[sroecker]

Please do not use Telegram. It' closed source and uses some half-baked crypto. Signal is open source and is actually end-to-end encrypted.

[unicornporn]

Wire[1] is also an excellent option. Unlike Open Whisper Systems they wont hang you from a tree for building a third party app. Signal wont work without Gapps or Google Play Services on your Android phone and Google Chrome for desktop.

[1] https://wire.com/

[codethief]

Signal does work with MicroG (https://microg.org/), an open source reimplementation of Google Play Services.

[kuschku]

But that still requires using the Google Play Services library in the Signal APK, still doing analytics.

[tdkl]

I tried Wire after this WhatsApp news came out initially and brought about 10 people (friends/family) to it. They're satisfied how it works.

[lmm]

Signal is pseudo-open-source but will not allow you to use it except via the closed-source google play services, so I still wouldn't have confidence in it.

[glogla]

Yes. Also, on what payroll is Moxie now? He was working with Facebook on WhatsApp and then worked with Google on their new messaging app.

[codethief]

This is incorrect. There is an open source reimplementation of Google Play Services (https://microg.org/) and Signal works beautifully with it.

[claudius]

And wherefrom can you get Signal except for the Google Play store? I was looking for it a while ago to install on my phone but only found two other projects which were threatened by moxie and then shut down.

[aorth]

I compile my own binaries. Not too bad actually.

[kuschku]

So the Signal APK does NOT depend on the Google Cloud Messaging library anymore, which pulls in 40k LOC of analytics?

[eggie]

Telegrams clients (and the e2e encryption) are open source. For instance: https://github.com/DrKLO/Telegram

Curious if you know why the crypto is half-baked. Has it been broken?

edit: found Signal server, I think: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure-Server

Nice it's out there. This will help Signal live a long time.

[romanovcode]

Exactly. Not to mention if it becomes popular it will get sold to megacorp in a heartbeat.

[watwatwatwat]

I'll give signal another try, last time I couldn't register.

[reitanqild]

A lot of people here use twitter.

Why must things be provably sure to have any value?

[bwindels]

No windows phone client :-(