Here's the thing: firstly, There are people who don't know things you do. if you already knew about this, this post is not for you. It's for the people who were not aware of the dangers of using Microsoft's alternative.
Secondly: KDE is not a news agency. Their main mission is to inform, sometimes of stuff that is old, but persevering in time, and often their posts will not cover the headlines of the day. But that doesn't matter, because they are not a news agency.
Apart from screen mirroring and sms that everyone has mentioned the proprietary alternative undeniably has more features.
I don't know whether it is phone link or link to windows but one of them has a feature where your phone can be used as a webcam over WiFi. As someone who set up ip webcam on my phone and used obs virtual camera through most of the pandemic's online classes it's quite useful and I'd like to see features like that just work and are not relying on mjpeg and proprietary software on the phone end.
Their auto hotspot feature i haven't gotten to work and i think is useless but I'm thankful that i don't have to turn off kde connect when using samsung dex.
It requires you sign in to a Microsoft Account for it to TRY TO work
ftfy, i wanted to give it a shot one time and it literally didnt work, at all. all of Microsofts cross device features are a hot mess, like how you are supposed to be able to share the clipboard between logged in windows PCs, never could get that working either.
@kde@ulfi About the only thing missing from KDE Connect so far is support for file and screen sharing between Android and Windows. But that's mostly a software issue.
when it works. but it's so incredibly buggy, especially the desktop apps, and double especially the sms desktop app. holy shite is it terrible, and trying to get support is like trying to report a problem to google
I've explicitly told people not to send me text messages. The protocols are old and shit compared to other instant messengers. I'm on Google chat, telegram, signal, discord, slack, teams.... Find another app to talk to me with. I generally don't care which one, but I actively refuse to sign up for or into any Facebook/meta/Zuckerberg properties. If you use something I don't that isn't owned by the zuck, I'll probably sign up so we can keep touch, but for the love of God, not SMS.
Look, SMS was great when phones didn't have internet on them. It was a quick and easy way to send updates and chat while away from your cable/DSL/dialup (whatever you had at the time). Now that data is the primary use for a mobile phone plan, just use a more robust IM app.
I also have about six or seven phone numbers, which I give out to different groups of people for different reasons, plus a phone number on my mobile which nearly nobody knows. All my other lines (all VoIP lines) ring my cellphone number. Texting from my VoIP line is not fun, but it does work. Multimedia messages generally get lost and RCS is just encouraging the use of something that should have been killed off.
I'm partial to Telegram and signal since they mainly operate by phone numbers, but I can make "voice" and video calls over data rather than having to use my cellphone directly; which allows me to call from my computer, laptop, phone, tablet.... Literally any device that can run the program. So if my phone is lost/damaged/stolen/whatever (unavailable for any reason), I can still send messages to you and call if needed.
If everything is tied to your cellphone number, and that number becomes unavailable for any reason, well... Get fucked I guess. Your SIM stops working, your phone dies/breaks/gets stolen, your provider decides to fuck your account up or charge you a fortune for no good reason and cuts you off, your provider has a major malfunction and stops servicing clients in your area.... Literally anything goes wrong with the one system you use and all your SMS bullshit goes away. Stop. Using. SMS.
The banks are borderline criminally negligent because they exclusively use SMS for 2FA.
Simply, it is insufficient.
I get that they want the SMS information on file, and that's understandable, but give people another option at least, Holy hell. It gives my inner IT secops brain an aneurysm.
@MystikIncarnate@refalo Shouldn't RCS be a better (ah-through already outdated to begin with) standard to use ? With major phone constructors making it available ?
But you can also polish a turd, and that's also improvement. It's still a turd. Taking 1990's tech and overlaying rich text services onto it, is just polish for the same 90's tech that should have been left behind.
IMO, it's still worlds away from what you can get with a purely digital instant messaging system.
Also, it seems idiotic to me that nearly all of your communications can go up in smoke by accidentally dropping your phone into a wood chipper, and you'll be SOL until you replace it because everything is hairpinned through your cellphones SMS capability. Battery dead? Out of your providers service area? Ha ha, get fucked.
@Norodix@kde@kde it really is awesome! I use it daily. The last time was during a presentation at school , using my phone as a kind of remote for presentations is awesome
@kde #kdeconnect is really awesome. The only negative point is that it won't allow you to send multiple files simultaneously. We have to send each file separately. If possible, please provide it soon. @kde
KDE Connect mounts your phone as a network folder in Dolphin. You could copy multiple files and paste them into a folder in your phone through Dolpin as a workaround.
Does KDE connect actually work with SMS on Windows now? Last time I used it, I couldn't text people, only reply using the notification if they texted me and I happened to click on it quickly enough. Pretty useless.
@kde@kde I use KDE connect (always connected) and #LocalSend sometimes #plainapp depends on my need and mood. Does the job and reliable than link(I've used it, bad experience).
The only unique (I think?) thing about phone link is that it enables you to use your Android phone camera as a webcam, which can be handy if you don't have a quality webcam. I think its only in the beta version though.
I'm not sure if this is a Pixel feature or if its available across all of Android, but there is an option when you connect over USB to connect your phone as a webcam - but that is of course tethered instead of being wireless.
With phone link I have tested the beta version and you can use your phone camera wirelessly after initial setup. At least I was able to do this using a Redmi Note 9s without any obvious issues, apart from the privacy concerns noted elsewhere.
@Rustmilian
That says works on Linux, Windows and Mac. I'm after android to android. Screen casting from phone to tablet essentially. Am I missing some fine print?
KDE Connect and Phone Link only have partial feature overlap. I prefer KDE Connect but to claim that either is a proper alternative for the other is wrong, unless I missed that KDE Connect supports casting the phone's screen to PCs and launching phone apps from there.
There is scrcpy for that and you can launch arbitrary commands from KDE Connect too.
I'm fully aware of that but the scrcpy feature set is not integrated into KDE Conenct, therefore the features overlap to a degree but aren't the same. Phone Link allows to launch apps from Windows, KDE Connect doesn't offer the same. That's no diss or anything, just stating facts.