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Comment by mikeryan | Hacker News Reader

This just starts a death spiral though. Slacks next step is to start detecting the objecting code and banning users from using the web interface that are found using those tools.

There are a bunch of folks doing this already for ad blockers.

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Try using Slack in a browser on Android. It doesn't work. I find that really objectionable. They don't (last time I asked) distribute an APK. Instead they directed me to a pirate APK site, so I don't believe it's for security.

Sites like APKMirror aren't pirate sites, as they only host APKs that are free of charge. Also, if you're using Android without Play Services but still want to download Play Store apps, you can use the "Yalp Store" app from F-Droid.

I'm not making a moral judgement, maybe 'pirate' was the wrong word. It probably was something like APKMirror, and my point was the chain of trust is broken (you have decide to trust that site and its provenance model) vs an HTTPS download from the Slack domain.

Yalp Store is a great app! Incidentally, it violates the Play Store ToS (this is even written in their FAQ[0])

[0] https://github.com/yeriomin/YalpStore#faq

Try using Slack in a browser on Android. It doesn't work.

It does work on Firefox for Android, if you enable Request Desktop Site. It's not optimized for small screens, though.

I tried exactly that a few weeks ago and couldn't get to the messages interface.

Worksforme :)

I just checked with Firefox Focus on Android, and the 'launch' button is missing. Even if I go to the `/messages` URL I am redirected back to the account splash screen. That's my default browser, especially as I only wanted to log in for a minute to check on something on my personal device.

It does work with Firefox on Android (not Firefox Focus), if you check 'desktop mode'. Weird that you should have to fake the user-agent string to access it.

What browser are you using and are you upto date. Many sites don't work on mobile chrome.

I find it hard to believe they would redirect you to a pirate site. Are you sure it was a pirate site and not just a third party site hosting apks

Firefox on Android. Per my other comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17874566 it was a mirror site, though I didn't save the chat log so I can't remember which one.

Is there any company that have had positive results using such tactics?

It seems anyone who tries gets such a backlash and end up losing more than what they gain, plus they expose themselves to have false positives (e.g. one image didn't load due connection issues but slack falsely assumed it was an extension blocking it)

Oh no, we might have to use one of the thousands of other chat apps with identical or superior functionality but inferior marketing teams.

People who work at companies that use slack don’t have a choice.

You kinda do. What do you think we did before slack? Change can happen the same way; convince the people with power to make the decision to use something else. There's always some resistance because you have to get many people to change - start with your team, convince others to join another service.

We use slack and I still have to use 4+ other forms of communication at work daily (jira, confluence, outlook, github). Sometimes we use video chat services and conference calls as well. There are days where very little happens via slack, and I'm becoming increasingly convinced that anything beyond pinging for simple things (hey look at this jira ticket, have you done this?) is wasted effort.

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