☼
⌃
☰

legacy.fun

Table of Contents

Introduction

This is an approach/guide to connect various modern web services to legacy devices that have been called obsolete for several years.

Requirements

while this guide is focused on legacy hardware, the primary focus is on android 4.3 or higher. nonetheless, there is no magic behind these guides and services. what we are trying to do from the technical side (for nontechnical users) is to translate how modern services communicate (called protocols) to our supported protocols. sadly, most modern services are still possible to use on older hardware. it may not look as fancy as on modern applications, but most of the essential functionalities actually work!

For whom is this guide?

here is a quick list of when you should approach this guide and the offered services:

  • experience some old but obscure devices
  • try a more digitally minimal life without the need to buy a new so-called “dumb phone” because you already own an old device
  • your main device broke, and you want to set up a temporary device
  • enhance your privacy
  • experience the web in a different way

For whom is this guide not!

  • to replace your main device
  • spam, abuse
  • to take advantage in any way that could harm others

While we try our best to keep these guides and services up to date, there is always a chance of:

  • services getting deprecated and/or obsolete
  • services getting shut down
  • takedown notices
  • these services having downtime
  • unknown exploits being abused
  • we could get hacked, as we operate on the world wide web and not all people are as friendly as you are :)

What we emphasize

We want to combine various good things such as:

Privacy

our services and guides take the best approach to minimize as many of your actions as we can. nonetheless, we cannot guarantee this by the operators we are relaying to. if concerns are there, they will be noted, of course.

Security

we will take the best approach to secure our service against attackers by storing as little information as possible. the main goal, of course, is that only you have access to your data. if data needs to be transferred, then it will be through a secure and encrypted connection.

Applications

XMPP

XMPP is one of the oldest and most widespread internet messaging protocols. Many messengers, like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, used the XMPP platform as a foundation to offer their communication services. XMPP is an open-source protocol for exchanging messages. Unfortunately, the largest messaging services made communication with their own networks more difficult.

What does that mean exactly? It was possible to exchange messages with WhatsApp users without having to actively use the WhatsApp application itself.

Opportunities

It’s possible to continue using your favorite messaging platforms on your legacy devices!

However, this naturally comes with risks, which you can read about again here. For whom is this guide not!

Requirements

  • Our own XMPP Server

    I am not going to explain how to set up your own XMPP server, as others have already done this much better than I have. Nonetheless, here are two great resources on how to set up your own XMPP server:

    I have set up XMPP through ejabberd. If you do not have the required resources or knowledge to set up your own XMPP server, you are welcome to use mine! Please send an email to this email with a brief introduction about yourself and your username. I will respond as soon as possible.

    I have already set up a gateway for WhatsApp, so you can connect to it.

  • slidge.im

    Behind all the magic is slidge.im.

    Slidge is a software library, built in Python, for creating gateways from XMPP to other networks, such as Telegram, Discord, or WhatsApp. It allows for precise and feature-complete coverage of features in both networks, and makes it easy to bring all your contacts under the single umbrella of XMPP!

    It includes a very detailed tutorial on how to set up every gateway. If there is more interest in other gateways besides WhatsApp, I am more than pleased to set them up :).

  • conversations.im

    Sadly, there are not many XMPP clients that still work with Android 4.3 and lower. Still, I found an old version of Conversations.im that can be used to connect to most XMPP servers. download

  • How to use a gateway

    For this example, we will use my WhatsApp gateway. After logging into your desired XMPP server, you need to contact the gateway (whatsapp.cashmere.rs). After contacting the gateway, you may log in through a QR code (currently broken) or through a code that you can enter in your WhatsApp application.

    After logging in, please give the server and the gateway some time to sync everything. Message histories from previous chats do not get synced, only the messages you receive after logging in.

    • Notes
      • Message Retention

        Messages are archived for 7 days for syncing purposes, and if your client is offline, you are still able to receive messages. Every 7 days, all archived messages are deleted automatically.

      • Performance

        The performance is quite good. As XMPP itself is a very lightweight protocol, I do not notice any performance drop.

      • Receiving and sending attachments

        Receiving messages works partially. They do not load in the conversations.im application, but you can copy the message URL and open it in your normal browser. Sending messages does not work, sadly. I need to dig more into this problem. I assume it’s some sort of SSL error that could be fixed in the near future :).