[gavinsyancey]

I currently have WhatsApp installed without access to my address book (on Android). It doesn't require it, but it makes it harder to use and locks out some features. Among other things, you can't start a new group / direct message, but you can participate / reply if someone else messages you first.

[bilkow]

I use an app called "Open In WhatsApp" which lets you paste / write a phone number and it will open a conversation with that number (by using android intents). You can also share contacts from the Phone app to this App, so you don't have to copy/paste manually.

https://github.com/SubhamTyagi/openinwa (I recommend downloading from f-droid)

[paulmd]

If only there were a strong, centralized app store that could perform app review and prevent applications from degrading user experience beyond the extent actually necessary without that permission.

Good thing the EU just outlawed that model and forced everyone to support "third party app stores" that are thinly-veiled shells for Facebook/Google/etc to bypass that review process.

the "I wanna sideload" crowd are nothing more than allies of convenience for FB and others. Facebook was already experimenting with getting users to manually sideload the full-telemetry build and now they can just say "oops not supported on safari, install the native app".

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-google-...