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+Kontalk FLOSS alternative for Whatsapp and Co.
+##############################################
+
+:date: 2014-02-21 19:51
+:slug: kontalk-messaging
+:tags: smartphone,messaging,whatsapp,foss
+:author: copyninja
+:summary: FLOSS alternative for Whatsapp.
+
+So *Whatsapp* has been acquired by Facebook and this news is still hot
+and people are discussing it all over the twitterverse. So I took this
+opportunity to stop using *Whatsapp* and removed it from my
+phone. Possibly I could have deleted my account but who cares.
+
+Anyway I've been searching for a secure and FLOSS alternative for
+*Whatsapp* for quite some time now, few days ago I found about
+*Telegram* but after reading `post
+<http://blog.tincho.org/posts/Telegram/>`_ by Tincho on planet Debian,
+I decided not to use it.  Recently while going through the talk list
+for fossmeet.in I found link for `Kontalk <http://kontalk.org>`_ in a
+privacy awareness talk `proposal
+<http://funnel.fossmeet.in/2014/61-i-have-nothing-to-hide-i-dont-care-about-privacy>`_
+by `Praveen <http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=praveen>`_ and
+thought I should give it a try.  So below is my first feelings about
+*Kontalk*.
+
+Installation and Activation
+===========================
+
+Kontalk can be installed from `playstore
+<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.kontalk>`_ for
+verification purpose it requests your phone number and country code
+and request for verification. This should send a SMS with a code which
+should be entered in the text box given and app is ready to use. There
+is also a possibility to use pre-existing verification code (if you
+got one from developer directly, read below for details).
+
+I did see some glitches like I never got the SMS delivered to my phone
+after 2 attempts and a days wait. Then I went ahead and reported a
+`bug <https://code.google.com/p/kontalk/issues/detail?id=179>`_ and
+the main developer was quick to respond. After a discussion it was
+noticed that SMS was blocked by spam filters. He also mentioned its
+tough to get SMS delivered to India. He was kind enough to provide me
+with a verification code and I used the *Use existing code* option to
+enter it and get *Kontalk* activated.
+
+The SMS delivery inconsistency is still present for India (and may be
+other nations too) some people get code immidiately others may be
+after couple of days and some might not. Upstream is already working
+on a possible `workaround
+<https://code.google.com/p/kontalk/issues/detail?id=141>`_.
+
+User Experience
+===============
+
+Now coming to usage part, the UI is neat and clean, I won't say super
+polished as *Whatsapp* or other popular apps but its really *neat* and
+easy to use. Some points which I like are
+
+- Ability to hide presence, so others won't know you are online or
+  offline. (unlike *Whatsapp* which advertises last seen)
+- Encrypted messages and ability to optin or optout.
+- Encrypted status messages! Only user with your phone number can see
+  your status. (Cool isn't it).
+- Manually requesting to find contacts who already uses
+  kontalk!. Right it doesn't read your contact list without your
+  permission you need to refresh to check who in your contacts is
+  using Kontalk.
+- Attach and smiley options in the top right corner of Chat window
+  which allows easy accessing unlike keyboard - smiley switching of
+  *Whatsapp*.
+- No automatic download of media contents which is shared. Yes by
+  default it doesn't download any picture or video automatically if
+  you want to see something click on it and select download.
+- Running your own server for Kontalk! Now thats something which is
+  interesting for people who doesn't want to host their data on some
+  other peoples infrastructure. Code for server is available at
+  `xmppserver
+  <https://code.google.com/p/kontalk/source/browse?repo=xmppserver>`_
+  repo.
+
+But there are some rough edges also but I'm sure this can be
+improved. But some points which I noticed are
+
+- Contact name disappears and only number is displayed. This is
+  something which happened with one of my contact so I'm not really
+  sure its a bug.
+- My friend noticed all his existing contacts suddenly vanished when
+  he refreshed contacts list. Again this is possible bugs and we are
+  considering reporting it upstream.
+- No group chats yet. I don't see a option to do that yet.
+- Attachment at the moment is restricted only to pictures (and video?
+  never tried) and uploading takes quite sometime and sometime hangs
+  forever.
+
+So I'm considering forwarding these to upstream and help them by
+providing enough data so these can be fixed.
+
+Technical Side
+==============
+
+All code for client server and protocol specs are available under
+GPL-v3 at the `Kontalk project <https://code.google.com/p/kontalk>`_
+site. Server software is written in Python and I guess uses XMPP (but
+I've not cross verified). Server also uses MySQL as database. These
+can be hosted on our own servers but possibly needs more than that
+like SMS sending options etc.
+
+Conclusion
+==========
+
+In my views *Kontalk* can become a great alternative for *Whatsapp*
+and co from Free Software world and I encourage every one to give it a
+try which will be the first step to help improving it.
+
+
+ Disclaimer: I'm not a privacy or security expert so whatever I shared
+ above are what I noticed and experts may see something different than
+ this. In any case I welcome comments and suggestions.