YSK: Signal is a great secure private messenger app comparable to others on the market.
restoreprivacy.com
"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. 😀 👍
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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.
Yup, this is also my problem with Signal; you're stuck with whatever boneheaded decisions the devs make and there's nothing you can do about it. Personally, my pet peeve is their refusal to add any kind of data export. As someone who likes backing up chat history, this is a dealbreaker for me.
Indeed. I opened the Signal app after a really long time last week and found that they had added a useless Stories feature like WhatsApp. I uninstalled the app since I never used it anyways.
Edit: Looks like Signal stories can be turned off unlike WhatsApp stories. That's a win I guess.
Exactly. I sometimes switch my SIM card between two different phones; Signal makes that process super confusing and awful because your Signal account, on a phone, doesn't just behave like an account, it has hooks built into your phone and messaging apps. Telegram, on the other hand, lets me set a password and use 2FA via email and then just... log in. Honestly it seems so much simpler I can't understand what the Signal devs are up to!
Is this on iPhone? I have regular backups enabled on my android
They've had data export for a long time, I helped make exports in support of a lawsuit more than 3 years ago.
Random question as Im very interested in using XMPP: Are public homeservers fine as long as you enable encryptions? And is there a list of recommended homeservers?
Im aware you can self host, that just is not an option for me currently
You're more than welcome to register an account on canchat.org (my server).
And yes, as long as you enable OMEMO encryption, your server provider cannot read your encrypted messages.
https://providers.xmpp.net/ is a good resource for finding a provider (homeserver) as well.
That website is awesome! Exactly what I was looking for, thank you!
If you have android, Molly is great 3rd party client.
I've tried it, it's definitely better. If I absolutely had to use Signal I'd use it through a Matrix bridge.
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?
Ah didn't know about that. That is a dealbreaker. Too bad, it always looked promising but now it just looks like a scam app.
It's certainly not a scam, and it is a reliable, private messaging app, don't get me wrong. It's just not decentralized/federated, and that's the issue for me.