discord’s own bundled electron. I don’t know if there’s a non canary version of it, tho.
It’s more about WhatsApp ignoring Linux as a app platform (and the web app doesn’t have calls or screen share like the windows client)
They want you having less control, that’s the whole point
If you don’t like having multiple windows open, you can keep them in dedicated container tabs on you main Fx (or favored Fx fork). I have a couple pinned like this in Librewolf now.