Signal didn’t work for some back in 2021/2020 and wasn’t supported on old devices, now I’m stuck with Telegram.
At least I’m not part of FB’s social graph and have some friends that now use something other than WhatsApp
Who didn’t it work for? I switched to Signal in about 2016 or so, and haven’t had a problem with it. Admittedly I’m a software developer, and typically use high-end devices, so my knowledge is severely lacking.
I used it on lower-end devices around that time, but not bottom-of-the-barrel (Motorola smartphones). I had a Moto x4 then Moto G Power, and Signal worked fine on them. When Signal stopped working for SMS, I stopped using it, but I think I got my SO on board, so I’m back to using it for messaging.
Nothing new here. E2E is only available in one on one chats and is disabled by default. Dont use Telegram if privacy is your main concern.
At least it has an open-source client. Very few messaging platforms can say that, and fewer have a decent UX.
It’s not perfect, but it’s got a good combination of features and multi-platform availability. None of the other messaging apps support all of my devices except Matrix, and
Matrix doesn’t have stickersEdit: Signal doesn’t support all my devices but maybe someday! The network effect is also big. None of my family and friends are on Signal, but most have Telegram. A few have Matrix.
Also Signal is a US-based company.
Edit 2: Matrix does have stickers, i guess I’m switching
I am enjoying SimpleX chat
Can you elaborate on your last sentence? Is the US more or less trustworthy than alternatives?
Less than some. The US gov has a history of forcing US-based corporations to disclose private data regardless of their policies or the law.
I can’t give you a good alternative though. I’m sure the same thing happens in many countries
A good alternative is a federated, selfhosted solution hosted in a jurisdiction unfriendly to yours.
in a jurisdiction unfriendly to yours
Doesn’t need to be unfriendly, just needs to not kow-tow to your jurisdiction.
Stickers are pointless if I have no one to send them to. So I stay in telegram.
Signal
After Signal’s lie about dropping SMS support because of “engineering costs”, I really can’t believe anything else they say.
Plus the app experience sucks, it’s no better than SMS.
it’s no better than SMS
That’s not true, but even so, the whole point is to be an alternative to SMS. It provides that experience, so I’m happy.
They still don’t have backups on iOS which is a deal-breaker for me.
I couldnt find a working Ubuntu touch app last i tried to use it
Yeah, the glaring problem of having to share your phone number is gone too:
https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/6712070553754-Phone-Number-Privacy-and-UsernamesThey still tie it to your ID since you need the phone number.
And we just trust them not to share your social map to NSA which they totally don’t do. Trust me bro
That they do, but your contacts doesn’t have to get it anymore.
A self-hosted matrix stack built from source with matrix clients built from source with e2ee implemented that you yourself have the competence to verify the encryption and safety of would be the only secure communication I know of if you don’t want to trust a third party.At the very least XMPP and Simplex, which are easier to host and lighter.
Doesn’t XMPP tend to use always-active sockets? I looked into switching my number to a VOIP service and considered jmp.chat, but I heard people complain about phone battery life. I’m going to test it out soon, but if I go that route, I may consider hosting my own XMPP server if it can handle both my phone (i.e. answer calls on my computer instead of phone) and regular IM.
And Simplex is awesome, but my issue is having the same account on multiple devices. I want to be able to see and respond to messages on my work laptop, personal laptop, personal desktop, and phone, and it seems Simplex only has basic support for it. I’m still playing with it, and I may end up switching to it, but for now, the experience isn’t very user-friendly.
I am very unfamiliar with jmp.chat and don’t use notifications, but from what I’ve heard - Conversations (with UnifiedPush notifications) isn’t that bad.
As for Simplex - a problem indeed, you effectively can’t have an account shared between devices, but I just have identical profiles on my phone and computer. Also, people have complained about it consuming battery quickly (they switch to checking for notification every set interval to save it).
But yeah - I think both are worth trying to see if maybe one of them fits you! They’re both super easy to host.
Matrix does have stickers
A platform that values my privacy? Or stickers? Tough choice, I guess, except Signal has both.
It’s a messaging app, it’s useless if there is nobody to message. I dont have any friends using signal yet.
Also it doesnt work on my phone (Ubuntu touch). There used to be a community app but it’s not currently working.
I sincerely wish them success, but it’s hard to have faith that a US-based company will actually protect your privacy. Not that Telegram does either.
It’s hard to have faith that a US-based company will actually protect your privacy.
You don’t have to, though? 1) The E2EE Signal protocol is well-audited to be robust. 2) The app itself is FOSS, and there are a lot of eyes on it. 3) The server code is FOSS. Even if they’re lying about what code they use, it doesn’t matter because it’s E2EE. 4) If you think Signal might be bait-and-switching by building from different source code, you’d be provably wrong. They have reproducible builds, so were they to actually try this, it would be like sending up a flare to the entire security community. 5) Literally every single time OWS has been subpoenaed, the only information they’ve been able to provide is extremely basic metadata like server connection times.
You have no idea what you’re talking about, I’m sorry. There’s functionally less “trust” here than any messaging application on the planet. The network effect remark is at least valid and can be debated (although I personally have zero friends who use Telegram and at least several who use Signal). This one is just so, so wrong that it’s not even up for debate.
Thanks for the elaboration. I’m not familiar with how Signal works.
Doesn’t have unlimited storage though. It’s really nice being able to jump to any of the 15,000+ images shared with a single person dating back to like 2015 within a couple seconds. I know that’s a privacy concern but nothing comes close to telegram’s searchability and the unlimited storage.
