@vaporeon_ the phone number requirement is no longer a thing, though it does heavily encourage you to purrovide it
@vaporeon_ i’m not aware of alternative desktop clients, no
@aescling Seems like a big flaw for something that people are telling me to use instead of XMPP or Matrix... And I thought that the clients situation for Matrix is bad, but at least those exist, even if they have annoying dependencies and the interface isn't great...
@vaporeon_ looking into it, it seems your options fur desktop clients are another electron app, or some rust-based thing
a potentially intriguing route would be to set up a bridge from Signal to XMPP, allowing you to at least commewnicate with people over Signal from your XMPP client. seems the only maintained software you could do that with is [https://codeberg.org/slidge/slidgnal](slidgnal (hosted on Codeberg))
@aescling Ooh, that'd be an option! Then I wouldn't need to install yet another software... (IMO, it'd be neat if I could use IRC, XMPP, Matrix, and maybe even Mastodon, all from the same software...)
I am slightly confused: do I need to create a Signal account and connect it to the bridge somehow? Sorry, I tried looking at the docs, but don't see it quickly, maybe it's just because I"m tired
But that may be the way forward if I want to talk to people over Signal!
@vaporeon_ i can’t tell exactly from the docs, but it seems like it might register a Signal account fur you when you register with the bridge?
@aescling OK, interesting, you're saying that I can sign up without giving it my mobile phone number? That's good, though it doesn't solve the problem of lack of desktop client... (Or maybe a desktop client exists and I'm simply unaware?)