831–840 of 972 posts
My friends and family use Blackberry Messenger (BBM) Enterprise. Please see: https://www.blackberry.com/us/en/products/bbm-enterprise-bbm...
> BBMe is available for Android™, iOS, Windows®, and macOS devices.
So, no Linux, by the looks of it. Or browser.
But I've put it on the list ... thanks.
Where 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.
Hopefully the reason this is at the top is not this sentence.
This hallucinatory idea is exactly what Facebook PR, a.k.a. "damage control", wants people to believe.
You have no contract with Facebook. You pay them nothing. There is no legal recourse whatsoever. You cannot enforce "your end of the bargain" because Facebook undertakes no obligations to you.
Say what you want about the quality of your internet or cellular provider's service, etc., or how much you hate a company, but the fact is they have to fulfill their contractual obligations and provide service, they cannot just do whatever they want, whenever they want, as Facebook can.
If the internet/cellular provider does not deliver, then there is no Facebook. Whereas Facebook could disappear if their advertisers stop paying and the internet would still be here, because people would still be paying for internet access, and internet users would still use the internet to do all the same things they do now, and more.
Practically speaking, you may treat a tech company like a common carrier, like a telephone/internet/cellular provider. After all to the user it may seem no different. It is accessed through a "phone" and it seems to work like the service they pay for through an ISP or cellular provider.
But the minute you say this is like a "contract" you are submitting to pure delusion. You have no contract with Facebook as a user and you pay nothing. You're a product not a customer. Facebook has essentially zero exposure to liability from user complaints and that is why you are reading so many complaints about them, e.g., on HN. The best a user can do is rant into the aether and pound sand. There is no contract to enforce!
Then there is the absurdity of pretending that access to one company's computers is equivalent to access to the entire internet. This is like saying cancelling your subscription to AOL is like cancelling your account with your ISP. Today, no one is naive enough to equate AOL with the internet, as people once did. But Facebook believes people are naive enough to equate "Facebook" with "the internet". No doubt the AOL phenomena is a running joke at Facebook. The more things "change" the more they stay the same.
Do whatever you want, but let's refrain from propagating illusions that tech companies want people to believe.
We switched to Signal & finding Signal consumes too much of data. I think the video & audio resolution is excellent in Signal - that could be one reason. I do not find a way to reduce quality thereby reduce data consumption. For developing countries like India, this is important.
The servers also don't store messages once they been delivered. There is no way to get a low resolution while mobile and getting the higher resolution while on WiFi.
Signal does already have the method to disable media downloads while not on WiFi, but does not have a method to tell the sender to send lower fidelity content.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wish the EU would force messaging systems to also support interactions with XMPP or other similar open standards. There's nothing in their way to expect such a thing, except the lobbyists.
Why would you want your government to mandate how technology works? Sounds like a recipe for disaster and the perfect way to stifle innovation
Imagine if Hollywood or TV studios had any saying over Digital TV standards. Streaming would never exist and we would be used to a "pay-per-view" model forever, with mandatory and built-in DRM.
This is not about enforcing how technology works. It just ensuring that no monopoly can occur. Common standards don't stifle innovation, closed ones do.
Where 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.
The OP is literally a poll of other services. In any case, it would be to cancel with your ISP to go to another ISP.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Matrix, or at least Element, has terrible UX, though, and I'd never recommend it to my family. It opens three message boxes every single time I open the web client, and I can't disable these boxes permanently. Oh, and I have to login again every time because it doesn't remember logins.
Again: bugs can be fixed. You are free to go open an issue and get developers to look at this. Element's short history has shown that they are aware of the issues and are reasonably responsive in fixing them. There is no place you can go to open an issue that says "Facebook is exploiting user data even on applications that are supposed (promised, even) to be private.". Even if it were, ALL of Facebook's history is fi…
“Bugs are tolerated as they are the price worth paying for a rapidly evolving code base, but you gotta fix ‘em” wouldn’t fit so neatly on a poster.
Ironic in a thread beseeching forgiveness for Element’s incompleteness.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 think it makes more sense to use federated protocols after you've reached a certain critical mass of features and usability. Look how much Signal has improved in the last 6 months. That would be harder with a federated system as people just don't update apps. I'll buy a push for Signal to become federated when it is fully featured (which may be pretty soon). Also at that point, what is to stop people from making a…
I agree with this, but I’m starting to worry if that time will ever come. I thought messaging apps had basically all the features they’d ever need years ago. But I was wrong. I use voice messages in signal and WhatsApp daily now. If it were up to me, we would have made a federation protocol years ago and these features would have to have been figured out through endless meetings in a standards process.
Where 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.
Well, I don't know where parent is located, but here in Brazil they are pretty much right. Everybody has WhatsApp... it's assumed that if you have a phone you have WhatsApp. A lot of financial transactions are conducted by doing a bank transfer and then sending the receipt via WhatsApp. The schools send essential messages to parents via WhatsApp. During lockdowns, stores were taking delivery orders via WhatsApp. What…
Being a parent, WhatsApp is the norm. And it's pretty impossible to change the entire society. so sadly for anything about my kids I use WhatsApp.
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask.
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks.
I like Threema because it works and the business model simple. Pay a few bucks and get it forever.
The business model is unsustainable and relies on constantly growing the userbase since there is no recurring revenue.