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Signal Introduces Stories

signal.org

291–300 of 480 posts

Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#291
post #288
post #3

I love how Signal (and WhatsApp adopting Signal's protocol) made privacy easy for the general public and technically inclined alike. Privacy will never be the default until it's made easy. I'm guessing some folks won't like use feature because it's too "social media-y" (myself likely included) but as they say in the post: - You can turn the feature off and you won't see other people's stories - You can choose the aud…

I'm pretty technically inclined and I lose my Signal history every time I get a new phone because I just can't remember to transfer it. (I don't use it a ton.) I really wish this was more seamless. (I understand the complexity of the security issues around it.)

Here's an easy way not to forget (on Android):

1) Enable daily backups in Signal

2) Set up Syncthing to automatically send these backups to your laptop/whatever.

3) Profit.

Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ditto, on at least month three to six of the same login here

Not the OP, but I have to re-sync (and thus lose my existing chat history) on various machines often enough that I know exactly what OP is talking about, and these are on machines that I use at least once a month, so they don't go that long without checking in. It's annoying.

> machines that I use at least once a month

Linked devices expire after 30 days, so you might be right at the edge:

https://www.reddit.com/r/signal/comments/t6i2ez/when_do_link...

Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#294
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's true, why do they refuse to implement backups so normal people don't lose data when their phone breaks or the app bugs out?

Because they haven’t figured out how to do that securely?

What I don't understand here (though admittedly I haven't been following the iOS discussions closely) is why backups are possible on Android but not on iOS?

Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#295

My initial reaction was "oh no. Signal finally broke down and has begun adding the annoying social features." After thinking about it, I actually don't mind it. I am in a big (~15 people) group chat with my family. Often times someone will spam the chat with vacation pics or something they cooked for dinner. I don't particularly dislike that, but it seems like posting those pictures to their story would be a much bet…

> Often times someone will spam the chat with […]

and the ever growing backups(!)

Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#296
post #223

I was worried about sharing broadly and leaking info from 1 contact to another, but it seems like the Signal team did all the right things here. When you create a story you can make it a group story or not. If you do not make it a group story, reactions and replies to stories get sent to you over your 1:1 chats and not shared across other recipients of the story. If you make it a group story, and share it with multip…

I'm still of the opinion that encrypted private group chats are an impossible UX problem (1:1 chat is fine). But if I were to trust anyone to find a way to do it properly, it would be Signal.

Matrix, while kind of a PITA for non-technical people to get into, can do it quite well considering the featureset they support.

Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#297
post #95

My gut reaction to this was disappointment that Signal is working on yet another not-messaging feature a la their crypto integration... But the longer I think about it, the more positive I feel. I actually enjoyed using stories on other social media platforms before I left them. The idea of something similar, but end-to-end encrypted, is actually exciting!

I wish they would improve the app UI instead of focusing on features like this. Compared to other apps I use regularly, Signal feels kind of clunky -- the share dialog takes forever to load from another app compared to Telegram or Messages. The app feels like it's harassing me every single day to update. On open, the app often takes a few seconds of loading in my chats. Makes me wonder what core userbase Signal think…

Indeed. A simple example is photo-sharing, a critical function for many people.

Every time you send you have to manually choose if you want higher quality over smaller size. You can't set a default option.

You can crop crop photos, but the crop handles don't work properly and often spring back if you only want to crop in one dimension.

There's an anti-pattern where there's a separate tool selection and tool edit UI on the screen at the same time, so if you are in a hurry and hit 'Save' without hitting 'done' (immediately above it) your changes are discarded.

But if you hit the discard button, you have to confirm it in a modal dialog. It's faster to discard changes by hitting 'save'.

There are pen and highlighter tools so you can draw on an image. but no shape tools, in case you wanted to blank out someone's face.

There's a text tool with some display options. But it's always in the middle of the image. You can move it around, but only after you have typed the text. You can pick color but you can't change the font. It's faster to make a meme online.

You can't use any text effects like italic, bold, or underline either.

Remember how there were going to be blurring tools built in so you could blur faces if you were an activist or journalist? Offered in Beta, never made it to production.

Well, you could just put a sticker over their face, using one of Signal's (extremely cringey) stickers, or by uploading your own. But you can't paste an emoji.

On desktop, you can drag a sticker over the photo with the mouse, and it gets a little '+' in a box to show you're copying the sticker. Then it disappears. Why? Because it was designed for a touch UI and only clicking on a sticker will actually add it.

These are just the problems with image handling/markup. I could make many more lists for other aspects of the app. The markup tools would be kind of superfluous, but it is useful to be able to do thm within the app...only they're implemented in a way that is a source of constant frustration.

If you bring this up with them on Twitter or so people will rush to say 'well Signal is for secure messaging, use an art program if you want fancy image editing lol.' The same people who rush to defend Stories and stickers as 'broadening appeal' while simultaneously saying 'nobody uses SMS anyway' even though SMS is ubiquitous in Signal's home market. It has degenerated into fanboyism at this point.

Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#298
post #226

Please bring back SMS support. It's hard enough to convince people to use Signal in the first place. Nobody is going to juggle multiple apps, they'll just go back to SMS default app.

A 1000+ replies where usually they'd be lucky to get 100 on their announcements hasn't convinced them so it's not happening https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-blog-removing-sms...

Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hope they change course, and keep SMS. That is the single best feature of the android App. They will lose a lot of people if they don't.

I imagine it's a lot of hassle to maintain and outside of the US SMS is basically as dead as landline phones. They probably consulted their usage statistics when they made that decision.

Why? It hasn't changed in years. It's easy to use and glaringly obvious that it's a non-secure conversation. Sometimes I go to add a reaction to an SMS conversation before remembering that those don't work on SMS - the only problem I have ever had with it.

> outside the US

that's a 330m-person population, which is also home to Signal. Not only do I get SMS from people like neighbors and so that I don't especially want to convert, SMS is used to send payment receipts/pickup notes in restaurants, 6 digit verification codes for many websites and so on. If you are outside the US and don't have to deal with SMS congratulations, but for the large number of people in a territory where it is still a key part of digital infrastructure, arbitrarily yanking the feature is a huge pain.

Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they haven’t figured out how to do that securely?

What I don't understand here (though admittedly I haven't been following the iOS discussions closely) is why backups are possible on Android but not on iOS?

As I understand it, iOS backups normally go to iCloud -- where they're stored encrypted but the keys are held by Apple (i.e. not end-to-end encrypted, and not a zero-knowledge system by any stretch). This makes iCloud-stored iOS backups susceptible to subpoena, malicious employees, and/or good-enough hackers.
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