My wife recently got her entire extended family to use Signal. She has always refused to use WhatsApp. They all love Signal now, and use it all the time. However, this was during a family crisis.
During the Covid lockdowns, many companies I know used Signal as their preferred non corporate communication platform over WhatsApp... But again, that was a crisis.
It seems to be difficult to dislodge people from their preferred platforms without some kind of external driver to adopt it.
I'd love to use signal with more people but that, and the ux around changing phones means I can't really recommend it to anyone but the most technical of my friends.
Yeah, thanks but no thanks.
That's my point. I hate systems that require a phone number, as they usually mean that I have a substandard experience when I'm not on my phone and I can't sign my children up so that we have a general chat tool.
The only option ends up being massively over the top team style chats like Rocketchat, Mattermost, Discord, or Slack. So we end up back on Hangouts.
A bit shit for general family conversation.
[Edit] If they do allow signing up/in with a username then I'll probably be all over it. That would be awesome news.
I'm unsure if they will allow signups without phone numbers, but they don't store that information. Signal doesn't have it. [0][1] It is very possible they go around this though.
[0] https://signal.org/blog/looking-back-as-the-world-moves-forw...
[1] (time-stamped to only the important part) https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=894&v=Nj3YFprqAr8&feature=yo...
> they usually mean that I have a substandard experience when I'm not on my phone
> I can't sign my children up so that we have a general chat tool.
This isn't a privacy thing, this is a general tool that is fundimentally broken if I'm not on my phone.
I'm not always on my phone, and my kids don't have phone numbers.
They are unusable.
In my experience the desktop client is slow, buggy, and takes eons to start up. There's also no web version, making it awkward to use on computers other than your own.
I would be more willing to switch over to Signal if it wasn't so lacking in this regard.
No. Threema does not require a phone number (it uses one for the registration verification, but your account is not linked to that number).
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25668547
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Signal IS much better.
It's a nonprofit, not a commerical company.
There are arguments for and against centralized systems and forks of apps. The lead dev of Signal is concerned about interoperability; but still leaves users the option of doing things the way they would like with the open source code; it's just not 'supported™'
If the only way to reach you is to either install Signal or wait a year until the lockdowns are over, people install Signal.
I can only speak for why one company adopted Signal over WhatsApp, but the main reason was that the company did not want their communication metadata tracked by Facebook. They were regarded as equivalent in terms of E2E encryption and functionality.
EDIT: They also did not trust Facebook entirely not to break the E2E in some way (eg cloud backups or whatever), and the message contents had to remain secure. It wasn't a huge concern, but all else being equal, Signal was the better choice.
edit: mass downvote! here are the links.
this link talks specifically about signal protocol being used by organized crime https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/waarom-criminel...
https://www.securityweek.com/telegram-rivaling-tor-home-crim...
https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2019/05/03/criminals-are-hi...
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne...
Here are links that show that WhatsApp is painted as a tool for pedophiles:
* https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/whatsapp-has...
* https://www.businessinsider.com/whatsapp-has-a-child-porn-pr...
* https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/20/whatsapp-pornography/
* https://endsexualexploitation.org/articles/whatsapp-has-a-ch...
My friends and family have mostly been using Signal for over a year and we never had such worry. I also know laywers, lawmakers, doctors and CEOs who are also using Signal for important communications.
Neither could I find anything matching your second point that installing any of these messengers might make law enforcement suspect you to be a criminal.
The move can be made faster now because groups are so prevalent on WhatsApp.
It's not a hard concept, and it's not just tech people who care about it. It doesn't require any knowledge of tech to understand.
On the other hand, she knows how to use FB messenger and my efforts to get her to switch to email/telegram have just caused confusion so far.
My apologies for the imposition if that’s not the case.
[0] https://www.techrepublic.com/article/j-edgar-hoover-would-ha...
They call everything "a myth" and then cite strong circumstantial and testimonial evidence that those "myths" are true, only to dismiss everything with hand waving about how "we'll never know" what his extremely private and mysterious sex life was like. Give me a break.
To be honest, I'm not well versed in the debate of privacy, but invariably in discussing user tracking by BigCo's a lot of my friends just say "I don't care if they have my data, I've got nothing to hide."
An example in the first case is that you'll want to buy a secret gift for someone, but because of the tracking the surprise will be spoiled because they'll be seeing ads for it on their systems.
when was cross-platform messaging ever new?
... IRC, AIM, etc ...
This is in relation to iMessage vs BBM vs whatever was popular on Android at the time.
(And they got on boarding, group functionality and UI better than anyone for a very long time)
That’s added at least 20 or 30 friends/acquaintances into my signal contact list that I’m 99% sure downloaded signal for the first time this morning.
Did you know that MMS can transmit slideshows[1]? I didn't, until my father somehow sent me one. The UI that Android has for that is — naturally — a complete afterthought. (No way to pause the slideshow, no way to navigate the slides, nothing. Just one run through the animation at Warp 8.)
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_Messaging_Service
My impression is the US/Canada are one of the only places where SMS is still frequently used for casual text communication and i'm horrified that Apple's iMessage is the one to somewhat challenge that.
In Brazil we hurry to turn off the call if it goes into voicemail, as we pay to leave a message AND nobody listens to them because it costs a lot to listen (or at least used to).
I don't know how many of the new Signal users will stay (there's already discussion in one of the new Signal groups about "Why aren't we using Telegram instead?")
Same as much of this thread - these people are not concerned much at all about encryption details, they're largely a pissed of mob of people departing WhatsApp. And some of them are already saying "there's no web client! I can't use this!!!"
I suspect I may well end up back being "the guy who's not part of most group chats" if/when they decide Signal isn't for them... And I'm OK with that.
iMessage is only for Apple devices.
But once most people have both it gets easier.
Signal (UX wise) is not really super great for my family, I burned a lot of my "technical expert advisor" capital and reputation by pushing that too hard.
All of which is completely unacceptable in 2021 for a product meant for a large audience. Messaging is integral to people's lives, to the point where people keep 10+ year old phones because they have messages on them from people that passed away and they can't figure out how to move the messages across or to a new system. As much as it pains me to say, there just aren't any production quality alternatives to WhatsApp that can take over. And don't even get me started on Element/Matrix...
And normal chats are not end-to-end encrypted by default. Are you using end-to-end encrypted chats with your contacts?
Don't get the subscription, pay as you go with Skype credit.
You can use Google Duo to make voice or video calls for (other than data costs) free, Google hangouts also has voice-only plus video options and of course Google voice integrates with the classic telephone network and has cheap international rates.
Google Fi has free calling from the US to over 50 countries and otherwise their plans start at one cents a minute depending on destination. https://fi.google.com/about/unlimited-calling/
Most of my friends from Asia tell me WhatsApp was and is popular because it carried voice over data, bypassing the PSTN which apparently has very high per-minute rates.
If you want to go slightly higher tech there are telepresence appliances like 8x8, Amazon or Google IOT devices or you can just use sip phones and call between the devices free of charge using your own pbx software or a free service like Callcentric's IP Freedom plan.
There a million options that either let you opt out of Facebook's data collection and trade it for Google's, or just opt out entirely.
I call my family for 1 cent per minute.
Edit: sometimes I also start with an audio call, but midway there's something I want to show them, so we switch to video by just pressing 1 button.
App is going in February though.
I have had smart, educated people say "I got an iphone so I wouldn't be left out of group chats". Because downloading an app is too much work. I'm not sure how asking people to take 5 seconds to do something to improve their life and society became such a taboo.
Everyone on HN switches between “ads don’t work and targeting is BS” to “ads are manipulating our entire country by taking our data”
> There are lots of contradictions in people’s strongly held beliefs. Someone might preach self-sufficiency in politics, but coddle their children. An individual might oppose abortion on the grounds that human life is sacred and may still support the death penalty for convicted murders. A person might argue for the freedom of individual expression in the arts but want hateful speech to be regulated.
from https://www.fastcompany.com/3067169/how-your-brain-makes-you...
I think ads can work, but don't in many cases (based on recent stories that cancelling certain kinds of ad spend has no effect on outcomes). In some cases, like Uber advertising to get users, this seems entirely plausible.
So I largely think ads themselves are kind of harmless. But ad-backed business models are dangerous, because they optimize for "engagement", which tends to promote content that is divisive over more thoughtful, nuanced content. Sadly, it also seems to require gathering huge amounts of information about users in a centralized spot, which seems risky for a variety of reasons.
The whole thing reminds me of a call I got about 10 years ago to participate in a survey about smoking, and one of the questions they asked was "Do you believe nicotine causes cancer?" I paused because my understanding is that nicotine itself doesn't cause cancer, but the common delivery mechanisms at the time (smoking, dipping) do increase the risk of cancer. They forced me to answer yes/no, so I said "no", but obviously a decade later, I still remember it. Do ads cause harm? Probably not much, taken on their own. But everything _around_ them seems to.
I refuse to help walled gardens get bigger. It has cost me a lot of contacts, but so be it. There is always a choice.
If you had a friend you respected that was vegan for ethical or environmental convictions would you insist on continuing to exclusively have social gatherings at BBQ restaurants with no menu options for them? Would you take them seriously if they caved to avoid being excluded from the group?
When I deleted all walled garden messengers by Google, Facebook etc they knew I wasn't kidding. Anyone that refuses to make small allowances for you living your convictions is not your friend.
The people that need to talk to me use matrix now or found other ways to reach out like e-mail or in person. Those that don't respect my ethics don't get free advice from me anymore.
In my friends circle we are all on telegram (after trying wire which is just buggy as hell), but I think this is mainly due to its multi device story and then fact that it is not WhatsApp.
I know what you're asking, but I don't think there's a fix unless you somehow have tremendous influence with them. So you either put up with being coerced by your group, or you don't.
This is probably easier if you never used the services in the first place. My mom will occasionally whine that she has to open Imessage to talk to me, and that's about the extent of it. But of course, I am missing whatever they get up to on FB without me. And that's OK with me, but I know it isn't with everyone.
It had some rockiness maybe about 3 years ago, but with their new group implementation and some other small tweaks I find it just as easy to use as whatsapp, albeit it a little uglier.
#1 complaint is the coloring - incoming messages should be high contrast, outgoing should have the background color. For some reason signal does the opposite and it's hideous.
Then it turned out that they have a setting where one can opt out, but what good is that if you already were opted in automatically.
In "Last Seen & Online" I had a deleted account in the exceptions of those who can always see my status, even though I never added one.
Telegram may be better than WhatsApp, but it is far from fantastic.
Yep: just checked. Nothing more I can do to increase privacy settings. Zero confidence in it after that
Be the change you want to see in the world.
Then they got hooked up, mostly thanks to the huge amount of high quality stickers.
So I just use email.
I just wish they would keep all their WhatsApp stuff away from me.
As for converting people who are not that interested, I can tell you from experience talking about privacy generally doesn't sell it.
For end2end you can just use the secret chat function.. https://core.telegram.org/api/end-to-end
Feel free to check their source out - https://telegram.org/apps#source-code
So I'm not sure what 'bears repeating'.
The key was being stubborn and banking on them eventually wanting to talk to me.
This. Same for me. I just put a message like this in the family whatsapp groups and then deleted the app/account: 'Hey everyone, I'm not going to be on WhatsApp anymore - you can call, text, signal, telegram or email me. Talk to you later!'. It was that simple. It took a little while but now my family is on Telegram. I know they still use WhatsApp but it's honestly not my problem or issue that they use the app - I just don't want to.
Don't expect people to uninstall Whatsapp. Having multiple messengers is fine.
We are all running what most would consider an outdated and poorly designed c.p.u. architecture by modern standards, simply because most software is not compiled to run on other architectures, and it won't be until those architectures see significant adoption.
The main lock-ins for WhatsApp with my friends/family/colleagues are:
1. Group chats. SMS group chat doesn't exist (or it's next to unknown) in Australia.
2. Sharing images and videos. SMS destroys images/videos/gifs (if they even send).
3. International. Messaging friends/colleagues when they're overseas is easy.
4. Videochat (however, it's usually FaceTime with an older relative).
I attempted a shift to Telegram with a few close friends and family members. Eventually, we started to drop back to the "normal" comms route because our extended network was on WhatsApp/iMessage and juggling several methods was irritating (e.g you message a friend on Telegram and get no response -- they then message you later that day on WhatsApp -- it's irritating to move the conversation back to Telegram).
- SMS is not encrypted.
- SMS supports text only. MMS is not well supported, and often not free.
- SMS is sometimes not as "instant" as it can be delayed.
- Delivery reports and, read receipts are not user-friendly, and maybe unreliable, too.
- Group SMS support depends on your default SMS app.
RCS or Rich Communication Service on 4g and 5g looks to fix this, but support and compatibility between network is still lacking. Privacy laws also need a reevaluation as even cellular providers are looking to data harvesting to make more money and RCS may also lack encryption support.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/19/21574451/android-rcs-enc...
- e2e encryption
- many extra chat features (reactions, stickers, replies, polls, etc). It might seem unnecessary but imo they do genuinely increase functionality and ease of communication
- scalable to large groups (maybe sms is as well, I've never tried more than 3-4 people)
- don't need a phone, can message from a computer instead
- messages sync across multiple devices
- video calling for groups with some apps
Nobody picks free texts. This leaves 15c/message as a discouragement for using SMS.
I was thinking about going back, actually, but using a separate phone number (dual SIM FTW) and a work profile sandbox with heavily restricted permissions. I might still give it a shot, see if that's enough to quell FB's insatiable hunger for personal data.
Social technologies would benefit from some regulation along the lines of “you must be able to use other apps to send to/receive from your app” for at least a minimal feature set, but it would be super hard to nail down what that regulation should exactly be.
I just dropped the link in the title into all the group chats I'm in, said I'm headed to signal and removed myself from the groups.
I was not the first person to do that in these groups. Will it cause a critical mass exodus? Idk. I won't know, I won't be back.
If someone refuses to make an actual call, text me, email me, or use Signal, then clearly they don't respect me enough for me to need to communicate with them.
I don't know whom was not respecting whom, but I didn't feel really respected either, despite respecting each guy wishes.
Amongst many, many other factors, it's a nonprofit foundation, not a commercial company.
Long term, it has backing from people (like the original founders of Whatsapp) who want to see an open solution flourish. Plus people can donate.
Also, both the client and server are open source.
Signal is much harder to sell to non-tech users IMHO.
So tldr target the people you want to convert to develop a critical mass.
That's one reason with I prefer Matrix/Element...