I hate Reddit, but it's one place I went to, to lurk & try to learn #newbie stuff. YouTube is good, too. That's where I found Primal (and Jack Spirko talking about nostr) 

 Spirko is the one who prodded me to start learning about btc, and then start buying.  Been following him for a long time. 

 He's the only hippie duck farmer redneck who can switch from Joisey accent to southern-ish Texas drawl 😄  

 it's-a-meeee https://media.giphy.com/media/xBpdA8V62NNb6pkHBA/giphy.gif?cid=ecf05e4725zy6dxqfdynwkgdcsp2yagnk0m93mhqi7bmy045&ep=v1_gifs_search&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g 

 Bobbi??? No fucking shit. 👀👀👀 

 Hola!  

 lmao 😅 
legit af

Hey your formerly favorite annoying person from (insert place) is here! 

 Yup. 

I still use WoS because *<"( the SEC and dumb regulations. It's not hard to sideload and is actually easier, still, than any other option I've come across. 

Minibits is nearly there, and gives you a bunch of additional functionality with ecash, though, I'm not sure I'm a fan of mints there are use cases where it's actually a good thing. 

I... Just don't like primal so far. But supposedly it's the easy button since it's supposedly all built in, except it doesn't work often enough.

Nostr isn't for those who just want stuff to work, yet. It may never be at the same level as a platform, but that's probably because it's going to be iterated out so fast that regular really isn't a thing.  

 I never expected nostr to "just work" because it took me more than a year to get on board with it - I heard of it almost two years ago and I knew there was *some* learning curve, but I'm STILL effing learning almost 3 weeks later? That's a PITA. 

I'll look at Minibits. 

What's your client of choice then, if you're not into Primal? I'm on desktop most of the time, Graphene OS on Android only when I want to zap something because I hate every signer extension I've tried so far on desktop. Every single one has been crap. Amber is superior on mobile.  

 It took me a few months and I still don't get all of it. 🤷‍♂️

Amethyst with amber over tor is what I use mostly. I don't like most of the web clients.  

 As I've said before, Amethyst is full of wss:// spam even though that's where I put the phrase in to mute it 🤣 

I only use it to edit or delete notes. 

 I'm using my phone less and less these days for anything except calls. Ever since my eye surgery I can't really read it, anyway. I also don't like the way it affects my posture to use it (hurts the neck). And even after all my eye surgeries are complete, I probably won't bother with it much since I'd need readers to use it and I don't envision wanting to put glasses on every time just to read my phone. Now, using glasses for my PC monitor is another thing, that never bothered me. But I haven't needed to pick up glasses at all since my first eye surgery. Gosh, I sound so old. I'm officially an oldster. #oldstr 😅  

 I've taken care of the spam with relays, so that doesn't bother me much. 

I get not wanting to use your phone so much. I'm getting to that point, philosophically but not practically. Yet. 

One of the opensats projects is a desktop singer. Hopefully that will come to fruition and be useful in a short amount of time.  

 I updated my relays to the 15 listed by a "highly recommended" by a top user. Remember? 

So much for that. How'd you get so lucky? You get NO reply guys reacting to your stuff when you open Amethyst? Pfft 

I have tried 3 desktop browser signers. All of them trash. I would ask them to "remember this action & do not ask again" on certain things, and it would act like I wasn't signed in. Then for things I wanted to do (zap a note or like something), it wouldn't do shit, and not ask. 

Again, seems like the people who started out last year or earlier just have it made, and have no problems, so every problem a newbie has, "Oh that's no problem for me" and "you're doing nostr rong lol / use a different client dummy," etc.
 

 I'm on two kinds special relays. They aren't open to everyone. They were developed specifically because of the issues that people are having currently. 

Before I switched over, I blocked the reply guys via word blocking, but that's not as nice as cutting them off at the relay side, for sure. 

I have come to the conclusion that I do need to run my own relay. I'm not able to do that yet.  

 You say you still use WoS because *<"( the SEC but how did you get around it? Oh, you're in UK. that's why. 

 Nope. US. 

I side load the apk and use aurora store which then updates it normally. Never had it not work, but I also run a VPN 24/7. 

 Welp, just sideloaded WoS and got this 🤷🏼‍♀️

https://m.primal.net/Kwuj.jpg
 

 Are you using a VPN? Are you blocking location permissions?  

 No vpn

Yes, location always blocked (bro I'm on Graphene) unless I'm trying to use maps or get an Uber. But that doesn't mean the phone doesn't give out a general US location. It's not pinpoint unless i tell it to be. 

Now I know why people leave after a couple of weeks.  

 I've never used graphene, so I don't know what it does by default. 

I'm on an oem android release, which should be even worse about location. 

Where did you get the apk?  

 Alby is great but not simple.  I can get you a code.

What do you want to do with the wallet mostly?
Im sure ill have more questions but lets start with that. 

 I zap notes/people w/my lightning wallet.

I put in like $5 USD to start. I have no idea where the eff to check my balance or withdraw, nada. Nothing. 

my BTC wallet is almost 4 years old and I it to receive payments for services/jerky etc. I want to connect LN to that. 

 What wallet are you using for your jerky purchases? 

 I made my Coinomi wallet for BTC back in 2021 but I'm thinking of switching to another because someone paid me in ETH once and I lost it while trying to transfer it. I usually purchase things locally with my balance so I don't hold much anyway at the moment. 

 Not familiar with coinomi since I dont use wallets that use alt coins but Primal app is a wallet and can be used like one to pay people. I keep it separate and like you just have $10 on there 

 I already use Primal for lightning  

 You already loaded it but to see balance just click that zap button in the middle. Play with the various buttons 

 Ohhh yeah I visually bypassed that button a million times lol. But I also don't use mobile much at all lately, I can't see close up as well since my eye surgery.  

 I loaded it almost 3 weeks ago and forgot lol 

 Sounds like perfect fit for Minibits. Anyway if Zeus (node in the phone) works for you it should be the best option long term.
The lightning service provider of Zeus is very well connected  

 I already explained I tried Zeus. it just sat there loading. 

 Hope you give us another shot! Happy to help troubleshoot 

 So true that this space is in constant flux.  I use Amethyst on graphene phone.  Started out with alby, cause Nostr Wallet connect made it easiest.  But then alby sent an email that they would be deprecating their custodial wallets eventually.  Tried alby hub, but my laptop doesnt stay on always, so that didnt work well. I have found 2 wallets that have Nostr Wallet Connect integrated.  One is Minibits, which works ok, just seems a little laggy, but it does work.  The other, the one i'm currently using, is Coinos.  I have it connected to amethyst with NWC, and its working pretty well except my incoming zaps are not showing up on amethyst.  But they do show up in my coinos wallet.  I have messaged the coinos dev about this, and he's checking into it. So for now its coinos for me.   

 I understand flux, but just getting started bit by bit spread out over weeks when you can't dedicate 4 straight hours to (you know because I have work and side gigs and local anarchist community shit to do), makes things harder. I'm also on Graphene and there's nothing like that to prove just how many permissions lots of apps (related to this) are requested and required by some, not to mention incompatibility sometimes. If I could get Alby running that'd be ideal because I'm less mobile and more desktop. I'll keep looking. I looked up Coinos but I think I got lost.