While Quassel's protocol uses encryption, we've actually long considered adding support for running the Quassel protocol over websockets. With the upcoming move to Qt6 that should finally be possible without much trouble. That might solve your issues.

Personally I think it's silly that the definition of "internet" has shifted so much over the past few years that "it's not HTTP" is now seen as a downside. The internet has finally become the BTX/Telex-style server/client network it was designed to replace.

In fact, I'm fighting right now with my ISP (O2). They don't want to sell me a business connection. At the same time, they intentionally degrade service to prevent me from hosting services on my private connection. That includes forcefully closing PPPoE connections every 24h, assigning a random new IPv6 range every 24h (but with a valid_lft of 1.438 billion seconds), etc. But they do offer 10 consecutive phone numbers with 3x concurrent calling for private contracts.