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Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal

signal.org

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Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal

#91

Post by deweller »

harry8 wrote: post #33
axegon_ wrote: post #3

While Signal is pretty awful on desktop(not to mention this[1] thing), it is my goto messenger on my phone. Brilliant security and props for being one of the very few to extensively use Rust in production. I was really sad to see they hire in the US only. [1] https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/issues/1630

Disagree. Signal on desktop works very well for me and is very useful for quickly sending files from desktop to phone and back, especially when the phone isn't handy.

I installed the desktop app precisely to use this feature. And it didn't work.

When I send a note to self on my phone and it never shows on my desktop.

Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal

#92

Post by mynameisash »

blub wrote: post #56

Calls are unusable in Signal: they drain a fully charged battery in about half an hour.

I use Signal as my primary SMS, and more and more of my contacts are using it. As such, I'm doing a lot more Signal voice and video calls. On my several year old, cheapy Moto G6, I've never had an issue with the battery draining noticeably faster when using Signal. I've done probably 45-60 minute calls over wifi, after which my battery is... maybe 70% full charge?

Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal

#93

Post by Kihashi »

axegon_ wrote: post #3

While Signal is pretty awful on desktop(not to mention this[1] thing), it is my goto messenger on my phone. Brilliant security and props for being one of the very few to extensively use Rust in production. I was really sad to see they hire in the US only. [1] https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/issues/1630

> While Signal is pretty awful on desktop

Weird. I find the desktop app pretty good.

I see people complaining about it being slow, but that's not been my experience.

My main complaint with the desktop app is that I really want it to sync message history with the phone app. If you, for example, don't use your laptop for a while, you'll have to re-authorize it and it won't have any messages from when it was off. I realize all of that is a trade-off for their security design, but having access to all my messages and being able to search them is important to me.

Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal

#94

Post by drummer »

pthatcherg wrote: post #79
Ansil849 wrote: post #8

> Group calls are currently limited to 5 participants Compared to other apps which offer group E2EE video calls: Duo - 32 participants Facetime - 32 participants Zoom - 100 participants (or 1000 w/ a Large Meeting License)

I work at Signal on group calls. We're being careful with rollout. The limit will hopefully be increased soon.

Hi do you know when legacy groups will be converted? Would love to use the new features but I have legacy groups with lots of history I want to keep.

Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal

#95

Post by cmg »

3np wrote: post #84
cmg wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest issue with calls on Signal is that if the app crashes, the call disconnects. This has happened to my on my up-to-date iPhone (10S) if I'm on a long call and get another Signal message, which means I need to unlock the app again. On the desktop, I really wish that you could resize the contacts sidebar to just show the sender's icon, as you can in iMessage, but the maintainers don't seem to be particularly i…

> My biggest issue with calls on Signal is that if the app crashes, the call disconnects. Of course the app crashing during a call is an issue, but I don't see how the call could stay open with the app closed without security expectations breaking?

Sorry, my point is that I'd prefer if the app didn't crash. I should have said 'when' instead of 'if'.

Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal

#98

Post by TimWolla »

Asraelite wrote: post #73
WillYouFinish wrote: post #19

Does Signal still fore you to use a phone number? This is a huge deal breaker for a privacy concerned messenger. That's why I prefer using Threema.

It seems that Threema charges for the app instead of requiring a phone number. Do they offer anonymous payment options like cryptocurrency or cash by mail? I'm not sure how data protection works with Google Play and App Store payments, but I feel like this could be a potential privacy problem.

You can buy Threema from within their own shop: https://shop.threema.ch/. They support Bitcoin.

Re: Adding Encrypted Group Calls to Signal

#100

Post by harry8 »

simias wrote: post #53
harry8 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. Signal on desktop works very well for me and is very useful for quickly sending files from desktop to phone and back, especially when the phone isn't handy.

The desktop app is very useful but it's mainly because there's no alternative. It's bloated, slow, under-featured. Telegram also has an electron desktop app but at least it lets me do ultra-advanced things like changing the spellchecker's language on the fly. As somebody who's used to 100KB snappy and fully featured IRC clients I'm always baffled when I use these modern clients that use 3 orders of magnitude more res…

I'll take your word for the telegram app. I prefer signal to telegram. Any benefit of the telegram desktop app seems like a marginal one when the signal one works and signal do encryption well, properly and honestly. (Maybe telegram are catching up to this now, not sure, Moxie has always been solid and has forced the entire feature set of messaging to end-to-end encryption for which he's going straight to heaven).

My own irc client I wrote when learning C and then re-wrote learning GTK+ is better than any of them in terms of doing what I want non-bloated as a client. But it doesn't quite match the whole signal thing somehow. :)

Signal is excellent software. Game changing stuff. Telegram (indirectly), Whatsapp (directly) owe signal a great debt. The reverse doesn't seem to be true.

End to end ecryption for the masses is a huge, huge win that Moxie can take a vast amount of credit for making happen, then improving and increasing. So there's a little hero-worship for Moxie, a man with whom politically I probably have very, very little in common. It's a good feeling when you can do that.

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