Typical behavior from Signal. They have a track record of hostility that we as a community should really not be tolerating. I do not use Signal and I tell my friends not to, either. Play nice or don't play at all.
Problem is, I already moved my friends and family to Signal and removed Whatsapp from my phone. It was an uphill battle that I don't want to fight again. What do I do, now? As much as there's a lot of questionable stuff on Signal, that's nothing compared to whatsapp. Do you suggest a Signal alternative that is significantly better?
I don't have an answer which is likely to satisfy you. I'm still a grumpy old IRC user. I communicate with non-technical friends and family via email, SMS, and Jitsi Meet. I allowed myself to be persuaded to try Matrix earlier this year and so far I've regret it.
goodpoint's answer is probably the best longer term answer: someone needs to fork Signal and manage it properly. But it's not as simple as just rebranding the software, it needs lots of difficult technical work to fix its many problems.
This. It was hard enough to migrate people from Whatsapp ( as in, for all my privacy gripes, it is hard to argue that it just works very well in most instances ).
It is not like most of my social groups are me-centric, which forces me to pick battles carefully. Now that I moved people to signal, I need to do what I can to try moving signal to my ideal space ( no phone requirement being one of them, 3rd party clients and so on ).
Sounds like sunk cost. What are your chances to influence Signal leadership in any way?
A better idea would be to use internet standands for messaging to avoid vendor lock-in.
I personally do not think this is user hostile because users have an interest in being able to distinguish between official and unofficial distribution of software, in particular in a security relevant case like this.
I used this snap package thinking it was an official one, if I had known that it isn't I wouldn't have installed it.
What's the alternative? My mom onboarded my entire extended family to Signal, and she's not technical. I'm not sure of anything else, outside of Meta-owned WhatsApp, with that kind of simplicity.