
DoChat – a Dockerized WeChat PC Windows client for Linux - zixia
https://github.com/huan/docker-wechat
======
clubdorothe
I went back to China for a month in December 2019. It's crazy how Wechat
payment is now used everywhere.

Any shops in China (I believe 99% of them): in wechat, you have "wallet" that
generates QR code. Go to any shop, at the counter, show the QR code generated,
they have the machine (or wechat app) to scan it. done. Crazy efficient. Most
of the people there don't bring wallets anymore.

Most of the restaurants in Shenzhen now has a QR code. You scan it, order what
you want, and the food come. Don't need any interaction with the waiter, what
I felt a bit inconvenient since I like to ask what's good there.

Starbucks: When I've left home, ordered via the Starbucks "mini-app" inside
wechat, when I arrived in starbucks 5 minutes later, it was ready on the
counter.

Metro and Bus: get the metro/bus "mini-app" in wechat. you get . In their
receipt it is mentioned "blockchain" technology. I'm not too sure if they use
it, wondering if they really do use a blockchain behind to generate receipts.

Sending money to ANYONE: never been that easy to send money to anyone. Even if
you , show the QR code, and they'll . No more " I don't have cash on me "
excuse. There is also no hard limit on how much you can send. I remembered
paying all my rent via wechat when I lived there, about 3000 usd every 3
months.

~~~
dijit
Not sure if you know, but at least life in Sweden is pretty close to this.
Contactless payments are everywhere (Apple/Samsung/Android pay) and the app
“swish” works great for sending payments to people. Even some businesses have
a swish QR code displayed in lieu of taking cash payments.

~~~
adouzzy
The brilliant thing about wechat (or alipay) is that they don't have a close
affiliation to the banks. And therefore far less transaction fees.

~~~
stingraycharles
Do people have to pay transaction fees for using their bank cards in the US?
At least over here in .nl there are none of these fees (as a consumer) and we
have free NFC payments with your regular bank cards or Apple Pay etc.

~~~
dijit
EU caps the transaction fee of banks to like 1%. (which is paid by the
seller).

NL is a bit of a special cookie here, companies in NL don't like paying 1%
transaction fees, so most companies only accept MAESTRO. Because Maestro has
lower tx fees.

Every time I visit I can't pay for anything with my VISA or Mastercard. It's
rather frustrating.

~~~
stingraycharles
Yeah nobody uses credit cards because of these fees. However, I have never
heard of a 1% fee on regular bank card transactions. I know there used to be a
25 cents fee for consumers when they wanted to pay small amounts by cards, but
nowadays shops promote payments for this as well and it’s free everywhere. I
think it’s a few cents per transaction for the seller.

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throwaway1997
You need to be careful with this. I used something similar to this because I
don't like running WeChat on my phone and the account was almost instantly
banned and I lost my only communication channel with my family in mainland.

~~~
sho
Not to downplay your very valid concern, but "only"? I iMessage chat with my
mainland friends every single day. Hell, use email. There are plenty of ways
to communicate.

~~~
throwaway1997
Yes, there are plenty of ways to communicate with younger people. But I am
talking about, for instance, my grandpa. Many people in China (including my
family) aren't so "cosmopolitan" and only use WeChat

~~~
rejschaap
I know this probably sounds ridiculous to some, but you could also use the
phone to make a phone call.

~~~
ajiang
The overwhelming method of communication in China is WeChat, whether that is
in messaging or voice call. WeChat is the absolute most important
communication medium -- this is true for all age ranges.

You statement doesn't sound ridiculous, just uninformed and lacking awareness
of how people communicate in China.

~~~
ta999999171
Sounds like the Chinese people are uninformed.

Wonder why.

No different with Messenger in the US. Fools.

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mstaoru
Nice work! I can't make it switch DPI though, on HiDPI screen it looks
miniscule.

~~~
zixia
Now you can use a new environment variable to control your DPI when starting
DoChat. See: [https://github.com/huan/docker-
wechat#dochat_dpi](https://github.com/huan/docker-wechat#dochat_dpi)

I hope this can work with your HiDPI screen! :)

~~~
mstaoru
Works like a charm, thank you! Sorry I didn't have a moment to file a feature
request.

~~~
zixia
You are welcome.

------
upofadown
>curl -sL [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/huan/docker-
wechat/master/...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/huan/docker-
wechat/master/dochat.sh) | bash

This is a textbook example of something you should never ever do...

It gives some entity (usually a bunch or entities) you may not entirely trust
an effortless way to own your system. You would need to download the script
and carefully examine it to determine that it only does things you approve of.
The fact that others might of downloaded from the same place makes no
difference, every downloaded script could be different. Every script/binary
the original script downloads could be different and malicious.

Just don't...

~~~
Wowfunhappy
Is this different from running any other piece of software from the internet?

~~~
dx87
The only real difference is that there are ways the server can know if you are
downloading it for inspection, or if you're piping it straight to bash. A
hacked/untrusted site could serve up a malicious script file if it detects
that it's being sent straight into bash, and a clean script if you aren't.
With most things you download from the Internet, you download then run the
software if you want. Curl to bash is download and run with no confirmation
step in the middle.

~~~
gruez
> Curl to bash is download and run with no confirmation step in the middle.

Which is fine, because almost nobody is going to thoroughly inspect the code
anyways. The bash script looks pretty trivial, but it's running a privileged
docker container, which means it has full root access. Are you really going to
inspect every nook and cranny of the docker container for exploits?

------
longstation
This is a docker image of the WeChat Windows client running on Wine. I think
it would be reasonable for the author to at least put some credit to the Wine
projet in his project page. Instead, I have to check the Dockerfile to see how
it works.

Also, the screenshot in the project page shows people's conversation and name
(probably the author's), but it would again be nice if we could blur the
content so that people's privacy got respected (yes, you could argue that
since you are already running WeChat, you don't care about privacy).

------
burgerquizz
Is anyone would have a solution with receiving text message of my China Mobile
number on the web? Wechat ask me for 2FA (via text message) and I need to
change sim card or top-up my phone number (condition to make my sim working
outside china)

Context:

I'm away for several months (because of the coronavirus), and I struggle with
receiving text message when I need to make some payments via wechat. It will
be useful for bank transfer too

~~~
balola
[https://www.jegotrip.com/wyx/web/index.html](https://www.jegotrip.com/wyx/web/index.html)

------
tedk-42
Nice! I'll give it a try next time. I ran Wine and tried to use it before but
I never got it working nicely. Funnily enough there's a GitHub project which
allows you to make miniprograms on Linux and it works quite well.

------
noevil4
The best way is to keep away from wechat. They still can collect your message.
There is nothing you can hide.

------
johnmarcus
the novelty of volume mounting the /tmp/.X11-unix to get an actual ui is neat
in itself. nice work

~~~
swiley
Did they mount /dev/shm as well? Otherwise I’m kind of surprised that works.

~~~
zixia
Currently the project has to use the `--ipc=host` for running the docker.

Can we get rid of the `--ipc=host` by adding a `/dev/shm` mounting?

------
techntoke
Why not just run WeChat Linux client?

~~~
zelphirkalt
My guess is: You might want to contain the hazard. Who knows what stuff that
client is doing on your machine.

~~~
6c696e7578
I don't think docker is enough. I would want to put it in a VM of it's own,
and just for the sake of it, probably send all traffic out that VM via a VPN.

~~~
lvturner
Genuinely curious (and not just for you, but other posters in the thread) but
would you (do you?) do the same for the WhatsApp desktop app? (assuming you
use it)

~~~
rahuldottech
I don't know, what I will say is: most (tech) folks would (rightly, in my
opinion) trust Facebook/WhatsApp more than they would Tencent.

~~~
lvturner
What does "trust" mean in this context?

I expect Tencents government data sharing to be higher, but I also don't
expect Facebook's to be zero - I would also say I trust less Facebook's
handling of my data and it's exposure to third parties (see ref: Cambridge
Analytica) and let's not forget their experiments in changing people's moods
by manipulating what they saw on their timeline.

Not saying Tencent are free from sin, but it seems to be the breaches of trust
that Facebook has performed are more wide reaching...

