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You can change your number

signal.org

31–40 of 410 posts

Re: You can change your number

#31
post #16

This is a great feature, well done for adding it! However, I'm a bit puzzled as to why seemingly easy bug fixes aren't addressed. There's a longstanding issue with Signal not recognizing that the phone is in a landscape orientation when taking photos, so they're rotated by 90 degrees. I opened an issue[1] and it got closed with a related-but-not-exact workaround. This impacts everyone who takes photos on Android with…

Signal is eating up 11GB of my iOS space. There is no way to clear it without completely uninstalling and reinstalling. And then the problem just resets and grows again. It’s a ridiculously consequential bug and they don’t seem motivated to even comment. Pretty sad.

Signal keeps all downloaded media locally until you delete it.

They don't have the resources to store files on the cloud, even encrypted, and don't appear to have taken WhatsApp's approach of backing up unencrypted media and messages on user's third-party cloud services like Google Drive and iCloud.

You can mitigate this by having disappearing chats (current longest self-destruct time is 4 weeks), or by going to Settings->Data and Storage->Review Storage and deleting the largest files.

This isn't a great UX design, as users are not informed there is a problem, or how to solve it.

Re: You can change your number

#32

Can people please choose an appropriate title when posting. "You can change your number" makes sense in the context of signal.org but makes little sense on the front page of HN. The RSS feed doesn't even include the domain for context.

signal.org is displayed right next to the title.

Not on the RSS feed without me doing some jiggery to extract it from the link and render it in my reader somehow. But overall this isn't the worst example because it is on their own domain - often it'll be on a medium domain or something that provides no useful context.

Re: You can change your number

#33
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal is eating up 11GB of my iOS space. There is no way to clear it without completely uninstalling and reinstalling. And then the problem just resets and grows again. It’s a ridiculously consequential bug and they don’t seem motivated to even comment. Pretty sad.

Signal keeps all downloaded media locally until you delete it. They don't have the resources to store files on the cloud, even encrypted, and don't appear to have taken WhatsApp's approach of backing up unencrypted media and messages on user's third-party cloud services like Google Drive and iCloud. You can mitigate this by having disappearing chats (current longest self-destruct time is 4 weeks), or by going to Sett…

I don’t want them keeping my data. I don’t want restoring data. I want the ability to purge 11gigs off my device.

When you select “delete all message history” it should free up the disk.

Re: You can change your number

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

signal.org is displayed right next to the title.

Not on the RSS feed without me doing some jiggery to extract it from the link and render it in my reader somehow. But overall this isn't the worst example because it is on their own domain - often it'll be on a medium domain or something that provides no useful context.

Sounds like an RSS feed issue.

Re: You can change your number

#35
post #27
post #8

How can I use this without a phone or phone number at all? If I am concerned about privacy, why would I give them that access and information when it's not necessary for the service? Surely they are only trying to gather information on their users. Whether it's being sold, breached, or used for ad targeting, I am not interested. It comes across as a scam. I cannot take seriously any claims made by the company or its…

Signal is about as reputable as you can get for e2e encrypted chat

Signal is high up, but matrix is higher in my book.

Re: You can change your number

#36
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This shows a single check mark, no? Ie it tells you that the user hasn't received the message.

Yea, it seems like this is the most information they could give you without violating the addressee's privacy by revealing whether they have uninstalled the app. I suppose it could be worth it if, when the message remains undelivered for a while, Signal added an explicit note to that effect so the sender doesn't misunderstand.

How can they tell that a user has uninstalled the app? Does uninstalling send a notification to signal.org?

Re: You can change your number

#37
post #22
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I'm surprised, after a decade stating that phone numbers were great for ID.

They're great compared to the alternative of simply storing a plaintext register of every pair of communicating parties on the server, which is how other messengers work. What's "good" about phone numbers is that they're tied clientside to a "buddy list" that everyone already keeps --- their contact list. They don't want phone numbers on the merits of phone numbers.

I've never used a contact list for my "buddies." We just have each other added on Discord.

Re: You can change your number

#38

This is fine, but signal still doesn't tell you when the person you're sending to has uninstalled signal. Instead, your messages go into ether and you think the person is ignoring you. It blows my mind they haven't prioritized this. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/11164

Applications can't determine when they're uninstalled. Or, not reliably anyway, and not while following platform guidelines. So the question becomes how to tell uninstalled vs left in a drawer, powered down, while on vacation.

Re: You can change your number

#39

Can people please choose an appropriate title when posting. "You can change your number" makes sense in the context of signal.org but makes little sense on the front page of HN. The RSS feed doesn't even include the domain for context.

signal.org is part of the context of the title, since it's displayed right next to it. Therefore, by your argument (which I think is correct), the title does make sense on the front page of HN.

Re: You can change your number

#40
post #11

Can people please choose an appropriate title when posting. "You can change your number" makes sense in the context of signal.org but makes little sense on the front page of HN. The RSS feed doesn't even include the domain for context.

HN guidelines forbid changing the title. I proposed changing this once, but the post didn't get traction. There was more traction for that years ago though. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26300126

I often change titles on submissions. Making them shorter for instance. I also do change some to provide more context that the original source didn't.

An article has only 15 minutes in /new to attract enough votes. Sticking with a crappy title nobody will click on wastes everyone's time. Obviously don't go full clickbaity.

Sometimes the HN mods change them back.

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