Whisperfish
Whisperfish is an advanced but unofficial Signal client. Whisperfish should be in a usable state for many users, but is still considered beta quality software; make sure to always have the latest version! Also, check our Wiki and feel free to contribute to it! Currently, mimimum supported SailfishOS version is 3.4. We intend to keep compatibility with 3.3 for as long as humanly possible.
Do not ever contact the Signal developers about a Whisperfish issue. You will annoy them and make them dislike us. Contact us instead (see below).
What to expect
If you had a pre-existing, working 0.5 installation with default settings, migration should be a breeze. Notably not working:
- Creating groups, inviting new members, deleting members (planned for later)
- Message quotes (the UI element is there, but the implementation currently lacks)
- Many other UI features are just stubs at this point.
- Whisperfish as secondary device, if you register Whisperfish, your previous registration (Android/iOS) gets disabled.
SailfishOS platform version notes and known issues
The intention is to keep as many versions of SailfishOS supported for as long as possible. Some versions show bugs specific to that SailfishOS version. If it is not possible to upgrade to the version mentioned below, you can use the workarounds mentioned here.
Currently highest tested SailfishOS version: SailfishOS 4.3
SailfishOS 3.x series
Bugs present in the Sailfish 3.x series
In principle, Whisperfish works on SailfishOS 3.3, except for registration.
- Registration on SailfishOS 3.3. As a workaround, register on another device, and move over your data.
Installation on SailfishOS 3.x
Since the release of SailfishOS 4.3, there has been an ABI-incompatible change between 3.x and 4.x. Whisperfish is now built separately for 3.x and 4.x, and both packages are available in this repository. If Storeman cannot figure out the correct version for your 3.x installation, you can install Whisperfish via the commandline (after adding the repository):
zypper install harbour-whisperfish-0.6.0.beta.7-0.sf3.armv7hl
SailfishOS 4.x series
The Sailfish 4.x series introduced a few issues, and possibly new features; notably:
- Registration on SailfishOS 4.0.1.45 EA. The rendering of a reCAPTCHA does not work in any of the available webviews. This will be fixed in the next SailfishOS release. Meanwhile, use this patch which will be offered to you as an update after enabling this OpenRepos repository. Install the update and then register. Do not install it on any other version than SailfishOS 4.0, there's no need. If it still doesn't work, run zypper ref ; zypper dup -r openrepos-rubdos on the command line as root and accept the update of the three webview packages.
- Especially SailfishOS 4.2 required a major change in the event loop structure. Make sure you use Whisperfish 0.6.0-beta.6 or later.
- Registration is broken since SailfishOS 4.2 (SailfishOS 4.3 is as such also affected), again due to the reCAPTCHA rendering. We hope this will be magically fixed in SailfishOS 4.4.
Contribute: get in touch, report issues and translate!
If the app behaves strangely or slow (I have a strong dislike for slow software) to you, please get in touch on Matrix #whisperfish:rubdos.be or on Libera.Chat #whisperfish, file an issue, or send an email to whisperfish [at] rubdos [dot] be, or post on the SailfishOS Forum topic. If it works well already, alse let me know! That's good for morale.
Development and progress
Follow the progress of the rework in the 0.6 milestone on Gitlab. If you are interested in contributing, contact me on Gitlab. If you want to discuss development, join the discussion on Matrix #whisperfish:rubdos.be.
There are nightly builds (in form of RPM) available on Gitlab. Nighlies eat batteries for breakfast, break up with your girlfriend, and use magic to turn phones into bricks. If you want to use them, please come and chat on Matrix or IRC. Whenever there is a version that makes sense, and has a low probability of tearing apart the very fabric of the universe, it'll be here on Open Repos!
Donations
Thanks for the support, feel free to buy me a coffee! Liberapay allows for donations via PayPal or credit card. While I do appreciate the donations, please consider matching your donation towards Signal themselves. They need it more than I do, now more than ever! Also consider donating to Weblate, because they provide their translation hosting service to us and many other SailfishOS applications at no cost!
License note
The original Whisperfish 0.5.0, by Andrew, was released under GPLv3+. Since we are using the upstream code of Signal themselves, partly licensed under AGPLv3+, the whole of Whisperfish 0.6.0 falls under AGPLv3+.
Screenshots:
Category:
Application versions:
Changelog:
Whisperfish 1.0.0 (planned)
The milestone on GitLab for this release (th
Many big plans!
- The Big Refactoring, including cleanup of spaghetti, building with the official SDK, ...
- Registration as a secondary device, if you prefer running the official Android Signal app as main device.
Whisperfish 0.6.0 (planned)
The milestone on Gitlab for this release
Features
- Feature parity with, and modernized version of Whisperfish 0.5.
Whisperfish 0.6.0-beta.9
Fixes for stuff in beta.8, mostly.
Changes
- Fix for emoji reaction parsing that could cause a crash
- Fix a crash when manually refreshing a group
- Fix config file location after the Sailjail implementation
- Fix creating debug symbols in CI and offline, run LTO on CI. Debug symbols are now hosted alongside nightl RPMs (and probably also here, let's see how the CD copes)
- Add new config paths to MyBackup paths
Whisperfish 0.6.0-beta.8
A bunch of quality-of-life updates, and SailfishOS 4.4 compatibilty! Direc85 did a lot of work in this release. If you consider donating to me for Whisperfish, please also consider buying direc85 a coffee.
Changes
- Display reaction emoji correctly
- Compute and show safety numbers.
- Collection of small UI improvements, thanks to direc85
- Upscale colored images
- Use the largest size icon everywhere (crispier UI)
- Install all the harbour-whisperfish.png icon sizes (launcher icon always looks the best)
- Disable click-message-to-reply signal until implemented (less accidental visual noise)
- Increase the cover page icon size a bit (looks a little less empty)
- Remove notification on Whisperfish when message has been read on a linked device, thanks to direc85
- Show your own phone number as "Note to Self", with a note icon, thanks to direc85.
- Implement "Reset secure session"
- Lots of background and backend updates for a bit more stability
- Implement muting a session, thanks to direc85
- Implement SailJail in SailfishOS 4.4
- Implement showing emoji reactions
- Implement a captcha workaround
Whisperfish 0.6.0-beta.7
Edition "omg OpenSSL".
Changes
- Device linking scheme sgnl:// is now supported, allows to link secondary devices again.
- Restructured storage crypto code (thanks to Mutluler!)
- Begin of the Basque translation (thanks to Sergio Varela)
- Fix notification icon and adds multiple resolution icons (thanks to Matti Viljanen/direc85)
- Start using the SailfishOS SDK instead of the hacked-together RubdosSDK. This paves the path to supporting multiple other operating systems and possibly a Linux desktop client. Proof of concept Ubuntu-Touch version exists (thanks Tim and the Axolotl hackers!)
- Separate builds for SailfishOS 3-series and SailfishOS 4-series available on OpenRepos, which solves the incompatibility with SailfishOS 4.3's lack of OpenSSL 1.0. Storeman/zypper should automatically select the correct version for your operating system.
Whisperfish 0.6.0-beta.6
Edition "invert the event loop". Write-up here: https://github.com/woboq/qmetaobject-rs/issues/102#issuecomment-919798690
Features
- GUI performance improvement (thanks to the event loop inversion)
- Load time improvement through more database indexing (thanks to Matti Viljanen)
- Add "refresh group" option for stubborn groups.
Fixes
- SailfishOS 4.2 compatibility (thanks to the event loop inversion)
- Order messages by date instead of by id (thanks to Matti Viljanen)
- Fix message and session deletion (thanks to Matti Viljanen
- Fix notifications on SailfishOS 3.x (thanks to Matti Viljanen)
Whisperfish 0.6.0-beta.5
Fixes
- Reception of messages with attachments, but without accompanying text
- Show contact/payment/deletion/group call update messages as "unimplemented" instead of empty.
Whisperfish 0.6.0-beta.4
Features
- MyBackup compatibility, thanks to Nathan!
- Display group changes and message timer changes in chat.
Fixes
- Fix usage of configured attachment path
- Fix the many empty messages sent by Android and iOS clients for profile key pushes
Translations
- Add Lithuanian, by Gediminas Murauskas
- Updates to Greek, French, Turkish, Dutch, and Vlaams. Thanks to all contributors!
Whisperfish 0.6.0-beta.3
Emergency release for the HTTP-500 "nothing can be send" bug and the BadKeyType bug.
Fixes
- Identity key read errors
- Update local storage format quirks for future Signal versions
Whisperfish 0.6.0-beta.2 (yanked)
Emergency release for the HTTP-500 "nothing can be send" bug.
Features
- My Backup compatibility (thanks to Nthn).
- You need to reset all sessions manually after a reset, if they had been touched after taking the backup.
- Share to Whisperfish functionality (thanks to Gabriel Margiani)
- Enabling on SailfishOS 4.0 needs some additional work.
- Database VACUUM option in settings (thanks to Igor Makarov)
- Initial work to decouple Whisperfish from SailfishOS (thanks to Be)
- Migrated to libsignal-client.
Fixes
- The infamous "I can't send anything anymore" HTTP-500 issue
- Crash on certain session resets
Whisperfish 0.6.0-beta.1
The milestone on Gitlab for this release
Features
- GroupsV2 compatibility
- Notably, you can only be added to a group, invites are not yet implemented.
- Complete migration to UUID-based sessions.
- Device linking (Signal Desktop)
- Register without storage password, thanks to Gabriel Margiani!
- Slight cleanup of the registration page, thanks to ntninja!
- HUGE overhaul of the UI, thanks to Mirian Margiani! You won't recognise Whisperfish anymore. Pinky promise.
- Setup for all the new Signal features: quotes, multiple attachments, stickers/gifs, ...
- New video and image pages.
- Linking/saving contacts from the UI
- Emoji pack support, check our wiki for installation.
- Clean-up of the group view page, in part thanks to Thomas Michel!
- Simple daemon functionality, thanks to Gabriel Margiani!
- Link-time optimization: 20% smaller RPMs and executables
- Option to minimize notifications, useful in e.g. busy groups, thanks to flypig.
Translations
- We have a Weblate account now!
- Portuguese translation, thanks to Yield and Antonio Maretzek!
- Czech translation, thanks to PawelSpoon!
- Turkish translation, thanks to Oğuz Ersen!
- Nowegian translation, thanks to Allan Nordhøy!
- Many, many, many, MANY cleanup operations on Dutch, German, French, and Spanish, thanks to Nathan, Dryo, and J. Lavoie!
Fixes
- More stable reconnection management. Flight mode and network changes should now work as expected.
- Access contacts through the Nemo QML interface instead of raw contacts.db. This interface will probably be more stable than the raw SQLite, and keeps compatibility across 3.x and 4.x.
- A "privileged file" allows us to read contact lists again on SailfishOS 4.0
- More or less fixed video playback
- Fix lingering notifications on session activation, thanks to flypig!
- JPEG rotation is now correct in Whisperfish (but not yet on Android), thanks to Mirian Margiani.
- Image zoom is more intuitive for images that are almost the same size as the screen, thanks to Mirian Margiani.
Whisperfish 0.6.0-alpha.9
Fixes startup on upgraded contact database.
Whisperfish 0.6.0-alpha.8
Features/fixes
- Captcha filing at registration time, thanks to Gabriel Margiani! Seriously, this was a huge undertaking.
- Sailfish 4.0.45 compatibility, except for registration (#229, bug report on forum).
Whisperfish 0.6.0-alpha.7
Features
- Reactions show up as "R@number:EMOJI", instead of empty balloons. Thanks to Markus for this!
- Multiple password attempts! Thanks to Igon Makarov
Fixes
- Create the correct attachments download directory, should fix attachments downloading for new installations.
- Some phone numbers (notably with dashes, parantheses or dots) did not show up with names.
- New members in a group show up, group renames come through.
- Group members show up as names, not phone numbers, thanks to Thomas Michel.
- Fixes copying message to clipboard, thanks to Thomas Michel.
- Auto-focus password field, thanks to Markus.
Whisperfish 0.6.0-alpha.6
Features
- The conversation page got a complete overhaul in design. I hope you like it.
Fixes
- Fix a race condition during registration, which may corrupt the settings file.
- Sent messages update the session view
- More names show up correctly in session view (please file an issue if it's still buggy!)
- Session sections
- Sent attachments show up as thumbnails
- Some translation work in the (currently disfunctional) Device List page
Whisperfish 0.6.0-alpha.5
Features
- Sending new messages to a single contact, clean-up of contact selection
- Started French language translation
- French translation finished (thanks Thibaut Vandervelden)
- Spanish translation got a lot of clean-up (thanks carlosgonz)
- Settings page looks a lot nicer
Fixes
- Settings page revamped, looks a lot cleaner
- attachment_dir was not set on settings init.
- Contact DB fix for non-nemo users (new 3.4 installs, alternate users)
- Show build ID in about screen
- Notifications with vibration and sound
Whisperfish 0.6.0-alpha.4
The milestone on Gitlab for this release
Features:
- Sending attachments
- Registration via voice and text
- Connection status feedback
- Aarch64 version
Under the hood:
- Partial support new UUID-based identifiers
- Initial tooling for future database migrations
- Pre-key refreshing
- Attachment failure log (set attachment_log=true in harbour-whisperfish.conf)
Whisperfish 0.6.0-alpha.3
The milestone on Gitlab for this release
- Sending direct and group messages, notably no attachments.
Whisperfish 0.6.0-alpha.2
The milestone on Gitlab for this release
- Receiving messages and their attachments
Whisperfish 0.6.0-alpha.1
The milestone on Gitlab for this release
- Move the base code over to Rust, for easy linking to libsignal-protocol-c.
I made a write-up about Qt, Sailfish and event loops on my blog. - Implement most of the GUI and bind to the database (thank you, Markus, for all the work!)
- GUI performance improvement
Comments
rubdos
Mon, 2021/02/08 - 15:49
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We're currently working on fixing this, as currently written in the description. Getting it done is a bit more difficult than expected. :-(
damoleon
Thu, 2021/02/04 - 22:59
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Edit : sorry I missed the part above where it says it's planned for beta1 :) I'll wait, thanks :)
Thanks again for this app. Is linking the device with signal desktop implemented yet ?
when I copy the url to link the device and click on "add". It just comes back to the "linked devices" page. But the device isn't linked even after "refresh".
Keep up the nice and hard work :)
rubdos
Fri, 2021/02/05 - 00:27
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Thanks! Beta 1 will be glorious! :-)
jlaitine
Wed, 2021/02/03 - 17:57
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Thanks for this app and for the quick response, I'm looking forward to try out the alpha.8! And sorry for the formatting of the log, it didn't come out quite right when I tried to copy-paste directly on the phone...
rubdos
Wed, 2021/02/03 - 19:22
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No worries about the formatting. Your log definitely confirmed that there's a fundamental problem, it's been very helpful :-)
jlaitine
Wed, 2021/02/03 - 01:49
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Hi, I tried to take this into use, but registration fails. I tried 0.6.0-alpha7 and 0.6.0-beta1 nightly
here is some log:
Sailfish OS 3.4.0.24 (Pallas-Yllästunturi)'---[nemo@XperiaXA2-DualSIM ~]$ harbour-wharbour-whisperfish harbour-wifianalyser[nemo@XperiaXA2-DualSIM ~]$ harbour-wharbour-whisperfish harbour-wifianalyser[nemo@XperiaXA2-DualSIM ~]$ harbour-whisperfish[D] unknown:0 - Using Wayland-EGL[W] unknown:42 - file:///usr/share/harbour-whisperfish/qml/cover/UnreadLabel.qml:42:15: Unable to assign [undefined] to QString[D] onTriggered:184 - Page status: 2[W] unknown:157 - file:///usr/lib/qt5/qml/Sailfish/Silica/DialogHeader.qml:157: TypeError: Cannot read property 'backIndicatorDown' of null[W] unknown:152 - file:///usr/lib/qt5/qml/Sailfish/Silica/DialogHeader.qml:152: TypeError: Cannot read property 'backIndicatorDown' of null[W] unknown:212 - file:///usr/lib/qt5/qml/Sailfish/Silica/DialogHeader.qml:212: TypeError: Cannot read property 'forwardIndicatorDown' of null[W] unknown:207 - file:///usr/lib/qt5/qml/Sailfish/Silica/DialogHeader.qml:207: TypeError: Cannot read property 'forwardIndicatorDown' of null[D] onTriggered:156 - Page status: 2[2021-02-02T22:38:47Z ERROR harbour_whisperfish::worker::setup]Error in registration: Unexpected response: HTTP 402[D] :42 - Failed to setup Signal client
rubdos
Wed, 2021/02/03 - 10:54
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Hi! It looks like since yesterday, second of Februari, we see hightened requests from Signal for Whisperfish users to file a captcha. Some developers (including me) have gotten them too.
I will prioritise the captcha implementation now. There doesn't seem to be a viable workaround. I'll make a note in the description, and break out an alpha.8 soon™.
mz_i_norge
Tue, 2021/02/02 - 00:44
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Thx for your fast reply. Nice to hear that you have all my questions on your desk. I will go on using Wf on my Jolla C and for the rest I will do like Wonko, wait for the next release. :-)
mz_i_norge
Mon, 2021/02/01 - 18:03
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Thx for the nativ client for Signal. Good job and I hope for ongoing development. There are to things to say. It took me 3 days to find the button for sending pictures. (For others: it's not a separate button, you have to press and hold the send-button and the option for sending files will appear ;).) Please insert a description for this function on the about-page.
I don't know how to get an overview about my contacts using Signal/ Whisperfish. When I open a new communication all my contacts appear in the list (and I know that only a few of them have Signal). One more thing, can you please make a checkbox in the settings to start without password?
Otherwise brilliant and keep up the good work.
rubdos
Mon, 2021/02/01 - 20:04
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Wrt. attachments, I'll do you one better: I yesterday merged a new UI with a separate attachment button. Will be a lot clearer this way. Will be in the next release!
Contact filtering is scheduled, but needs some work still.
Starting without password is the same story, but the first steps have been made this week: the next release will allow to register anew without setting a password. Disabling the password is quite involved.
Wonko
Mon, 2021/02/01 - 13:13
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Thank you very much for Whiperfish. I really love the idea of a native SF Signal agent. I recently ran into problems with a friend also using Whisperfish. During a conversation we changed clients and had to reset the crypto. We could not find any control in Whisperfish to do that and so I had to use the Droid client so restart the conversation. Did we miss something or is this feature not implemented yet?
rubdos
Mon, 2021/02/01 - 14:11
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I have implemented this yesterday, it will be included in the next release. If you can't wait, you can download the master branch RPM.
Wonko
Mon, 2021/02/01 - 18:58
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Thank you very much. I will wait for the next release. And I really appreciate your work.
chris_bavaria
Fri, 2021/01/22 - 12:18
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Please post your PayPal adress for donation! Thx
rubdos
Fri, 2021/01/22 - 12:43
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Hi! I added a PayPal account to my Liberapay page. Let me know if that worked. Please also consider matching your donation towards Signal, or let me know, and I can split the donation.
rossholmes
Sat, 2021/01/16 - 14:47
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Hmm. Suddenly started to work :) Ignore the above please. And thank you again!
rubdos
Sat, 2021/01/16 - 23:28
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Signal's servers were down! Things seem to be better now :-)
I've taken notes to see how we can respond to this with a message, at https://gitlab.com/rubdos/whisperfish/-/issues/175.
rossholmes
Sat, 2021/01/16 - 11:03
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Thanks very much for the app! I've installed it and went through the registration process. I am able to receive messages, but the ones I send doesn't reach my contact. What am I missing? Cheers
amaretzek
Thu, 2021/01/14 - 00:16
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Still in need for a citation for "The people behind Signal have been quite outspoken against third-party clients in the past"? https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issuecomment-217211165 (may 2016)
rubdos
Sat, 2021/01/16 - 23:27
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Added!
damoleon
Thu, 2021/01/14 - 00:11
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Hi, I’ve installed alpha7 successfully. Thanks a lot !
My contacts cannot add me to a group though.
They get a message like “the person you added doesn’t accept “new groups” and must update signal”
Is there something i can do or just wait for this to be implemented ?
Thank you in advance
rubdos
Thu, 2021/01/14 - 00:36
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Looks like they now enforce GroupsV2, so I'll move that up the priority list.
pvcn
Wed, 2021/01/13 - 13:03
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Thanks for the update! Do i understand the release notes right that opening attachments now works, but only if i deinstall whisperfish and reinstall it again?
rubdos
Wed, 2021/01/13 - 14:04
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There should be no need to reinstall. If it still does not work, please get in touch, because it should just work™.
huggymann
Mon, 2021/01/11 - 23:10
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Hello
I am one of the Installations where attachment (image in this case) is not working. By tapping on the attachment a new empty page is coming. Dont know what should have been coming instead. If i click on open the app crashes and i go back to sailfish app overview immediately.
I wrote also on freenode. But in browser . Is there a sailfish app?
rubdos
Tue, 2021/01/12 - 17:47
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Figured this out over chat, and meanwhile, alpha.7 should've solved this for everyone else!
miglincit
Fri, 2021/01/08 - 10:08
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I just installed Whisperfish but there is no registration porocess ?!
rubdos
Fri, 2021/01/08 - 11:16
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Hi! Could you check that you have the latest version, alpha.6? Have you had a previous installation of Whisperfish? What do you see instead of the registration? Thanks for your feedback, much appreciated! If you want to have a quicker response, have a chat on Matrix or IRC, e.g. via https://webchat.freenode.net/#whisperfish .
delocoyo
Wed, 2020/12/30 - 03:47
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I see. Maybe you can get help from the community? You have done a great job in a short time. Keep rocking rubdos
rubdos
Wed, 2020/12/30 - 13:03
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Thanks! Yes, I have a lot of help, especially half a year ago. Currently, the most import aspect is testing and getting things a lot more stable :-)
We're having a small chatting community on Matrix and Freenode, feel free to come say hi!
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