[eitland]

I agree.

Signal I think is very good with the two major exceptions:

- AFAIK they don't publish reproducible builds

- They've (IIRC and AFAIK) at times had lower quality when it came to the non cryptographic parts.

So if someones lives depend on e2e-encryption Signal is the only recommended messenger IMO.

For following public news channels from Ukraine and the Middle East there is no alternative to Telegram.

And if I have to organize something and not everyone is ready to install Signal (i.e. all the time around here) I try to use Telegram. That way I'm at least not spoonfeeding Google and Meta at the same time.

If FSB sits on my weekend plans that is annoying but no big deal.

(I was however rather annoyed when I realized local police used Telegram a while ago. I think that was very irresponsible.)

[paulryanrogers]

Signal has been audited. Has Telegram?

Signal says it's had reproducible builds since 2016: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/tree/main/reprod...

[eitland]

Signal has reproducible builds on Android. If they have on IOS like Telegram then I have missed it.

I realize now that while I wrote reproducible builds on both Android and iOS further up the thread I forgot to in my last reply. It was an honest mistake, I forgot.

Telegram is open source.

And has reproducible builds.

So anyone can audit it and verify that

a) end-to-end encryption either works or does not (but I guess someone had told us if it was broken)

b) it is not enabled by default

c) in the default mode data is sent encrypted to Telegrams data centers, after that you have to trust Telegram not to snoop in it.

Does not mean it is perfect or even good, but for its use cases it is a lot better than HN gives it credit for.