“When you use Signal, your data is stored in encrypted form on your devices. The only information that is stored on the Signal servers for each account is the phone number you registered with, the date and time you joined the service, and the date you last logged on.”
This isn’t an ad, I wasn’t paid for this post. Just to clear the air: fuck facebook, fuck elon musk and twitter, fuck anyone who thinks this is a paid advertisement. I wish I was paid for this shit, I just wanted to spread the word. Thank you. 😀 👍
I have been disappointed by Signal a lot.
- They tie themselves very closely with Google services, to the point that they refuse to be on FDroid by design
- There was a long period when they stopped publishing server side code when they were bashing others like Telegram for not open sourcing their server side code
- Their Linux desktop client is absolutely horrible.
They tie themselves very closely with Google services, to the point that they refuse to be on FDroid by design
While they do push the Play Store version, they also have an APK, and my understanding is that it does not rely on Google Play Services, though it might be buggier without them. If I recall correctly, the origin of Signal not being on F-Droid was related to the building and signature model that F-Droid used (builds by F-Droid, then signed by F-Droid’s keys), as mentioned in, eg, this issue. With that said, it has been pointed out that there are alternatives, like a separate repository, than, eg, the Guardian Project uses, and F-Droid apparently does now have a process for developer-signed apks.
Their general hostility toward outside developers and forks, however, and that the awkward server side code availability seemed to be related to the brazenly problematic cryptocoin advertisement, are extremely disappointing, however.
Just to confirm what you said, I used Signal on LineageOS for over 6 months with no Google Play Services (installed through Aurora Store) – definitely doesn’t rely on them.
I use Signal but it’s on its own path to becoming enshittified too. Less like Reddit, more like Firefox, the people in charge are just clueless about the signal userbase.
It won’t be long until there’s a shift to an alternative because the current president of the signal foundation is one step away from turning it into Snapchat.
Instead of pumping money into increasing awareness or enhancing reliability of the service, the Signal team have wasted effort on features that nobody asked for, including its very own crypto shitcoin (a major red flag for any company). They also remove features people relied on, such as SMS support.
It’s hard to trust the Signal team when they continually disappoint in such egregious ways.
The worst part of using Signal is to try and convince all your friends/family to use Signal. Otherwise it’s a pretty great messaging app. You can’t edit messages once they’re sent, but other than that it’s pretty great.
I used to donate to Signal, and they made the stupidest fucking decision I’ve ever seen.
You used to be able to use signal (at least on Android) as your default messenger app, sending encrypted Signals to other users, or SMS to non-signal users. Have a normie family member who doesn’t know about computers? Easy, set it & forget it.
Now? They removed that functionality, so it only works for other signal users. Someone else had a good metaphor: imagine if http and https needed different web browsers & you couldn’t see one on the other. How well do you think https uptake would have been?
So fucking stupid.
I think that might be a narrow view though. Most of the world likely doesn’t use SMS anymore (for probably a decade). So removing SMS didn’t make much of a difference there, but increased security. Especially when people are used to use multiple apps anyways.
So the better analogy would be “imagine if gopher and http needed separate browsers”. Except they do.
Tried to switch to signal. But it’s useless without everyone i know switching over from Whatsapp. Which is like merged with our country at this point.
Welcome to life after 40 - I’ve been an early adopter all my life, but my network hasn’t moved with me.
As a result joining Snapchat has no value for me.
So I tend to use apps that are friend-agnostic like this and TIkTok.
Side note: my fave messaging app is Confide, it only reveals redacted words as you run your finger over them, and then deletes. So it’s impossible to screenshot.
It sounds like you’d still be able to take a video of it, then do a little bit of filtering and you’d have an image of the whole message. It’d take slightly more effort, but it’s not “impossible to screenshot.”
Is this an ad? It feels like an ad.
Anyway I much prefer Signal but thanks to boomer co-workers I’m still also forced to use Whatsapp.
It’s an ad and it’s not even subtle about it.
Isn’t Whatsapp encrypted end to end?
Facebook owns it.
First ad I’ve seen on Lemmy so far
nature is healing
I would just use XMPP, but it’s not easy to use for people without technical knowledge.
Just jumping in to provide info for anybody interested who maybe hasn’t heard of it: XMPP is a secure messaging protocol, not an app in and of itself. Easiest way to use it IMO is via the Android app “Conversations” (don’t know IOS equivalent), which will require you to sign up for an XMPP act, or sign in with an account hosted on any XMPP server instance (kinda like Lemmy).
You can only message other XMPP users normally, but there is an additional (paid) service called JMP that lets you register a new anonymous, REAL phone number to your XMPP account.
Signal is great for communicating with people you don’t mind sharing your identity with. Would love to see signal implement usernames. I’m really into simpleX chat these days —really cool project.
SimpleX looks interesting, thanks for sharing!
The iOS notification implementation isn’t super reliable yet but it works if you leave the app open
My favorite part is that you can easily self host your own server with a docker container
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Telegram requires a phone number too. So I don’t understand your point.
It does not require to share it with other people tho. Still as far as I know they save it on their servers. Signal tries to not save any metadata at all. That’s great.
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I got rid of Signal after they added cryptocurrency to their app.
While I have no issues with cryptocurrency itself, it was a reminder that they have full control over the app. Now I happily use XMPP and Matrix for communication with friends and family.
Your friends and family use matrix? Ok, I understand, that you can pressure your family to use it, but are all your friends that geeky?
Be careful, the mod of the sci-fi community just got banned for criticizing it.
Signal is shit, its a honeypot. It requires your Phone Number and that the persons chatting have each other in their contacts on device, even if you convince friends not to use WhatsApp, WhatsApp, Google, Apple and every other App, someone installed that can access your contacts knows your Name, Phone Number and People you are connected to.
Signal relies on NSA Cloud Servers and “security” features of Intel Processore that are going to be broken or probably there already is a backdoor.
You can’t have it on multiple devices with multiple accounts, its a closed ecosystem and doesn’t have a big community involved with checking the code. They get funded by US Gov. and tried to put obvious backdoors in their desktop apps.
Use Matrix.org , I also heard good things about SimpleX.
Yes. Because everyone knows that Moxie Marlinspike is a big fan of the NSA. 🙄
Dude hates the government as much as I do. No way would he work with them.
Question: in 2019 Australia passed an encryption law that requires every piece of software used in Australia to have a back door for law enforcement to access to ‘counter terrorism’, wank, wank.
Does Signal have back door access in Australia?
God that’s fucking dystopian
It’s a running joke amongst us Aussies to visitors, man… Don’t ask what you can’t do in Australia, ask what you can. It’s an easier list to explain.
And they passed that bullshit encryption law over Christmas/NY 2018, by the way, when none of us were paying attention. We came back to work on January 2 and it was signed into law.
Personally, I thought it was our Government’s most sneaky and disgusting moment.
