this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2024
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Privacy
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So what's the replacement?
For private messaging? Signal was always better. The way I use Telegram, and the way Telegram should be used, is like another public social media. I use it for following channels that give news about things I'm interested in.
Why not Signal?
All completely irrelevant to most people. Nobody they know is on those platforms.
There are only two alternatives to the Big Tech messengers that are anywhere near critical mass: Signal and the shady one we're talking about here.
Though I would love Matrix to go mainstream.
This is sadly the exact reason it will stay like this. People can't reach me because i don't use WhatsApp? Well bad luck. Use a better app or just don't. I can't reach them because they only use WA? What a bummer but so be it.
As long as people install WhatsCrapp because some distant aunt still uses it for the xmas-greetings, it will continue to be #1.
Doesn't it get lonely though?
I remember the times where we didn't have a tiny computer with us all day to be reachable. And if I'd be lonely because i don't give a rats ass about WA, fb and the likes, that'd be indeed lonely but not due to that
Ironically though Matrix has a Problem with metadata leaking out while signal doesn't
I feel like there needs to be an incentive in mind for those apps to bring in ppl. People care about privacy but won't even delete FB, let alone use a different messaging app
matrix is great but sadly not all my friends use it and i still use discord :(
I love the premise of Signal, but there are too many red flags. Some of my issues are:
That's fair. I just use it because it's what everyone's on. When I used Briar only one other person I spoke to used it, and I just use Matrix for some more techy communities I'm in. For my friends and non-tech-savvy comrades, they're all on Signal, and I imagine trying to move people to something more decentralised/more in the spirit of foss/etc would lead to my social circles becoming very split in terms of how I talk to them. But I get your point.
For the illegal goods? Sir this is privacy not piracy.
You really gonna come in here with a "want privacy? Must be because you're a criminal."? Get the fuck out.
This was obvious a joke, but whatever.
The illegal goods on telegram aren’t piracy related.
Sir, this is for privacy not for CSAM
No, doesn't have the same ring to it
Element 2.0 or Signal is only worth ones, I think.
But to be honest - it's only IP and phone number. If you have concerns about possibility of such request about your persona, you always can buy Telegram's anonymous phone number / fake telephone number / use VPN to login.
Just clarifying for the ones who don't know: Element is a Matrix client.
Element I'm not that sure, it's so bloated that I'm surprised it works on mobile phones. Regarding matrix sure
They said element 2.0, which I'd assume means Element X using matrix 2.0. From my testing in the last few weeks, element X has been the fastest messaging app I've ever used. Probably still some bugs but does not feel bloated anymore at all.
Who do you talk to on it?
His friends, maybe? lol
I prefer wire.
Unlike matrix, wire encrypts everything. Its not possible to send unencrypted messages on Wire.
Unlike Signal, you don't need a phone or a phone number to use Wire. Create an account with an anonymous email address directly on either the desktop app or the mobile app.
what guarantees they won't hand over chat history? if police requested that, could they say no?
Matrix?
I noticed performance of matrix depends strongly on the server. Matrix.org is dead slow, I started using tchncs.de and even old ( somehow legacy ) element android is blazing fast
regarding its UX, nothing close exists; when it comes to converting normies, so you have someone to actually talk to, then there are no alternatives. that's a pretty shitty state of affairs for something that shoulda been solved a long time ago.
lesson learned, I guess, don't put all your eggs in one basket and have multiple fallback solutions. I've begrudingly moved to Signal and I'm cursing it out at least once per day, can't believe the navel-gazing, self-righteous cluelessness behind it; but that's the best there is at the moment. it's beyond shitty that we're having trouble achieving what we had in like 2012 by way of XMPP and friends, let alone surpassing it.
XMPP is still around although there's a constant campaign trying to claim it's gone.
because things moved forward in the last decade or so and it's not viable. the same way matrix and element and those ridiculous things aren't viable and never will be. can you use it today? absolutely. can you convert normies to it and make it an actual widely used comms platform? no. fucking. way.
this is coming from a guy running their own prosody instance and utilizing rocketchat on two separate client instances. yeah, I know how to set it up and deploy it; but the amount of absolutely credible complaints I get from normies forced to use it staggering.
It's shocking how many people just outright ignore UX.
What don't you like about Signal?
to me it looks and feels like shit, compared to Durov's spyware it's like a PoC from 2015 looking for funding. fine demo you got there, now bring us the real thing.
but, to practical things, I lose/sell/buy/switch devices frequently. with telegram, I can lose all my devices, log on from a fresh one and all my shit is there - a decade+ of convos with 100s of people with valuable info. no juggling around with the crappy electron desktop app that doesn't give me access to convos or the inane procedure to replace a lost device and restore chat history... the other day, I successfully retrieved a piece of info from a convo from a decade prior.
I realize there are people out there that need that sort of security, but I don't. I just want Telegram with an OTR plugin (OMEMO nowadays) that prevents any nascent mass surveilance and LLM ingestion and I'm golden. but that shit's explicitly against Telegram's ToS; the only logical conclusion is they're adamant about leaving all your shit unencrypted in the cloud for some specific reason.
I can't think of any such reason that's not malevolent.
I see it a lot when ppl complain about signal, but just can't understand why you would save 10+ years in old msgs. Almost all my signal conversations even GRP chats are set to 1 week auto delete. If something important Is said that I need to save, I copy/paste it into my note app where I can organize it. Its sounds so impractical to dig through 10+ years of data everytime you need something. Plus it would be awful to know there is a log of all the dumb things I said 10 years ago lol.
Completely agree! The ephemerality of Signal is a feature, not a bug.
I didn't always see it this way, but then a thought occurred to me. None of the conversations we have in person are recorded. Those communications are just as meaningful if not more so than text conversations, and yet somehow we get by just fine without them being stored indefinitely on some personal device, let alone in someone else's datacenter.
This is a case of technology controlling us when we should be controlling it.
I agree that we are fine even without it. But that does not mean it's better than not having that history.
An easy example that comes to mind are all arguments wherr someone remembers one thing while someone else remembers another thing.
Decent counter-example. In turn I'd say that's an edge case where we could still survive just fine without knowing the relevant fact for sure. And certainly not worth the cost in privacy terms of recording and storing everything.
I agree with you about saving the things you need. Especially images and videos since they are not worth the storage size.
But a history of your conversations with people is pretty nice to have if you didn't think about saving some info or it only becomes relevant later on. And as long it's only kept on your own device, I'm fine with it. (But I guess, on the devices of people you speak to)
Plus if you only save text, even 10 years worth of data is not much at all. A few videos probably weighs more.
E: typo
Requires both a phone and a phone number
So far, irc, jabber/ xmpp and matrix and plain old email with gpg :-)
there's deltachat for gpg - i love the concept, since your friends don't even need to have it installed in order for you to chat with them.
but i am forever stuck with telegram because i refuse to install software running on set-my-computer-on-fire-pls-Electron (which every single MODERN chat application does today, bar Telegram).
How about something e2ee? (Even Whatsapp is more privat than telegram)
Wire. Fully encrypted, easily anonymous because no phone number needed
wire sold out years ago.
Seems to be an iOS app from the screenshots on the Play Store.
https://simplex.chat/