iMessage and only be friends with iPhone users /s
Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
621–630 of 972 posts
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#622Telegram is a great IM experience . The client is good, feature set is good, the stickers are amusing (if you're into that kind of thing), the feature set is complete and everything is polished. Telegram is, I think, going to be one of the easier sells if you're trying to convince non-technical users to switch from WhatsApp or FB Messenger. The privacy, security, and governance story is not great though. If you care…
The governance until now might have been very different, but Telegram is to VK what Whatsapp is to Facebook. In a way, you could say that the enemy of your enemy is your friend, but I'd still recommend Matrix as a seemingly more future-proof alternative.
The only link between Telegram and VK is that they have the same founder. Durov has been fired from VK and built Telegram after that. There is no other relation between Telegram and VK.
Not really comparable to WhatsApp and Facebook controlled by the same Zuck.
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#623Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a reminder encrypted messages aren't easily searchable -- this is a simple trade off and not some dark pattern default. Many Telegram users are away of it's quirks and how it operates differently to other IMs. Any tool will do damage in the hands of a bad workman. A good way to infer Telegram is reliable is how many despotic tyrants and corrupt countries ban it.
> As a reminder encrypted messages aren't easily searchable That's false. Encrypted messages aren't searchable by third-parties. End-to-end encrypted messages are searchable by only the communicating parties regardless of where they're stored. There's also the issue of mirroring by third-parties, but then we're talking about data in transit versus at rest, your backup methods, and so forth. (And I don't have time to…
Building and maintaining a super fast searching index on a phone is not an easy task or even doable.
Telegram is used a lot in developing countries which are using phones made 3-7 years ago. Or phones that are made recently but with old chips and tech. Maintaining a search index across literally millions or billions (some groups are really really big) messages isn't something your phone can reasonably do.
I do wish telegram was e2ee for IMs, but for groups and super groups and channels I don't particularly care.
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#624NOTE: I don't know what Zom is so ignoring it in the below. Viber, WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Threema and Discord are all built on the same paradigm: accounts tied to a single service and thus the inertia of network effect makes vendor lock-in a real problem when acquisitions happen or Terms of Service change. Signal is in theory the "best" of these 5 options in the short-term, but it being open source is utterly ir…
Moxie Marlinspike (the guy behind Signal) talked about his rationale for making signal centralized here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj3YFprqAr8 Its been a year and I'm still not sure if I agree with him - which is the sign of a very juicy talk!
I watched that at the time. I found his insistence on comparing his 7-year-old centralised protocol to a 60-year-old federated protocol uncompelling: his point that "nothing changes with federated protocols" was slightly undermined by that gargantuan gap of inception.
Couple that with the highly conspicuous skipping over of XMPP (much more comparable, only the briefest of mentions, no mention of things like OMEMO), and ignoring of Matrix (the most comparable, and not a single mention). Overall it's a pretty ridiculous talk in this context.
He goes on to describe some challenges for federated protocols in their solutions to censorship, availability & control. On censorship, the challenges are real and it's QUITE EASY to reason about possible solutions. Many of which already exist or are in development. It's clear he hasn't spent much time thinking about this. On availability, his entire argument is "Yahoo mail exists"; his discussion here is just straight-up disingenuous. Finally, on control, he segues into unrelated areas around XMPP extensibility and seems to think extensions have no value without ubiquity (though fails to expand on his reasons for this conclusion). I'd agree XMPP's XEPs are highly flawed architecturally, but again... there's newer protocols, we've learned and evolved this already.
Leaving aside that the bulk of the middle of the talk is exclusively selling new features ("new techniques") of Signal that have no direct connection to the talk's stated topic ("distributed and decentralized technology"), there are a few salient points he made that I'd agree with:
1. Federated & decentralised protocols are by their nature harder to do, and harder/slower to change. This is true, but is by no means an absolute; it's a trade-off against other benefits.
2. E2E encrypted email is too hard and probably not worth doing. Yes, PGP is highly flawed, and in general layering encryption on top of a 60-year-old protocol is hard. (Though as above, his insistence on focusing only on email for comparison rather than Signal's direct viable competitors is telling).
3. Signal's E2E/crypto-specific innovations are cool, and current federated state-of-the-art is behind on many of them.
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#625Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a reminder encrypted messages aren't easily searchable -- this is a simple trade off and not some dark pattern default. Many Telegram users are away of it's quirks and how it operates differently to other IMs. Any tool will do damage in the hands of a bad workman. A good way to infer Telegram is reliable is how many despotic tyrants and corrupt countries ban it.
>A good way to infer Telegram is reliable is how many despotic tyrants and corrupt countries ban it. No, this only tells you that it's used en mass in those countries.
Not really since when it's banned people flock to other platforms.
E.g. Whatsapp has now taken the place of telegram in Iran but it's still not banned. Despite literally everyone using it.
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#626Is there an easy way to export ALL data (voice notes, photos, video, and text) from WhatsApp? Last time I tried to do it there was a 10K message limit (which I have significantly exceeded). And I saw some tool to try and get access to the Google Drive backup[0], but I couldn't get it working properly.
[0] Something like this https://github.com/fingersonfire/Whatsapp-Xtract , although I can't recall if it was that exact one.
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#627Where is the "Don't switch" option? Because as much as I hate that Facebook bought them, they're part of what I would call "critical social infrastructure." Asking to leave WhatsApp is like cancelling your contract with your ISP and going offline just because you don't like the company.
Last I checked, my phone and my computer do not require me to use only messaging app. WhatsApp is "critical" now only now due to its network effects, but you can transition away to something else. Right now I have maybe a dozen friends and family members on my matrix server. I helped them set up the app, configured their communick accounts, made a few video calls to ensure it was working, etc. Current step is to help…
One issue is the fractured nature of alternatives would mean limited network effects, if one group moves to Matrix, and another to Signal, and another to Telegram, that means juggling multiple alternatives depending on the groups one is part of.
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#628Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is this the top voted comment? Leaving WhatsApp is nothing at all like cutting off your internet connection. It is just one out of literally dozens of available text messaging apps, and it is owned by one of the least ethical companies that exists today.
"It is just one out of literally dozens of available text messaging apps" It baffles me people are still saying this. You can only message people that are using the SAME messaging app as you. I can't just up and switch apps and expect my 30+ friends and relatives and housemates and coworkers to switch with me!
> You can only message people that are using the SAME messaging app as you.
No, Matrix supports bridging with about two dozen protocols,¹ many of which support multiple clients (at least 7: IRC, RSS, Email, SMS, Mastodon, libpurple —actually a library supporting multiple protocols including IRC and XMPP— and Twitter) — some of which have dozens if not hundreds of clients.
¹IRC, Slack, RSS, Gitter, Discord, RocketChat, iMessage, Facebook Messenger, Email, SMS, Mastodon, libpurple, GroupMe, Skype, WeChat, Tox, Mumble, Twitter, Mattermost, Keybase (Edit: this one was discontinued), Google Hangouts, Telegram, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Signal — https://matrix.org/bridges/
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#629I'll also jump on the band wagon that deleting it is a bit of a bad idea as much as i hate facebook too, but if you actually read the full terms and privacy you can opt out of moat things and they only really effect you if you have other services in the "facebook company" group much like how google tracks you across everything with their ad ID it's the same with facebook.
read the terms and privacy thoroughly and you'll see it's not all that bad and this is coming from a strong hater of facebook
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#630Where is the "Don't switch" option? Because as much as I hate that Facebook bought them, they're part of what I would call "critical social infrastructure." Asking to leave WhatsApp is like cancelling your contract with your ISP and going offline just because you don't like the company.
> Asking to leave WhatsApp is like cancelling your contract with your ISP and going offline just because you don't like the company.
Not "going offline" since people are obviously looking for an alternative. More like switching your ISP because you don't like the company.