[tgsovlerkhgsel]

It's barely tolerable for power users, unacceptable for casual users. In particular, calling doesn't work reliably on Android, no search in encrypted rooms, ...

Signal, on the other hand, is basically a drop-in replacement for WhatsApp. Extremely similar UX, basically the same concepts, phone numbers as identifiers allow you to keep your social network if other contacts migrate.

[pkulak]

Calling works fine for me. And you can't search any E2E encrypted rooms on any platform. But at least Matrix can store history, that you can then search on your client. Or if you really want search, you can just not encrypt your room, which isn't an option at all with Signal.

But I do agree that Signal is easier, a better WhatsApp replacement for most people, and a wonderful service in general. The more people use it, the better.

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

I can search my E2E encrypted rooms on Signal (Android) just fine.

[pkulak]

Yes, but only the messages on your device. Once you run out of room on your phone, switch to another phone, use your laptop, etc, all that history is gone forever, and obviously not searchable.

Element actually does encrypted search a bit better than Signal. Signal stores every message it receives, in its entirety, forever (unless you tell it not to, or course, but then you can't search). That makes search dead simple, but it also fills up my phone with hundreds of megs a month. Element stores messages on the server, so old ones don't need to stay on your phone (only your keys). But you can still search the entire history because the client indexes every message that comes in and stores that index forever, which is much smaller than a bunch of media files, and even the plain text.