axolotl VS telegram-bot-api

While searching around a bit more I found another unofficial Signal client for arm64 Linux optimized for mobile called Axolotl. The github page makes it look promising, but once installed I couldn't log in successfully. I intend to put more effort in there. Axolotl appears to be the most promising looking option for Signal on mobile Linux - assuming it works..

> Only a small thing, but due to Signals strict phone-desktop pairing mechanism, when registering Axolotl, both phone and regular Desktop wont work anymore.

> Also, you cant use Axolotl on Desktop together with Signal mobile.

> After deleting the Axolotl registration I had to wait a while to be able to register on Signal again, I didnt loose any backups and my codes didnt change.

> Nonetheless a warning should be displayed at the beginning, that users wanting to use regular mobile (iOS, Android) and Desktop (Windows, macOS, Flatpak or Snap), they should use a second phone number for testing.

https://github.com/nanu-c/axolotl/issues/811

>Signal also notably isn't self-hostable: there's no way to run your own signal server, and control your data. Marlinspike ruthlessly shuts down anyone attempting to build alternate clients or servers that could communicate with the main one.

That is perfectly wrong. As a maintainer of https://axolotl.chat, a third-party signal client initially built for Ubuntu Touch but which runs on almost everything now, I can tell you that our client is speaking without any problems to the official Signal servers, and also that the code of the server is available and is running fine, we used it to test our code.

Wouldn't Signal Desktop be a way to make backups?

I moved my home directory to a new computer and Signal Desktop started like if something changed. Sure you lose your messages on your phone, but you can still access them on your computer if needed.

On a rooted Android phone, you could use oandbackup to backup Signal. If you care about these things, maybe consider using a rooted Android phone?

I agree with you on the centralized platform aspect and the use of phone number (which is both a blessing (this makes it easy for new users to join) and a curse). I also agree with you on Element's UX, but it's getting better and most people can use it fine. I have a few groups on both apps.

I personally prefer Element, which seems more open than Signal and which I can actually use correctly on the PinePhone. Axolotl [1] still needs some work.

[1] https://github.com/nanu-c/axolotl

I think the best option to communicate through Signal will be Axolotl. Because the original desktop client of Signal might work as well but it's not optimized for touch input.

If you go to the git repo for Axolotl (https://github.com/nanu-c/axolotl), you will see links to the deb among other formats.

Ah well then I applaud you. :) Perhaps some ideas could come from past efforts like Axolotl, which I've had working in a basic way in the past.

Is not that hard, they have amazing documentation about it: https://core.telegram.org/bots

You can make authorization via Telegram another way. It works. But today we want to do the classic OAuth Authorization. Before you begin, you need to create a Telegram bot and obtain your bot token. You can do this in @BotFather in Telegram. For more information on initiating a bot, read the Telegram Bot API documentation: https://core.telegram.org/bots

Absolutely possible. Here's the github page to the Telegram bot API. You would just need to check for incoming messages, check the body of the message for a word or phrase, and then send a message back with a photo or gif and an encouraging message.

Creating a Telegram bot is fun: there's no website, no sign up, no forms — you just use a... bot. Yes, a bot that creates bots. It's called the BotFather 😂

Telegram has a bot API server that provides API to control the bots and get updates. Their own instance has some restrictions like you cannot download files bigger than 20MB. So, using a self hosted bot API server, you can overcome those limits.

General Bot Platform Overview

$ curl -4 -v https://api.telegram.org * Trying 149.154.167.220:443... * TCP_NODELAY set * Connected to api.telegram.org (149.154.167.220) port 443 (#0) * ALPN, offering h2 * ALPN, offering http/1.1 * successfully set certificate verify locations: * CAfile: /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt CApath: /etc/ssl/certs * TLSv1.3 (OUT), TLS handshake, Client hello (1): * TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, Server hello (2): * TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, Encrypted Extensions (8): * TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, Certificate (11): * TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, CERT verify (15): * TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, Finished (20): * TLSv1.3 (OUT), TLS change cipher, Change cipher spec (1): * TLSv1.3 (OUT), TLS handshake, Finished (20): * SSL connection using TLSv1.3 / TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 * ALPN, server accepted to use h2 * Server certificate: * subject: CN=api.telegram.org * start date: Mar 24 15:21:45 2022 GMT * expire date: Apr 25 15:21:45 2023 GMT * subjectAltName: host "api.telegram.org" matched cert's "api.telegram.org" * issuer: C=US; ST=Arizona; L=Scottsdale; O=GoDaddy.com, Inc.; OU=http://certs.godaddy.com/repository/; CN=Go Daddy Secure Certificate Authority - G2 * SSL certificate verify ok. * Using HTTP2, server supports multi-use * Connection state changed (HTTP/2 confirmed) * Copying HTTP/2 data in stream buffer to connection buffer after upgrade: len=0 * Using Stream ID: 1 (easy handle 0x555fdb2de2f0) > GET / HTTP/2 > Host: api.telegram.org > user-agent: curl/7.68.0 > accept: */* > * TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, Newsession Ticket (4): * TLSv1.3 (IN), TLS handshake, Newsession Ticket (4): * old SSL session ID is stale, removing * Connection state changed (MAX_CONCURRENT_STREAMS == 128)! < HTTP/2 302 < server: nginx/1.18.0 < date: Tue, 18 Oct 2022 00:00:24 GMT < content-type: text/html < content-length: 145 < location: https://core.telegram.org/bots < strict-transport-security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload < access-control-allow-origin: * < access-control-allow-methods: GET, POST, OPTIONS < access-control-expose-headers: Content-Length,Content-Type,Date,Server,Connection < 302 Found 302 Found nginx/1.18.0 * Connection #0 to host api.telegram.org left intact

It's done via bots, which let you add clickable options to posts. Here's an FAQ on bots: https://core.telegram.org/bots