The thing it’s missing the most is better multi device support and an updated desktop client.
For me, I think Matrix is more complete (specially since it backs-up your chats and media encrypted). The only thing it’s lacking (at least Element specific) is encrypted chat search support on mobile.
I use it for linux. Recently there was a bug where if you had a chat opened, it would pin one core to 100% usage. It also lacks feature parity with the mobile client (ex: gif search and send).
I use it on windows. The client is totally fine for the most part.
Though for some reason it regularly screws up the device-connection, forcing me to reconnect the device, loosing access to every old message. Seems to be a rare bug though, as my family also uses the windows client and theirs never has this problem (out of 8 device 1 has this problem)
Yeah, it sucks that if I were using Signal only on my phone and eventually decide to start using it on desktop, it doesn’t sync any conversation history, resulting in the desktop client showing nothing from before you set it up. It should have older devices send history to new ones. If you’re permanently switching devices, are you losing that history for good?
It has bridges for most messaging services so you could use a matrix frontend for most of your messaging needs without having people on matrix so long as the server admin has set up those extensions
iMessage can’t be “the mainstream” app by locking out most of the world tho. Plus it is definitely the ugliest thing Apple has ever made in its lifetime that I know of.
I don’t think it’s really a chat app. Isn’t it just a text replacement? Or does it just use that number as your ID to use it? I have it, but only ever used it with one guy.
It has lots of nice features over SMS: read/typing notifications, image/video support, proper groups, message expiration. I think that makes it a chat app
If you live in most of Europe or definitely Latin America, yeah, it is so popular it's kind of inconceivable not to use it, or at least hard to imagine. I genuinely don't understand how people in the US communicate.
I've used SMS exactly 3 times in my life, all 10+ years ago. My phone plan doesn't even include SMS anymore. It boggles my mind that people use SMS in the US, and I mean that seriously.
Signal is centralized and requires a phone number. This is potentially impactful to your anonymity. So, for example if the recipients device is comprised that encryption doesn’t mean much and you may be identifiable.
All that said, I use Signal. But it’s good to know it’s shortcomings.
Edit: added potentially. You could certainly have a number not associated with your identity.
anonymity, privacy, and security are not inclusive of the other and anonymity is not in scope of signal. SimpleX would be a better option if that’s your goal, although being in beta still, I can’t fully recommend it
I wish I could say the same but if you want to date you have to here. I despise and absolutely hate how you have to you use a phone number to register. And then every contact you have can add you to a group so everyone there now can have your number.
I’ve had a stalker before and I hate that stuff like that makes it trivially easy for her to get my number again. I literally can’t understand how women are okay with absolutely shitty systems like this. I really can’t repeat enough how much I strongly hate WhatsApp and how everyone else thinks it’s so good for exactly the reason that I hate it. It’s too easy to send messages despite me never giving you my number to begin with. SMS is the same but you can’t add me to a group without my permission and share my number with a group of people I don’t know.
Except people at one point realized that IE is shit and switched to better alternatives. I don’t see this happening with WhatsApp - everyone and their great grandfather uses it and all other messengers are niche occurrences
My family in the U.S uses Viber. We switched when hangouts was originally going to be axed. Tried to get everyone on Signal but was told it wasn’t as friendly for the elderly family.
telegram is awesome but please don’t use it if you’re looking for total privacy, as (by default) chats are not e2e-encrypted (this is done to improve sync/seamless multi-device chat history).
also they introduced a discord nitro-like subscription like a year ago and started putting all new features behind it…
Huh, I haven’t tried that. I use Signal on an Android phone, ipad, Windows computer, and Linux computer. I just recently started using Beeper though. I like that it uses Matrix for its back end between other Beeper users. But, I can use it to talk to people on Signal, iMessage, SMS, etc.
In WhatsApp, you can create “Communities” these days. In a community you can create multiple Chats/Groups with their own topic. So when you have a big community and different topics to talk about, you can create a chat for each topic so that you don’t have one spammy chat. That way all chats belonging to that community also are visible to all people which are in at least one of the communities’ chats.
I was unaware that it was supposed to transfer chat history. It’s never once done it for me. I assumed it was like other platforms I’ve used where it doesn’t sync your history unless you backup and restore.
Well you’re somewhat correct about Chat history, but just that just comes with better security measures… Otherwise the only thing I dislike, that you can’t drag and drop files onto the contact list on the left, but only to the selected chat.
It’s also really buggy, and it’s got worse performance than even element. Like the calls don’t even make it through most of the time, and instead the other person just gets a missed call notification after you stop dialing them.
Such a weird statement. webkit is and has been a fully released browser engine for decades, companies forked from it for licensing and profit, not because it wasnt ready or complete (at the time)
Same as any browser engine, there isn’t a new engine since 20 years. Apart of Gecko, Blink and WebKit there are nothing else, apart of some experimental ones, mostly discontinued. WebKit is a fork from KHTML (KDE) and Blink is an improved fork from WebKit.
Eh, whatsapp isn’t ideal and its owner is one of the big devils of today, but it’s the only way to send and receive instant messages among billions of people. I despise it, but it’s the only way I can contact people. Needless to say, they don’t give a single flying fuck about privacy.
Whatsapp outages make people migrate to Telegram for 1-2 days at most, nobody ends up staying there. Signal? I’ve only ever met three other people in RL who have even heard of it, and I work in IT.
A more apt comparison would be to languages. Whatsapp is english: clunky, weird, full of nonsense, but it’s what “everyone talks”. Signal would probably be lojban or esperanto.
According to Statista, 41% of 'muricans use it, which is a rather low number. Meanwhile, Brazil is the whatsapp country, in terms of percentage. In total numbers, that’d be India, as it’s the most populous country in the world.
Aside from needing a phone, I really don’t see the issue with SMS. For sending quick messages to people directly, is there really a better tool? You (most likely) already have a phone plan, you already have a phone, and your phone is always on you. Everyone you’re trying to contact is in the same boat, even people who are technically illiterate. All phones with phone plans support SMS, unless there’s weird plans I don’t know about.
When it comes to more complex needs (group management, e2e encryption, etc) other services are better of course. I don’t use SMS to text my group of friends, it’s really not well suited for the job.
That is a huge one for me. Yes, I have a phone. But I spend most of my waking time in front of a desktop or laptop. With Whatsapp, Telegram or Signal I can read and write messages from the computer, copy/paste text to the documents I am writing, and send and download files. SMS are more limited.
I use SMS for work. It’s the one we all know what message we send through will present the same on the other side regardless of phone. A big downside is that it’s limited to the phone. Messenger and WhatsApp can be read on laptops.
I don’t disagree, but that wasn’t my point. Everyone has access to SMS messaging. Not everyone has an internet-based messaging app, and those who do are split among several different services.
As a Signal user and an Esperantist I agree. They both require a somewhat curious mind for you to bump into them in the first place. Unless you have that friend/relative who always recommends weird stuff for you (to ignore).
Yeah, but I disagree. Signal doesn’t require that by design, it’s just as easy to use as WhatsApp (unlike something like Matrix or Lemmy). It’s just as easy to switch and has a better privacy. And while I even don’t use it much, I actually know quite some people on it (majority of which is non-techy).
Why would it even be weird or anything? I only use Signal and its pretty much the same as whatsapp on the outside…just in blue. The only reason people dont use it is because “eVerYonE hAs WhAtsApP” and they dont bother. 20 useless crap apps but 2 messengers is too much
It’s not a particularly privacy-focused app, but there are much worse options. In some countries, Instagram DMs and Facebook Messenger are extremely popular. Teenagers in many places primarily use Snapchat. At least the message content on WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted. I’m pretty happy everyone I know uses it. I’d rather have everyone using Signal, but it’s definitely better than many other chat apps.
Matrix or Signal only for me. nobody uses Whatsapp here in the states, sms is simply insecure in every way, and telegram has very suspicious roots imo, along with a lack of e2ee and a terrible ui.
signal is the most secure option and matrix is federated making it the most “open” option.
congrats you’re an outlier I suppose. I’ve only met maybe 5 people that know what Whatsapp is. telegram is marginally more popular but only because a lot of drug dealers use it (they would have better luck with matrix or even signal)
I’m surprised with the reactions to this. The only people I use whatsapp with are all outside the US. It’s discord/telegram/sms for everyone in the US and it’s miserable.
I don’t live in the states but most of the people i know there use WhatsApp… Actually most of the people I know anywhere use it lol. I wondered what the basis of that comment was that in the US “nobody uses whatsapp” 🤷… Maybe he meant nobody in his tight inner circle… Or maybe he doesn’t know who’s using WhatsApp because he doesn’t use it
I’ve literally never met anyone that even knows what it is, although I thought it would be obvious just based on how people talk that I was speaking anecdotally and not from literal statistics. I come across Facebook messenger somewhat commonly but never Whatsapp.
Actual stats say 98 million people use WhatsApp in US, like 1 in 4, but I’d guess it’s kinda regional or cultural…for example probably more in urban areas and I know for sure more in Latino communities lol
I also think it has the best UI of any of the messengers, personally. It’s customizable and very polished overall, at least on Android. Very smooth/optimized while having loads of features and lots of little animations to make things flow nicely without getting in the way.
I do like Signal and Matrix clients as well, though I just wish Matrix had more of a user base.
Signal was decent when Musk was promoting it. Then they started throwing in new features without keeping the app functional or thinking about budgeting. So now it’s the worst performing chat app, basic functionality like calls are broken, and they want to monetize the app through crypto to cover up their lack of planning.
Matrix is pretty great, but the clients are still pretty bad, also it’s confusing as hell to anyone who doesn’t understand the idea of federation. I’ve tried getting people on element, but every single person needed help to create an account and get to chatting, and they’ve all deleted the app after a while. Also, did matrix fix that encryption bug that was leaking data if someone connected through a different server?
Look, I hate Facebook just as much as the next guy. But I live in The Netherlands and it’s the primary way I can contact literally everyone I know. So changing to another messaging app is hard here.
I’m from the NLs and removed WA last year. What I liked about switching to Signal: people who care about me also installed Signal, so I didn’t lose that. What I did lose? All the groups that I got into through the years, all of which were completely non-essential. If I need messaging with someone outside Signal I just use sms. The best part of leaving WA is that you’ll find a lot of people willing to install Signal for your sake, and that’s how it becomes easier for others to make the move.
Messaging apps curse is exactly that… No matter how good they are, if nobody is using it… In WhatsApp I have +100 of my contacts, in Telegram, 20. In Signal, less than 10, so…
I’ve never used it, and I never intend to. I know SMS isn’t ideal for privacy, but at least I can use FOSS apps to interact with it, and it doesn’t mandate intrusive features like “reactions” or read receipts
I’m not sure what’s intrusive about reactions but you can turn off read receipts. Yeah it isn’t ideal either but video calls, sending media/files, group chats (do NOT suggest MMS. Never MMS.) and so on. Lots of features, secure, but yeah privacy is dogshit. Signal is great but I’ve only managed to convert a few people to it.
I’d welcome the chance to use something more privacy based than Signal
I just never like reactions in an app used for general messaging. They make sense on a more memey plaything like Discord, but not in a messaging app that I’m supposed to take seriously as my primary way to communicate. In fact, simple text only without any other formatting would be ideal. That’s kinda what I like about this place, with the exception of upvotes/downvotes, which could be removed for all I care.
I’ve got a group chat going in SMS with several family members, and I always cringe when I get the message “[brother] laughed at an image,” and I don’t even know what fucking image it was because I don’t have an iPhone.
Reactions just seem like something that should have never been implemented in a place where they’re not universally supported. Maybe I’d feel different with Signal, since I could simply not pay any attention to them. But if someone can’t simply have the time to say “I like that,” then why even react at all? I don’t need to know that you lived, laughed, loved at my image.
I think it’s less annoying with a large group chat to have people react to an image than 20 identical messages. I’ve seen some do group votes through that (👍 vs 👎) which seems like a good use case. Tbh I haven’t seen people use reactions much so probably partly because of that they don’t bother me.
I guess it would be preferable to getting all the disembodied “x laughed at an image” or “x loved an image” messages without even knowing which image it refers to. One could simply ignore the feature if it were less intrusive.
Realistically, out of the very few people (in relative terms, of course) that use signaly, I highly doubt there was a huge number that relied on it for SMS. Or even knew about SMS. First, you have to rule out anyone who was using it on iOS (by this point, you probably have thousands of people left out of the entire pool - yes I’m kinda pullin that out of my ass but you get my point - which is nothing).
So killing SMS definitely wasn’t the make or break for Signal. Not even close to being likely.
Yeah, I guess I’m not sure about the actual statistics. I do know it was the point when I realized I wouldn’t personally use Signal because everyone I know uses SMS, SMS federates with email, and if I tried switching to a non-SMS app, I’d be screaming into a void.
The only other message apps people around here use are Snapchat, FB Messenger, and WhatsApp, and I’d rather cut people off than use any of those.
I’ve been using Beeper a month or two. They had a long waiting list, and initially it was subscription only, but they are working on smashing through the waiting list and have changed to a freemium model where you get it for free and (eventually) they will have extra features for subscribers.
Basically, it’s one chat app that connects to lots of different chat services.
If you’re technical, the app is a fork of Element, and the service uses matrix bridges to connect to different chat services, but it’s all presented in a (somewhat) polished way. The wait list is because they are still struggling with scaling and quirks but if you’re on Lemmy you’re probably already well familiar with putting up with this.
It covers heaps of chat networks. Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Signal, Telegram, and more. It also will let you SMS (unlike Signal 😬).
You can also connect to Matrix rooms but you don’t seem to be able to connect to an existing Matrix account (it uses a Beeper matrix account to connect).
It doesn’t do video/audio calls so they recommend you leave the original app installed and disable message notifications (but leave on call notifications) if you use this.
Yep. But if you’re keen on this stuff, you can self host matrix and the bridges and do it yourself. Their bridges are open source, just not their apps whose features are their business model.
Nice. Looking into this one. Although in reality I use about 95% whatsapp just because everyone else does. Wish we could all just switch to Signal or even Telegram but nah… Whatsapp is so engrained everywhere that it is not going to go away anytime soon.
Well, that’s super neat and very useful for my circumstances. I’m moving outside of the US soon to a place where WhatsApp is dominant, but I still want to use SMS/MMS with family and friends in the US since I doubt they’ll make the switch. I’ve been using WhatsApp for about a year now while coordinating stuff for my soon-to-be home and I’ve come to the conclusion that WhatsApp is complete garbage.
I literally installed Telegram/Signal on my families devices, synced their contacts with the app, and said “if you want timely responses, message me here”
On the other hand telegram makes it a chore to have encrypt messages, doesn’t allow encrypted group chat, and breaks normal functionality when encrypted (reactions, GIFs, etc.)
Early in his career, Crowder worked for Fox News and posted satirical videos on conservative media platforms. He then began hosting Louder with Crowder, a daily political podcast and YouTube channel with commentary and comedic content. It includes a recurring segment called “Change My Mind”, in which Crowder invites passers-by to converse. In December 2012, Crowder and members of Americans for Prosperity were involved in an altercation at a demonstration in Michigan concerning the state’s recently passed right-to-work law.[3]
Crowder’s YouTube channel has been demonetized twice, first in 2019 after repeated use of racist and homophobic slurs.[4][5][6][7] His channel was re-monetized after YouTube said Crowder addressed his behavior and content,[8] and it was demonetized again in March 2021, with uploads suspended for a week, after violating YouTube’s presidential election integrity policy against advancing false claims about the election’s integrity.[9] YouTube suspended the channel again for two weeks in October 2022 for violating its harassment, threats and cyberbullying policy.[10] The channel had 5.86 million subscribers as of May 2023.[11] Crowder moved his show to Rumble in March 2023.[12]
You’re absolutely right. He doesn’t deserve a meme template.
To be fair, Wikipedia doesn’t give him justice. He is far worse. Either he is an utter foul or he is a full blown Nazi. I am not saying “oh i disagree with him, so Nazi” I am saying “he supports white supremacists, ‘race realists’, ethno nationalists, by giving them a uncritical platform and by giving people a uncritical platform who give those people a uncritical platform”
If you want see how Steven Crowder does his politics and a good case towards why I think that way, youtu.be/cXZ6BZzQeCQSteven Crowder wanted to know what a white supremacists is and claimed to feel like people are calling him one unfairly and a guy decided to walk everyone to the thought process of how and why people think what they think.
WhatsApp seems very conservative with adding new features. I generally feel the features they do decide to add are all pretty useful. Telegram on the other hand doesn’t ever seem to slow down with the new features. Many of them seem great, but just as many I would never use. I’m still wondering why Telegram won’t introduce end-to-end encryption as a default.
e2e encryption makes it difficult to provide fully cross-platform messaging experience
Why?
I can easily encrypt a message on my x86_64 Windows desktop, send it to my x86_64 Linux laptop, and also my ARM64 Android phone, and be able to decrypt it perfectly.
Why would it be difficult? Encryption isn’t difficult (any more than adding any essential feature would be) and is platform independent. It doesn’t matter what device you’re using, encryption and decryption are commonly used.
The whole sticker implementation is absolute dog shit. How hard could it be to do a half decent implementation with customizable keywords for searching, custom sticker categorization, and backups? I have hundreds, if not over a thousand, stickers and it’s impossible to access them quickly to find the one you want. You end up just adapting to whatever is on your most used list, and you’re stuck scrolling for a while to find a different sticker, which In an active chat group it means you end up reacting super late to everything and the chat has moved on at that point.
MSN and the MSN+ plugin had this nailed down 20 years ago. Even telegram has a better implementation where you just add the entire sticker library for each new sticker; you end up with stickers you didn’t ask for, which is a negative, but everything ends up categorized in SOME way at least.
Its also ridiculous that whatsapp can’t be bothered to offer sticker creation in-app.
Dont get me started on chat participants count limitations and how utterly USELESS archiving a chat is. You can mute the chat and archive it, and a single message will just pop it back to the top of your list, as if you weren’t trying to actively avoid that. And whatsapp has been pretty useless for big chat groups such as big neighborhoods and the like. My HOA hasn’t added me or my friends to the neighborhood chat groups historically due to size limitations, which in itself perpetuated a toxic approach from the HOA where only sycophants are allowed into these groups. Most neighbors are left in the dark over decisions and meetings, which is utter stupidity and has 100% been aggravated by whatsapp’s limitations. Doesn’t matter that they’ve implemented alternatives to this, you try to get hundreds of boomers to understand how to use community chats.
You must live in a huge neighbourhood. Your points are valid, though you can now choose to keep chats archived even when receiving a message. Settings > Chats > Keep chats archived.
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