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Signal is having technical difficulties

status.signal.org

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Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#341

Post by spurgu »

Arathorn wrote: post #319
chopin24 wrote: post #265

For all of you saying we should switch to Matrix, please outline the user sign up flow in your comment. Be detailed. Your audience is your 50 something aunt who calls her iPad her Facebook.

we’ve been working a lot on onboarding on Element, just as Signal have. it’s not perfect, but empirically it’s good enough for many non-technical users. comments like this are likely based on stale data (eg from when we forced e2ee setup during registration).

Well if you think about sending this to your aunt: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Matrix

Compared to installing the Signal app and verifying your phone number over SMS, the difference is quite remarkable. Signal has had smooth and frictionless onboarding as part of the design.

But also, comparing Matrix to Signal is a bit like comparing apples to oranges IMO.

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#342

Post by tombert »

jandrese wrote: post #277

Wow, at first I thought "they finally hit their limit with the new signups." but now they've been down for a couple of hours and I'm starting to worry that it might be more severe.

Same here. I had assumed there was an "oh crap!" moment, and the solution might be as simple as provisioning bigger/more boxes from AWS (or whatever provider they use), and this could be resolved in an hour. I'm a bit worried that maybe the problem is more architectural and it might require a more substantial code change. Then again, most "auto-scaling" algorithms aren't really expecting you to quintuple your active user-base in a week.

Obviously I'm not going to complain that a free service isn't working for me 100% of the time, and I'm not "angry" or anything, but I hope this is resolved soon; pretty much the only way I talk to my friends and family is via Signal.

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#343

Post by bilal4hmed »

alan5 wrote: post #71

I just donated to Signal after seeing the error banner in the app. I realised I was more than happy to pay WhatsApp's yearly charge back in the pre-Facebook days (think it was 70p or so?). Figured I could give Signal a few quid every now and then, maybe keep a server up for a few seconds :) Donation link should anyone be interested: https://signal.org/donate/

Do not forget to check if your employer does matching donations. Its an easy way to double your donation.

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#344

Post by barell »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #237
dave_sid wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very good point. People will happily pay 50 pounds a month for an IPhone and thinking nothing of it. But then really struggle to pay a penny for an app that runs in that iPhone. There’s some funny psychology going on.

Paying for software vs phones is not really an apples to apples comparison. A better comparison would be how people gladly pay ten bucks a month for spotify/netflix but would probably never pay that for messaging and IMHO that's where the industry should be going. People in the past also thought music and movies should be free and pirated the shit out of them, but by making it simple and accessible, for ten bucks a m…

Netflix and spotify give me quick access to lot of content and I value it. I don’t care what software gives me this content.

With messaging it’s different. Transferring messages is relatively simple topic to do as a software. But the cost of running and maintaining it is hard and that’s what users don’t care.

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#345

Post by apeace »

lucb1e wrote: post #252
pbronez wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point of Keybase is that you could verify the keys that the server sent you by looking at signed statements posted on third-party websites. That verification happens client side.

Read the post. I've had this discussion dozens of times now, everyone repeats the same arguments, all based on what Keybase puts out, never checking anything for themselves or even logically reasoning about how this could work (for those who bring up blockchain instead of third party proofs). There's a reason I link the information you're looking for, you don't even have to check it for yourself anymore. > It was men…

I'm curious, are there any apps out there that you don't have to host yourself that you do consider to be end-to-end encrypted?

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#346

Post by bigcohoneypot »

alan5 wrote: post #71

I just donated to Signal after seeing the error banner in the app. I realised I was more than happy to pay WhatsApp's yearly charge back in the pre-Facebook days (think it was 70p or so?). Figured I could give Signal a few quid every now and then, maybe keep a server up for a few seconds :) Donation link should anyone be interested: https://signal.org/donate/

What’s the evidence that they are short on dough vs can’t hire?

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#347

Post by mercurialshark »

thsowers wrote: post #337
krrrh wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could easily add an optional badge to avatars showing that you donated $1 that year via an optional in-app purchase. The subtle social pressure in a lot of group chats would be pretty effective, and it would help raise awareness that it is run by a non-profit foundation.

This sounds good on first pass, but consider the implication of allowing donations (and thus, payment method information) to be tied to a Signal users account. I specifically _wouldn't_ want this.

You could enable offsite donations that provide a receipt/hash that denotes (donation -> validated), without being tied to any individual. Then the user could copy/paste a generic, non-correlated code into Signal to authenticate activity.

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#348

Post by chucky »

thsowers wrote: post #337
krrrh wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could easily add an optional badge to avatars showing that you donated $1 that year via an optional in-app purchase. The subtle social pressure in a lot of group chats would be pretty effective, and it would help raise awareness that it is run by a non-profit foundation.

This sounds good on first pass, but consider the implication of allowing donations (and thus, payment method information) to be tied to a Signal users account. I specifically _wouldn't_ want this.

It's easy. You "gift" the badge to a user via the Signal homepage when making a connection. There's no required connection between the gift-giver and the receiver. Is the person who gifted the badge the same as the receiver? Could very well be, but there's no way to prove that.

All you need to store server-side is "this user has the badge until date X".

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#349

Post by spurgu »

zamadatix wrote: post #182
Daniel_sk wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The desktop app shows a yellow "DISCONNECTED - Check your network connection" warning. They probably should work on better error/status reporting in next version.

Desktop app is still behind the mobile in a few things but they are getting closer these days

Yeah I was very positively surprised to find that the desktop app has a large number of useful keyboard shortcuts: https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360036517511-Si...

Re: Signal is having technical difficulties

#350

Post by lucb1e »

spurgu wrote: post #326
lol768 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Element is less polished than Signal app To be fair: I've been pleasantly impressed with Element actually from what I've seen of Mozilla's set-up. I can format my text, I can run it in my browser and it starts up very quickly.

You'll get disappointed once you actually start using it. Unfortunately. There are so many quirks, inconsistencies, poor UI/UX. I've been using Matrix for maybe a year now with a group of techie friends and I would definitely not recommend it for my family members (who I just onboarded from Whatsapp to Signal the other day). Just look at this: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Matrix And compare it to installing the Signal ap…

While I agree with the main point of your post ("so many quirks, inconsistencies, poor UI/UX ... not recommend it for my family members"), the availability of documentation doesn't mean it can't be intuitive. Aside from entering a custom home server on login (if applicable, that's something your family will not intuitively get with all the centralized services they're used to), after that one-time login I think most people should be able to find their way around if they try. And we definitely don't need phone numbers and SMS verification for usability: a username will do just fine, we don't have to spend 1.5 million USD from donations just on SMS codes in 2018 alone (source: tax filing).
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