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Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#43

Post by 0x_rs »

Been using Telegram for a long time. I don't trust it any more than I do with WhatsApp (therefore, Facebook), however it is well done and thought out, has a real desktop client with a real desktop UI toolkit and enough of my contacts are on it already, therefore it's the best compromise to me. I greatly dislike Signal's UI when I tried it out and I've read about some weird decisions lately (that "using a PIN? uploading to cloud" debacle some time ago). I also believe it shouldn't require a phone number if its focus is privacy and security. Matrix would be my go to in concept, but its userbase is even smaller. At the same time, alas, I am forced to keep using WhatsApp because "everyone" is on it, and if you aren't, you're going to miss out, be it parents school chats, work groups, less tech-savvy friends, parents..

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#44

Post by jaggs »

lrvick wrote: post #31
aceelric wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal can't be bought. They're a non-profit org

When they run out of money to pay for servers they can sell assets as they please to whomever they please.

Maybe not? "Signal is an independent nonprofit. We're not tied to any major tech companies, and we can never be acquired by one either."

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#45

Post by minitech »

damidekronik wrote: post #13
approxim8ion wrote: post #3

Telegram is a downgrade in terms of both security and privacy. Just leaving the comment for people who consider it. It's an excellent platform and a joy to use but I personally refuse to use it.

Downgrade in terms of privacy from WhatsApp? Some explanation is needed for such a bold statement.

I think they’re referring to the encryption. Group chats can’t be encrypted end-to-end, direct messages aren’t by default, and the direct messages that are encrypted (”secret chats”) aren’t available on the desktop client.

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#47

Post by firepoet »

fbn79 wrote: post #42

Why not came back to plain old email? The email delivery system is decentralized and can support p2p encryption. You can have "chat-like" user experience with apps like Mailtime ( https://mailtime.com/ )

I hadn't heard of mailtime! Last one I used was DeltaChat (https://delta.chat/) and it was super slow.

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#48

Post by hlasdjlfhalwjk »

knocte wrote: post #2

zom?

In the past, zom was a XMPP client [0]. From what I can see on GitHub, the new version builds on Matrix [1], so there shouldn't be a separate answer for zom.

[0]: https://chatsecure.org/blog/chatsecure-conversations-zom/

[1]: https://github.com/zom/zom-android-matrix

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#49

Post by captainmuon »

Is Matrix a good alternative to Signal? I'm currently using Signal, but I'm not entirely satisfied. My major issues are that I don't like their stance on a couple of issues: third party clients are not allowed, mobile first and desktop is only synced, phone number required, and distribution only over the app stores. Also we frequently get "encryption errors" and everybody ignores them, this is worse than with SSH key errors :-).
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