After testing Pasta for Spotify for a few days, it works but it’s not as good as the official app.
I can’t do play/pause with my bluetooth headset, I can’t send music to my amplifier at home and it crashes sometimes. It’s totally usable but I prefer the official app because I use these functions.
So I installed Shelter and Whatsapp, Instagram and Spotify into it. It works but there is only one problem : I can’t have the /e/ cloud contacts in the shelter for whatsapp (it’s very inconvenient to have only the phone numbers). Any ideas, solutions ?
Whatsapp is copying your whole adressbook to his own server. So for your pivacy it’s a goid choise to have only the phone numbers in your adressbook in shelter.
But as b3pio has written, check my howto for more information
I used this howto to install and setup shelter. For the contacts, it is explained how to import a contact file in shelter, but not how to synchronize the /e/ cloud contacts in shelter. If I try to connect my /e/ account in shelter (is it a bad idea ?), it goes in the settings outside shelter…
No that’s not a special address book but I use the contacts at like 90% for WhatApp, 5% for Threema and 5% for others app. And (almost) all of my contacts only have WhatsApp to communicate. I know it’s not ideal but it’s very usefull to me to have contacts in WA. I think, the danger is more the messages you send because the contacts aren’t secret. they can be found in a telephone directory.
So thank you very much for your answers, even in I didn’t find any good clients for those apps, I have now a Shelter installed and it’s better than nothing.
For spotify you can make an icon to the web app and use it like it was a dowloaded app when online, but not offline (so you cant download musics and podcasts).
For whatsapp I think the most promising alternative is the matrix/riot whatsapp bridge.
Instagram is the worst. The solution I found is to use it in linux desktop, try “Instagraph” (you can install it using snap). Its buged to me, but this way you can even use the “direct”, the messenger of instagram.
If you want the best experience with this services and dosnt want to download proprietary apps in your main device, the altenative maybe is to have an old device just to proprietary apps.
(You can add “?force=pwa&source=mlpwa" behind the normal url. When add to homescreen it will open like an app. I’m using it for a lot of web sites, inkl. this site of twitter)
and how about you @quadcopterman …? check it out as a replacement for whatsapp! With the whatsapp bridge you should be able to be in touch with your friends who use it
Matrix is a open source social media server which you can host by your own. It could used as messenger or for chat rooms. The whatsapp bridge you can use the chat with Whatapp users without whatsapp installed
Sorry to revive an rather old thread. I seen someone mentioned VLC above. ME TOO! I use Audfree music converter for Mac and get Spotify on VLC for offline listening. Meanwhile I can organize my other videos in this media player as well. Such a powerful open source client.
Rather than using the open source clients to make the work, I prefer use stable professional program. I had ever used the DRmare Spotify Music Converter to help me listen to Spotify music on the go on other devices with ease. Nice tool I got ever.