this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2023
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Privacy
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Signal works. The adoption is fairly slow, but I've had friends slowly begin to use it.
Signal gets some things right, but others wrong, such as phone numbers and centralized architecture. As such, it doesn't fit the "everybody wants to use" part.
Plus the arbitrary requirement of a mobile device as a primary, so it would be either inconvenient Signal-cli or something like Waydroid.
WhatsApp uses phone numbers and a centralized architecture. Remind me how many people use it?
Seeing how the dumb community feels trapped now that Meta stopped supporting KaiOS, I can tell there are a lot of people that wish they could leave the service. A lot of spaces make you feel like you have to use it, not want to use it. I used a few months while I was in the UK, but after that I’ve been lucky enough to delete my account as the service was useless elsewhere where other places I lived, no one used it.
…That said, I now have issues with LINE as a defacto chat option locally that gets in the way. My account was crushed after they canceled LINE Lite which was 10× smaller with no bloat or trackers & I refused to “upgrade” (where like WhatsApp & Signal, one is forced to have a mobile device as a primary device). Largely I can inconvenience everyone by making them choose a different means of communication (with email be largely the only common denominator) but if I were dating again, I would inevitably be forced to use the unsafe app putting myself in the position a lot of WhatsApp users feel they are without effective choice.
"some people use" ≠ “everybody wants to use”
(And are you sincerely suggesting WhatsApp, which is run by one of the largest and most aggressive privacy invaders the world has ever known, as a privacy friendly application? I would suggest re-thinking that position if you want to be taken seriously.)
The guy I replied to is saying that not everyone wants to use Signal because it's centralized and based on phone numbers. But billions of people use WhatsApp despite being exactly that. Signal nails the privacy stuff but obviously people don't give a shit because they're using WhatsApp anyway.
I've been using Signal since like 2016 and have not seen any appreciable adoption rate whatsoever within my social network.
I used to actively try to get people to use it but I got enough ambivalent or negative responses that I just stopped asking.
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Exactly. And I gave up trying even when it was "easier". Not to mention, since it can't do SMS anymore, I actually helped my mom. stop using it, because then she'd need 2 different messaging apps. She and I now use Google Messages to text and whatever Google is calling the integrated video chat app now.
Yeah, a new messaging app is definitely a hard sell for me if it's data/wifi only. I have Discord for unimportant internet conversations that can wait for me to burn data and texting for important things like work because I get unlimited texts. Having a separate app for a couple of people would be annoying.
My biggest problem with Signal is how much battery it uses when you don't have Google services on your phone.
It easily uses 30-40% of my battery compared to the rest.
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My problem is that it does not work on multiple devices at the same time, so I have personally given up on it. Maybe it has changed, did not check for a long time.
It works everywhere except Android tablets, and you can just use Molly for that.
I mean, I guess if I’m high enough it’ll seem like I have the messages on my tablet.
Oh, not that Molly…..
If that really works like it reads, it's what I was looking for, thank you!
Signal is great. I miss when it worked with SMS. There are 2 E2EE SMS apps that I'm aware of, bit one is not well supported and the other needs quite a bit of UI work before it's usable by the general public. Also, neither can be used as the default SMS app on Apple phones,but that's not the app's fault.
They are currently in bit trouble as their funds are gone
I don't think they're in trouble, they're just talking about long term funding because it's relevant. Can't expand and get more funding without mentioning that you need it
Of the articles I saw about funding
Source?
This was the article that raised a small stir. Some question the motivation and accuracy of some of the statements. The grabber quote is:
I think he’s talking about this, but it’s very clearly just a normal fundraising pitch that doesn’t even hint at a current issue with funding.
One of their own posts. No motivation to research a link for you
https://signal.org/blog/signal-is-expensive/
Making an extraordinary claim, and then saying you're too lazy to provide a source weakens your claim
Research it yourself. This is a random lemmy comment and not a scientific paper.
https://signal.org/blog/signal-is-expensive/
We would like to raise more funds != our funds are gone.
Yes true there are some claims like CIA funding with little evidence