Toby Kurien

Electronics engineer. Programmer. Maker. Digital privacy advocate. Anti-consumerist. Views are my own. #za #southafrica

Website: https://tobykurien.com
Gemini: gemini://tobykurien.com

Last Notes

2026-07-16 09:43:16 CEST

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https://support.delta.chat/t/why-choose-delta-chat-over-xmpp/3549

2026-07-16 08:41:55 CEST

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#SimpleX came close, however it was let down by several factors (some may have changed since):
- is funded by Jack Dorsey of Twitter (big red flag),
- issues with group messages arriving out of order or not at all, and getting de-sync'd
- is written in Haskell so harder to contribute or write bots for
- is a memory hog on both mobile and desktop
- poor UX including onboarding (private routing? incognito mode?)
- poor multi-device support (must have mobile app running to use desktop)

2026-07-16 08:38:57 CEST

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I didn't choose #DeltaChat on a whim, I did a month long deep dive into various private messengers which involved reading whitepapers, watching conference talks, installing the apps on my low-end phone and participating in group chats. I looked into multi-device support, battery drain, data usage, difficulty of writing bots/apps, funding sources, and number of devs.

2026-07-15 15:11:22 CEST

Over the years I got friends and family to install #Telegram to chat to me, as I refuse to use #WhatsApp (ever since Facebook bought them). Telegram was always a stop-gap until the proper solution came along, and now #DeltaChat is it, especially since calls are now implemented. Also their Telegram accounts are getting hacked, so now begins the process of getting them to delete Telegram and install DeltaChat. Don't @ me about Signal. #privacy #messenger

2025-04-27 09:39:48 CEST

I've been working on porting #FreeBSD to the #PinePhonePro and happy to report that I am releasing a developer build that you can try out! If you are a FreeBSD developer, the image contains the kernel source and build tools for development on-device.
FreeBSD developer build for PinePhone Pro https://codeberg.org/Honeyguide/freebsd-pinephonepro
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2025-04-17 10:42:09 CEST

I got #X11 running on the #PinephonePro under #FreeBSD ! Shown here running my favourite #icewm window manager. Super exciting! Now to get the touch screen working 😬
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2025-02-13 10:15:50 CET

Episode 39 of the #postmarketOS #podcast is one of the best podcasts I have listened to in a long time! It's an interview with magdesign, a geek who sold all his projects and tools and belongings to cycle the world with his wife, and uses a #linux #mobile #phone as his main computing device. Funny, inspiring and full of amazing stories from the trip.
postmarketOS podcast #39 https://cast.postmarketos.org/episode/39-Interview-magdesign/
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2025-01-06 06:37:34 CET

Progress!! I managed to get the #PinePhonePro screen working on #FreeBSD 🎉 Long way to go yet, but this is a massive step forward for making FreeBSD usable on the device.
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