[tazjin]

It does, but only for chats between two specific devices. Multi-device support is one of its best features that you lose with E2E.

Key distribution is just too hard. I think we won't get a messenger for non-tech people that works well with multi-device and E2E basically ever.

[taminka]

whatsapp, facebook messenger, imessage all support multi-device and it's pretty convenient, in fairness to telegram they launched a bit before double ratched was invented, but still, they've had over a decade to switch to it...

[stavros]

WhatsApp doesn't support multi-device. You can't have it installed on two phones at once.

[taminka]

you can (https://faq.whatsapp.com/1046791737425017/?cms_platform=andr...)

they even have it on fb messenger and instagram (though they recently removed e2ee completely from instagram lol)

[stavros]

That's still one device. If you turn the primary phone off, the secondary device stops working. WhatsApp just proxies everything through the primary device, it's like WhatsApp Web.

[wisenull]

It used to be like that but not anymore. As siblings suggested you can now use it on up to 4 (I believe) additional devices.

[lxgr]

They used to, but that hasn't been true for a few years now.

Now it uses the Signal protocol's native multi-device capabilities, specifically in the "key per device" variant (unlike signal itself, which uses "key per account" if I'm not mistaken).

[canpulseword]

This is not true, even if the primary phone is offline you can send messages via secondary device, even whatsapp web

It’s not proxied via primary, otherwise it wouldn’t work if primary were offline

[stavros]

> It’s not proxied via primary, otherwise it wouldn’t work if primary were offline

That is correct, it doesn't work.

[taminka]

oh, i see, is it the same for facebook messenger and instagram, imessage, etc?

[stavros]

I don't know, I don't use those. It is for Signal, I don't think so for Instagram, since I don't think that encrypts end to end.

[TeMPOraL]

Messenger seems to be properly multi-device, but you pay for this by some PIN code bullshit (maybe they removed that, I haven't seen a popup about this for over a year now?) and having to sync chat history in the background, through a process that is, of course, broken and unreliable.

I'm actually still jaded about this. Messenger worked fine before they broke it by introducing E2EE; it took years for them to fix the problems this caused (at least the ones that were immediately user-perceptible).

[ymolodtsov]

It's called iMessage. It's possible, Telegram just doesn't care. All their differentiating features (large groups, channels, device sync) is directly enabled by the lack of encryption.

[taminka]

they do have encryption, just not e2ee, and in fairness to them, it doesn't make sense to have e2ee on a channel or a group with 100k ppl in it, also device sync is possible with e2ee, it's just a slower

[tcfhgj]

you can have large groups and device sync WITH e2ee, see Matrix.

[ymolodtsov]

Any Matrix client I tried lagged even without chats though.

[tcfhgj]

Matrix

[lxgr]

What are you talking about? WhatsApp, iMessage, and Signal all have multi-device support and are E2E encrypted, just to name a few very popular options.