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I don't get this. Everyone is used to juggling between multiple apps, many of which allow to send messages. People are fine talking over Discord AND WhatsApp AND three others, but somehow "it's unbearable to add Signal". And it's not exactly "yet another app", it's pretty much a clone of WhatsApp. So if everybody moved to Signal, we could just get rid of WhatsApp. Which gets us to your second point:

> And I don't want to go to signal because it's only marginally better. It's still American and still a walled garden (no third party apps allowed, no federation). It's a slightly less smelly walled garden.

This, to me, is downright irrational. "Less smelly" is better, especially if it takes zero effort (you don't even need to create an account with a password, it just sends you an SMS).

If there was a non-American alternative to Signal, surely I would go for it. But there isn't. In the meantime, Signal is by far the best alternative to WhatsApp in terms of privacy.

Not to mention that there is actually a valid reason to not allow third party apps (spoiler: security). Last time I heard a fork of Signal making the news, it was pretty bad.

I don't use the others you mention. Only telegram because many communities are there (it's the only chat app with good group chat functionality)

But it's exactly because I already have to deal with too many of them that I don't want to add more.

Also I don't like moxie's attitude but that's more of a personal concern that won't apply to most. Like not allowing third party clients or federation and shooting many suggestions down on github. It's his right to do that but it's also mine to not want to use it. For a "just a little bit better" experience I'm not moving to that.

I use matrix a lot and I think this is by far the best and most open option but most people don't know it. I bridge all the other apps through it now. Also, arathorn is a much nicer person who responds much better to criticism.

> If there was a non-American alternative to Signal, surely I would go for it. But there isn't. In the meantime, Signal is by far the best alternative to WhatsApp in terms of privacy.

But I wouldn't be able to actually move. It would just be yet another one. Not even much better in any way than whatsapp.

> Not to mention that there is actually a valid reason to not allow third party apps (spoiler: security). Last time I heard a fork of Signal making the news, it was pretty bad.

I don't care so much about that (and I work in cybersec). What matters more to me is being in control of my data. Being able to export them wherever I want etc.

I had an issue recently with whatsapp where they locked my account because of "spam". I wasn't spamming but they probably thought my matrix bridge was suspicious. However because of that bridge I could still access my chat data. I couldn't in whatsapp itself. Signal could do the same to me. So I would only use it bridged to Matrix anyway, like I do whatsapp.

And in terms of security: I don't believe neither WhatsApp nor Signal is good enough to prevent a state actor from reading my messages. Even if they can't get in the app they can compromise an endpoint. And even a bad third-party app will be sufficient to prevent drive-by hackers with a pineapple from reading my messages. So I don't see much difference there.

For someone who "works in cybersec", you have surprising opinions...

Like you seem to care about your messages not being entirely public ("And even a bad third-party app will be sufficient to prevent drive-by hackers with a pineapple from reading my messages") but at the same time you're fine with Telegram not being E2EE.

And then you seem to consider that a state actor being able to read the messages in transit is the same as them hacking into the phones?

And it all suggests that somehow the only reasonable threat model is "not caring about a state actor targetting oneself specifically and not caring about anything more than 'drive-by hackers with a pineapple'"?

wkat4242 368 days ago

I work in cybersec, not saying I'm a good one :) I hate my job (moving into cyber was a mistake) but I'm currently staying in it for mortgage reasons. And I don't ascribe to the regular security dogma.

I think third-party signal apps are just too thin a target for anyone intermediate to bother. Signal itself hardly is. Also, most of the stuff I discuss on these is just banter and stupid memes that people send me.

dotancohen 369 days ago

  > But I wouldn't be able to actually move. It would just be yet another one.

Actually, you would. A few months ago WhatsApp had a huge downtime in my country, and lots of people move to Telegram. It turns out, just telling people that you're moving to Telegram, that's enough to get them to move with you. I was already on Telegram, but I saw it happen enough times to be surprised myself.

Just don't keep a backup WhatsApp account around, because then people will use it.

I don't think that will work with the massive whatsapp userbase we have here. Literally everyone I know is on whatsapp.

It's really not worth the hassle for me especially since signal is only marginally better.

What is "the hassle"? Do you mean the few seconds required to install Signal on your phone? Or do you mean converting all your friends to Signal?

I understand the latter, but for the former... it's probably faster to install Signal than to answer to a message on HN.

If everybody just installed Signal (because it's better, even if marginally), then eventually everybody would be on Signal and it would be easy to switch.

wkat4242 368 days ago

I just don't believe in this signal evangelism. I'm not going to use it. Once something comes that's really open like Matrix I'll support it. RCS isn't it either as you need to be part of the mobile service provider in-crowd to run your own.

But the hassle is dealing with all these different apps and their separate notifications. I have real app fatigue lately and turn them off for mostly everything.

bayindirh 369 days ago

This is not about Signal. This about being spread too thin. To be able to keep up with all the work projects I'm involved in, I need to use Slack, Discord, Matrix at the same time. Add WhatsApp on top of that. That's 4, but not all. Add e-mail and ordinary phone calls.

6 methods to just keep up with work. I also have at least three ways to reach required documents and meeting notes. I really don't want to jump like a platformer character from point to point to be able to communicate and get things done.

In my personal life, I prefer "1 task, 1 application" model. Communications, one application. Personal information storage? Everything in one place, etc.

Application hopping has a very big mental overhead, and kills my flow. Many colleagues are in the same boat.

It's not Signal, it's any app, account, for any reason.

I don't get that. I also must use Slack, Discord, Matrix, WhatsApp and I don't see a problem in having Signal on top. When I receive a message from someone, all it takes is clicking on the notification and answering there.

To the point where sometimes I can't remember on which app I was having which discussion.

mr_toad 369 days ago

> I need to use Slack, Discord, Matrix

Sounds like a perfect way to ghost people. “You send the update on Matrix? Oh, yeah I was stuck arguing with people in Slack all day, I must have missed it.”

Yeah that's exactly what happens. Especially because not every app allows per-user notification control on android so I just disable notifications altogether for the apps I don't use so much. I only want to be notified for the most important stuff, I don't have time to constantly tend to my phone every time someone says something. So I tend to look at it just at the end of the day.

One thing that's nice about matrix is that you can select keywords to trigger notifications. Most of the other apps don't have that. So I tell people to say PRIO or PRORITY if their message is really important, so they can force a notification. Any other messages just get looked at when I get around to it and don't notify. If they abuse the priority I simply remove their right to do that.

But none of the other apps seems to be able to do these keywords or (even better) have an option to mark a message as urgent or something.

alias_neo 369 days ago

I disagree wholeheartedly that it's "only marginally better". It's not Meta, and that's a huge improvement.

A European alternative would be excellent (I'm in the UK), but no such thing exists, that said, Signal's server and clients are open-source and can be self-hosted, or even deployed at scale by a European government/entity if they so wish.

I work in the "secure comms" space, and I have reviewed every line of code in the open-source server (as of the revision I last worked on), and built products on it, and though I can't prove they run the same code they publish, I'm "happy enough" with what I see that I'd use it over anything owned by Meta any day.

In an ideal world, I'd host it myself for everyone I communicate with to use, but without federation that's not a possibility, so given a choice between Signal and WhatsApp, the decision is hands-down Signal.

> In an ideal world, I'd host it myself for everyone I communicate with to use, but without federation that's not a possibility, so given a choice between Signal and WhatsApp, the decision is hands-down Signal.

If that's the only choice, maybe yes. Though the installed base of whatsapp is so big I could not leave it right now anyway. So Signal would only be extra.

But for me to voluntarily promote an app it has to be a lot more open than Signal. Even if other people around me start using it I'll probably be the last to move.