Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
671–680 of 972 posts
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#672What about olvid? Quite recent, references are strong: https://olvid.io/team/en/
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#673Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s not a good comparison. There are many alternatives to WhatsApp and it’s not a „critical“ infrastructure. In contrast, you sometimes can’t choose your ISP and internet is much more critical.
It can be in area's (such as in The Netherlands) where literally _everyone_ is on WhatsApp and it is the default form of personal online communication. Not using WhatsApp means not being able to communicate with a lot of people.
I use both. I realize that Facebook already has my social graph and the epsilon more information they get from my family chats pencils out to epsilon. I use Signal when I don't want Facebook to know and monetize that knowledge.
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#674Email would have been a good choice too, my personal experience of ditching Chat in favor of non-real-time communication has resulted in more thoughtful communication, besides eliminates the need for converting your contacts from their favorite chat app.
End-to-End encryption is something which cannot be enforced for all communications(contacts) with email.
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#675Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 t…
Assuming a message is 200 bytes or so, searching millions of messages is trivially doable on your phone (200 MB full text index). Billions is pushing it a bit, but you can work around on the app level (e.g. only index the last month in high traffic groups).
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#676Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a reminder, Telegram groups are not encrypted at all, and 1:1 chats are not encrypted by default, so while WhatsApp might see your contacts, Telegram can see most of your messages.
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.
All Signal clients have a search feature. Its about as easy to use as any other search tool. You can have end to end encryption on messaging and still have a client-side search feature.
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#677I feel like Matrix P2P would be a great idea for decentralized communication mechanism.
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#678Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not showing you ads in 1:1 chat or in groups the maintainer has chose not to enable them in is different from, "I have your data ready to go for targeted advertisement". This is essentially the Google model. Your search queries and browsing history (and Android and Chrome) are essential to targeted ads shown on every website "the webmasters choose to enable them on".
> This is essentially the Google model. What? Google uses all your info for creepy personalized ads. Telegram is showing the same ads to everyone in a channel. And it isn't in 1:1 chats cuz they're supposed to be non-intrusive and gives a feeling of privacy. Who is the 'maintainer'? Telegram is the only entity here.
The data is still on Telegram's servers, unencrypted. They may be doing ads in a channel/group, but I don't think for one second that's where they're going to stop now that they've entered that rabbit hole. By the time you'd realise, it'd be too late, since they've got your data on their servers, unencrypted. This is strictly worse than WhatsApp.
https://gizmodo.com/the-dangers-of-techs-privacy-promises-18...
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#679I would also like an option for "do not switch" and "none". I'd vote "none".
That would tell me that you would switch to use none, or that you currently don't use anything, or that you wouldn't switch from your current system, but it doesn't give me any advice to pass on to my friends, who do use WhatsApp, want not to use WhatsApp, and need to use something. So providing those options wouldn't help me, although it's otherwise interesting to note that you'd vote "none".
I think you can use those options as advice to your friends. The advice would be to "not switch" or "use nothing". Both of those are valid advice and "none" is the advice I'm giving friends and relatives from now on.
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#680Earlier quoted context omitted.
Encrypted messages are searchable, it's just slower and has to happen on the client rather than the server.
>As a reminder encrypted messages aren't easily searchable Pretty much what I said.
But they are easily searchable for the vast majority of scenarios. I've got years worth of message history on my $300 phone, and yet it has no problems returning search results nearly instantly.