v0.18.0

Google Messages works again on Windows, including in the US.

Google Messages: sign in with your Google account

Google has removed QR-code pairing for Google Messages in the US. Your phone
now only offers to pair with a computer signed in to the same Google account,
and Google refuses that sign-in inside apps built like Jackdaw ("This browser
or app may not be secure").

On Windows, the Google Messages tab is now drawn by Microsoft's WebView2, the
engine behind Edge, which is part of Windows. Google accepts it, so:

1. Open the Google Messages tab and click Sign In.
2. Sign in with your Google account (password or Windows Hello).
3. Match the emoji on your phone.

It stays inside Jackdaw's window like any other tab, and is held to the same
rules:

• links open in your browser, and only when you click them;
• notifications go through Jackdaw (lock, Do Not Disturb, muting, previews);
• Jackdaw's shortcuts work from inside it;
• downloads go to your download folder;
• it is hidden while Jackdaw is locked or Settings is open.

Jackdaw never sees your Google password. Sign out in the tab's menu clears
the sign-in, and closing the tab deletes it.

On Linux there is no WebView2, so the tab is unchanged: QR pairing works where
Google still offers it, and where Google refuses, the tab now says so and
offers Open in browser.

Choose a tab's engine

If another service starts refusing to sign in inside Jackdaw, you can switch
that one tab to Edge's engine yourself: open the tab's menu and tick Draw
with Edge's engine (WebView2). Windows only, and not for Signal. In that mode
calls, the camera and the microphone don't work, and pop-up windows open in
your browser. Each engine keeps its own sign-in, so you sign in again after
switching. Switching back finds the sign-in the tab had before.

---

Unsigned build. Windows SmartScreen will warn on first run:
choose More info -> Run anyway.

Nothing else to install. The Signal tab drives a real
signal-cli process, and both it and the Java runtime it needs ship
inside the app -- so Signal works on a machine that has neither.
That is most of the download size.

Signal links this machine as a secondary device by QR. As with every
linked device, existing conversations do not arrive by linking: the
tab starts empty and fills as messages arrive, and contacts and groups
do sync. To bring older messages over, use Import history from a
phone in the Signal sidebar, which reads a backup made in Signal on
the phone.

Linux: install the .deb on Debian or Ubuntu -- it is the one
most people want, and unlike the AppImage it does not need libfuse2,
which Ubuntu has not shipped by default since 22.04. The rpm and
pacman packages are built on Ubuntu but target Fedora and Arch. The
AppImage suits anything else, given libfuse2.