YSK: Signal is a great secure private messenger app comparable to others on the market.

You Should Know@lemmy.world – 1355 points – 1 years ago

Signal Review 2023: Secure Messenger (Pros and Cons)

"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 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.

Their general hostility toward outside developers and forks

i forgot about this too. This is extremely disappointing.

All fair complaints. I've managed to switch over all of my contacts to Signal (that I care to talk to, at least).

My biggest gripe is no back up support on iOS, meaning that if I lose my phone I lose everything. People have tried hand waving it away as a privacy feature, but I think backing up messages is a bare minimum for a messaging app - especially with the released of Advanced Data Protection for iCloud.

What do you find bad about the Linux client? It’s an electron app sure but from my experience it works well.

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