So I’m in a somewhat unfortunate situation. My circle of friends doesn’t want to switch to another messenger and we are currently stuck on the worst possible platform for security: Telegram.
The problem is that it is very hard to convince anyone to switch, if they are all perfectly fine and like Telegram. I mean I can get why they like it: The UX and UI of Telegram are amazing and there are well functioning clients available for any platform. It has more features and gimmicks than any other messenger I know BUT it lacks one mayor thing: E2EE. And that’s mostly what I care about. The second problem is that I was the person who recommended the switch to Telegram right after WhatsApp was bought by Facebook. I know, that was a bad recommendation, but back then I didn’t know shit about privacy or why E2EE mattered. I was just like “Hey, it’s not by Facebook, so it must be better”. And now everyone I know is there and won’t leave.
If - in the hypothetical situation of me setting an ultimatum and deleting my Telegram after that - I wanted to make them switch somewhere else: What messenger would that be? Currently I’m mostly thinking Signal. I know it’s not perfect either, it is centralized, and the servers are in the US, but it has a bigger user base already than most of its competitors like Threema or Matrix/Element and it is very easy to set up and use. I’m already a user of Signal, Threema, Matrix, WhatsApp and Telegram (every platform for some contacts, but most of them on Telegram sadly), so having yet another option is not a problem for me, as well as getting rid of one is also no problem. I’d love to delete both Telegram and WhatsApp in this move.
So, in conclusion, what I need is a messenger that has all or most of the following:
- best possible security (E2EE is minimum)
- easy to use (no complicated setup, simple UI)
- already has some users (not too niche)
- cross-platform and multi-device (should run on Android, iOS and Windows/Web)
- some flashy dumb features like stickers and so on to keep them entertained
My choice would be Signal. But I am unsure if that is the best choice or if I should just wait a bit and see what all of the new EU laws about messengers and gatekeepers bring to the game and if anything chances with that.
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Is it?
You can run and connect to your own signal server, separate from the world if you wanted to…
Interoperability with other messengers Vs privacy are separate requirements and use cases.
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That’s fair and I see your point, I just haven’t seen any quality messaging apps that aren’t walled gardens in that sense.
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I’m on iPhone, and the userbase and features are fairly decent for signal.
Yes it’s a walled garden in some senses, but having a cross platform app that’s “better than most” is better than perfection that’s not useable by a significant potion of the users.
The apps are fairly useable and I don’t need to deal with federation mess
Video calls and audio calls aren’t amazing, but they work “good enough“
I’m not saying you’re wrong, just that the extra security comes at a cost.
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Last time I used it, it was painful. Maybe I’m wrong.
I personally dont have much experience with XMPP. From what i understand you have to roll your own encryption or everything is plaintext. Matrix encrypts but has major UI/UX issues around key management that make it a PITA to use.
@shortwavesurfer What do you mean by ‘you have to roll your own encryption’? The switcher for encryption looks like this, the default is set to OMEMO which is the XMPP implementation of the Signal encryption protocol.
Isn’t there several options besides OMEMO? If everyone sticks with default that would be alright. If there are other options that could get complicated.
@shortwavesurfer In my experience normal users never touch the defaults. My friends all use OMEMO when messaging me, especially since the OpenPGP option would require you to generate a public and private key yada yada…
Isnt conversations an XMPP client? I feel like i have heard good things about it. My two big gripes with matrix is the key management and i cant auto delete conversations. I make wonderful use of signals “disappearing message” feature.