[pt_PT_guy]

They want to do this because they want more traction for their blockchain: TRON, which, IIRC, is the payment method for ads, usernames and "stuff" inside Telegram.

However Du Rove is right about a bunch of things:

- Signal clients suck, specially the Desktop one where they ship (or used to) pre-built binaries like their own lib: https://github.com/signalapp/ringrtc - Also you can't have Signal without Google Play Store - Signal client suck in usability. I wish I had Telegram client (android) and desktop (qt) instead of this electron garbage. Telegram clients are super-duper-awesome - I would say that removing phone number requirement is their #1 request. yet they take so much time to address it, specially when they cry about phone number validation SMS costs - BTW, telegram is implementing a very nice idea of a crowd sourced sms validation, where they use their users phone numbers to send the validation sms - They have a very questionable crypto integration with MobileCoin, which have a obscure value: they depend on IntelSGX and is 95% pre-mined

[luuurker]

> you can't have Signal without Google Play Store

You can use Signal without the Play Store. Download the apk from Signal's website and it will use a background connection to receive calls and notifications. The downside is that it's heavier on the battery.

[pt_PT_guy]

just that? then why not a f-droid release?

[luuurker]

They seem to want everyone to use the official app. That's supposed to be fine because of the reproducible builds.

In any case, if we don't trust the official client/app/build, then I'm not sure if a F-Droid release would help that much. If we think there's something funny with the official apk, then we can't trust any part of Signal.

[r0ks0n]

ton and tron are not the same thing

[pt_PT_guy]

ty. you're right