1y ago

YSK: Signal is a great secure private messenger app comparable to others on the market.

restoreprivacy.com Signal Review 2023: Secure Messenger (Pros and Cons)

Signal is a secure messenger that is widely touted as one of the best options. This Signal review shows you the pros and cons.

"When you use Signal, your data is stored in encrypted form on your devices. The only information that is stored on the Signal servers for each account is the phone number you registered with, the date and time you joined the service, and the date you last logged on."

This isn't an ad, I wasn't paid for this post. Just to clear the air: fuck facebook, fuck elon musk and twitter, fuck anyone who thinks this is a paid advertisement. I wish I was paid for this shit, I just wanted to spread the word. Thank you. 😀 👍

416 comments

I still wish they hadn't dropped sms on android. A few family members dropped signal as soon as they needed another app for messaging.
- I still don't understand why they did that, I used to use Signal for everything and while it was clear that it couldn't encrypt basic SMS I could at least do all my messaging in one place. Now, I can't communicate with 80% of my contacts via Signal even if I wanted to, forcing two separate messaging apps.
  Just let me send unsecured messages. It's fine. As it stands now I don't think I've even opened Signal in nearly six months even though I'd much rather use it than the default messenger.
  
  Basically, it makes the whole platform less secure because you could accidentally send a non-encrypted message at any time. With SMS-free Signal, at least mistaken sent messages are still E2E encrypted.
  Is their goal to become the new de-facto messaging app? Or is their goal to become the most secure messaging app for whistle blowers, etc for whom a single mistake could mean losing their life or their freedom?
  
  Sadly, I think they saw the writing on the wall with Google's RCS push, and the decided lack of RCS APIs for Android apps to implement an RCS interface outside of Google. SMS has a lot of staying power, so it won't happen overnight. But there's a good chance that third-party RCS apps on Android will never be a real thing, or will forever end up hobbled. I think the Signal product folks imagined they had a LOT more clout than they actually had in the community. Sort of a less disastrous version of the Twitter and Reddit changes this year, trying to lock folks in.
  
  I only communicate with two people in signal. I still use it because I genuinely despise Android messenger.
  
  Cuz, it was about killing functionality in order to grow their market share. Just go listen to the new lame ass Signal CEO. It's capitalism that ruined Signal like it does everything
- Yeah this same thing happened to me. I rarely get messages in signal anymore and can't reliably know who still has it installed. It's great for folks you are in regular communication with though.
  
  I made it easy by making it the only messenger I use. Sure, you can send me a sms, but that's not gonna work for pictures and especially videos.
- Yupp. Had been working for a while on getting people to Signal, and then they dropped SMS, and they moved to other things and i couldn't realy recommend it anymore.
  
  Not only that, it makes people less likely to move to something new. I had almost everyone moved to signal. Now there's one left, because it doesn't work for SMS. Great choice they made. I haven't even been able to convince one of my contacts to install simplex, and I doubt I'll ever be able to. I had one shot, and wasted it on signal. I'm kind of salty.
- This was always the hardest part of these types of apps for me... getting people who just want something to work and already have a working thing are pretty impossible to get to swtich
- I removed it immediately because of this. It's inconvenient to try and remember who I can communicate with through signal, and who I have to use a different app for. Signal jumped the shark.
- Yup, I used Signal for years, it was my standard "messager" for everyone, people with Signal too or regular SMS. since they dropped SMS, I dropped Signal...
- I’m very glad they did. It was hard to recommend while they did, it’s a huge security risk! Sms needs to die

First ad I've seen on Lemmy so far

The worst part of using Signal is to try and convince all your friends/family to use Signal. Otherwise it’s a pretty great messaging app. You can’t edit messages once they’re sent, but other than that it’s pretty great.
- I used to donate to Signal, and they made the stupidest fucking decision I've ever seen.
  You used to be able to use signal (at least on Android) as your default messenger app, sending encrypted Signals to other users, or SMS to non-signal users. Have a normie family member who doesn't know about computers? Easy, set it & forget it.
  Now? They removed that functionality, so it only works for other signal users. Someone else had a good metaphor: imagine if http and https needed different web browsers & you couldn't see one on the other. How well do you think https uptake would have been?
  So fucking stupid.
  
  I think that might be a narrow view though. Most of the world likely doesn’t use SMS anymore (for probably a decade). So removing SMS didn’t make much of a difference there, but increased security. Especially when people are used to use multiple apps anyways.
  So the better analogy would be “imagine if gopher and http needed separate browsers”. Except they do.
  
  I hear you, but, SMS is the farthest from secure you can get - so I can see why they chose not to support it.
  
  Lmao WHAT? They seriously did this? Yeah say goodbye to having my boomer parents understand anything else other than what’s loaded on their shitty $50 android phone they got for free from their shitty CDMA provider…
- But you CAN delete messages for after they are sent if the chat is set up that way. You can also set chats up so that messages can't deleted. Or so that all messages expire and disappear after a period of time.

I wish they hadn't gotten rid of SMS though, that was the biggest sell for me over other options. I'm never going to get more than 2 or 3 people I regularly text to switch...
- Yes lol same. And because of the verification code that needs to be typed in every so often, my messages never reach them. I have to text them, “hey go to signal”, and then it finally goes through.
  
  Fun fact: on Android after not using an app for more than three months (the exact time can vary by manufacturer) the OS will remove permissions including notifications (suppressing the app's ability to run in the background) to save battery. So the app will literally stop working.
  For a seldom used app like Signal that's hurt from a lack network effect, this triggers a death spiral outside of the privacy enthusiast community. When it had SMS support this guaranteed some usage, but now that's gone.
- i too miss this. capture the messaging market, and keep the stock SMS function!
  With this move, i am more keen to see matrix make it to the big leagues.
- Question though? Why did they get rid of sms functionality?
  
  Because they turned away from the original founder's philosophy, which is that 'perfect security' is a pie-in-the-sky novelty that isn't actually useful to anyone, and what's actually important is security that people actually use. Even if it's slightly less secure, it's still a net positive because people are actually using it.
  When he left, a google CEO took over and frankly it's just been one terrible decision after another- cryptocurrencies, 'stories', stickers, removal of SMS, all kinds of stupid shit that drove people away.
  I used to have nearly 50 people on my signal contacts list. Now there are 3.
- Here in the Netherlands no one uses SMS, purely Whatsapp. So removing this functionality, though often complained about by people presumably from the US, did not hurt functionality at all here. I also like the features like Stories, it's a direct competition with Instagram/Snapchat, though just like Whatsapp Stories, barely anyone will use it.
  
  Yes I am in the US and I understand that this is a US centric problem though SMS is the feature that set signal apart from other secure messaging apps and made it slightly easier to get people to join. It was a nice alternative to imessage on android as opposed to yet another messaging app. Even in the US I have had to use SMS, WhatsApp, fb messenger, instagram's DMs, Line, Group me, Matrix, etc, to talk to different people and I was not going to convince many to switch to signal (I tried).

Is this an ad? It feels like an ad.
Anyway I much prefer Signal but thanks to boomer co-workers I'm still also forced to use Whatsapp.
- It's an ad and it's not even subtle about it.
- Isn't Whatsapp encrypted end to end?
  
  Facebook owns it.
- This isn’t an ad, I wasn’t paid for this post. Just to clear the air: fuck facebook, fuck elon musk and twitter, fuck anyone who thinks this is a paid advertisement. I wish I was paid for this shit, I just wanted to spread the word. Thank you. 😀 👍

I do not like the fact that Signal requires a phone number to be used. If I want to talk to someone on Signal, I need to give him my Signal registered phone number. I do not understand why can't they introduce User name like Telegram so we do not have to reveal our phone number to others.
- Telegram requires a phone number too. So I don't understand your point.
  
  It does not require to share it with other people tho. Still as far as I know they save it on their servers. Signal tries to not save any metadata at all. That's great.
  
  It does not require to share it with other people tho. Still as far as I know they save it on their servers. Signal tries to not save any metadata at all. That's great.
- In my opinion, Signal isn't trying to be a Matrix alternative. Anonymity between users isn't their objective, they mostly want to be a none profit alternative to WhatsApp, Messenger, etc... with strong E2E encryption. Phone numbers is ultimately the best way to discover new users as soon as you install the app.
- Usernames have been on the roadmap for signal for years. I heard they were meant to be coming this year so we’ll see if that happens.

I have been disappointed by Signal a lot.
They tie themselves very closely with Google services, to the point that they refuse to be on FDroid by design
There was a long period when they stopped publishing server side code when they were bashing others like Telegram for not open sourcing their server side code
Their Linux desktop client is absolutely horrible.
- They tie themselves very closely with Google services, to the point that they refuse to be on FDroid by design
  While they do push the Play Store version, they also have an APK, and my understanding is that it does not rely on Google Play Services, though it might be buggier without them. If I recall correctly, the origin of Signal not being on F-Droid was related to the building and signature model that F-Droid used (builds by F-Droid, then signed by F-Droid's keys), as mentioned in, eg, this issue. With that said, it has been pointed out that there are alternatives, like a separate repository, than, eg, the Guardian Project uses, and F-Droid apparently does now have a process for developer-signed apks.
  Their general hostility toward outside developers and forks, however, and that the awkward server side code availability seemed to be related to the brazenly problematic cryptocoin advertisement, are extremely disappointing, however.
  
  Just to confirm what you said, I used Signal on LineageOS for over 6 months with no Google Play Services (installed through Aurora Store) -- definitely doesn't rely on them.
  
  Their general hostility toward outside developers and forks
  i forgot about this too. This is extremely disappointing.
- All fair complaints. I've managed to switch over all of my contacts to Signal (that I care to talk to, at least).
  My biggest gripe is no back up support on iOS, meaning that if I lose my phone I lose everything. People have tried hand waving it away as a privacy feature, but I think backing up messages is a bare minimum for a messaging app - especially with the released of Advanced Data Protection for iCloud.
- What do you find bad about the Linux client? It’s an electron app sure but from my experience it works well.

Signal is great for communicating with people you don’t mind sharing your identity with. Would love to see signal implement usernames. I’m really into simpleX chat these days —really cool project.
- SimpleX looks interesting, thanks for sharing!
  
  The iOS notification implementation isn’t super reliable yet but it works if you leave the app open
  My favorite part is that you can easily self host your own server with a docker container

I use Signal but it's on its own path to becoming enshittified too. Less like Reddit, more like Firefox, the people in charge are just clueless about the signal userbase.
It won't be long until there's a shift to an alternative because the current president of the signal foundation is one step away from turning it into Snapchat.
Instead of pumping money into increasing awareness or enhancing reliability of the service, the Signal team have wasted effort on features that nobody asked for, including its very own crypto shitcoin (a major red flag for any company). They also remove features people relied on, such as SMS support.
It's hard to trust the Signal team when they continually disappoint in such egregious ways.
- I pretty much dropped Signal after they announced they were losing SMS support. It's hard enough to sell my peers on another messaging app as it is, and Signal's UI choices have been frustrating from the get go.
  For what it's worth, Google has picked up the same or better end-to-end encryption as Signal for users of its default messenger but will likely never do away with SMS support.
  https://9to5google.com/2023/03/24/messaging-is-not-androids-mess-iphone-problem-with-lockheimer/
  
  I just absolutely do not trust google.
  That said I convinced a member of my family to join signal and we text on there for a bit and then the connection broke. Like we could not text anymore nothing would go from me to them it would just stay in limbo as sent.
- Oh no...
  I've switched to a dumb Nokia phone two years ago, so can't use signal but I've always liked the service, I'm so sad to hear that... I've always assumed that one day I'll be getting the Punkt Pigeon phone, but these news are making me reconsider. Oh, no SMS support. Then there's zero reason to use signal, then. I'm never convincing all of my friends to switch, and I don't need another messaging app for the two that do.
  I thought that they do know what they're doing, but crypto? Really? I wouldn't mind if they moved Signal to use smart contracts for messaging, but call they have to come up with is crypto? Lol.
  
  I wouldn’t mind if they moved Signal to use smart contracts for messaging, but call they have to come up with is crypto? Lol.
  You do not need crypto to call with it. It is simply a payment mechanism. I don't see anything wrong with it. If anyone is uninterested, they can simply turn it off or not use it. Conversely, burning up fees to interact with smart contracts to message is what seems more silly to me. There'd be no opting out of that.

Yeah, then they got rid of SMS capabilities.
- The cynic in me thinks it's to shed users to keep down operating costs
  
  It was almost certainly to reduce operating costs, but I doubt they lost a significant number of users over it. The vast majority of their users are in countries where SMS isn't really used anymore.

Tried to switch to signal. But it's useless without everyone i know switching over from Whatsapp. Which is like merged with our country at this point.
- I just wasn't budging. Refused to use WhatsApp and texted people instead. Slowly a lot of my friends switched and realised signal is better in every way. Even my parents find it the best as it is the easiest for them to use.
  
  Yeah not going to happen for me unfortunately
  
  Yeah not going to happen for me unfortunately
  
  Yeah not going to happen for me unfortunately
- It's not really that tall of an ask to install one more app - especially one that asks for nothing, you're not taking away anything, you're adding.
  People are weird.
  
  I don't know. People can't keep up with everything (like tech privacy news) in life and now out of their 100+ contacts this one person wants them to switch to this different app that nobody else seems to be using.
  From their perspective it's kinda pointless
- Welcome to life after 40 - I’ve been an early adopter all my life, but my network hasn’t moved with me.
  As a result joining Snapchat has no value for me.
  So I tend to use apps that are friend-agnostic like this and TIkTok.
  Side note: my fave messaging app is Confide, it only reveals redacted words as you run your finger over them, and then deletes. So it’s impossible to screenshot.
  
  It sounds like you'd still be able to take a video of it, then do a little bit of filtering and you'd have an image of the whole message. It'd take slightly more effort, but it's not "impossible to screenshot."
- Yeah I really wanted to switch to Signal from Whatsapp but people don't want to try new messaging apps. Nowadays I use telegram but it's just bots and 2 or 3 friends.

I got rid of Signal after they added cryptocurrency to their app.
While I have no issues with cryptocurrency itself, it was a reminder that they have full control over the app. Now I happily use XMPP and Matrix for communication with friends and family.
- they have full control over the app
  Yup, this is also my problem with Signal; you're stuck with whatever boneheaded decisions the devs make and there's nothing you can do about it. Personally, my pet peeve is their refusal to add any kind of data export. As someone who likes backing up chat history, this is a dealbreaker for me.
  
  Indeed. I opened the Signal app after a really long time last week and found that they had added a useless Stories feature like WhatsApp. I uninstalled the app since I never used it anyways.
  Edit: Looks like Signal stories can be turned off unlike WhatsApp stories. That's a win I guess.
  
  Exactly. I sometimes switch my SIM card between two different phones; Signal makes that process super confusing and awful because your Signal account, on a phone, doesn't just behave like an account, it has hooks built into your phone and messaging apps. Telegram, on the other hand, lets me set a password and use 2FA via email and then just... log in. Honestly it seems so much simpler I can't understand what the Signal devs are up to!
  
  Is this on iPhone? I have regular backups enabled on my android
  
  They've had data export for a long time, I helped make exports in support of a lawsuit more than 3 years ago.
- If you have android, Molly is great 3rd party client.
  
  I've tried it, it's definitely better. If I absolutely had to use Signal I'd use it through a Matrix bridge.
- Random question as Im very interested in using XMPP: Are public homeservers fine as long as you enable encryptions? And is there a list of recommended homeservers?
  Im aware you can self host, that just is not an option for me currently
  
  You're more than welcome to register an account on canchat.org (my server).
  And yes, as long as you enable OMEMO encryption, your server provider cannot read your encrypted messages.
  https://providers.xmpp.net/ is a good resource for finding a provider (homeserver) as well.
- Your friends and family use matrix? Ok, I understand, that you can pressure your family to use it, but are all your friends that geeky?
- Ah didn't know about that. That is a dealbreaker. Too bad, it always looked promising but now it just looks like a scam app.
  
  It's certainly not a scam, and it is a reliable, private messaging app, don't get me wrong. It's just not decentralized/federated, and that's the issue for me.
- Are you fundamentally against crypto? Not all crypto are scams.
  
  Not all crypto is currency, even. The coolest shit is just decentralized versions of things we have already.
  
  Not all crypto is currency, even. The coolest shit is just decentralized versions of things we have already.

Since we're all using Lemmy, an open source, decentralized, self hostable platform, wouldn't suggesting Matrix make much more sense?
I host a Matrix and Lemmy server. Even if Signal is completely trustworthy now, will it always be? It isn't my server and it's a single point of attack for anybody (including governments) to insert (or demand) a backdoor.
- I still try to understand Matrix.
  
  I feel like there is a joke somewhere in here 😂
  
  I feel like there is a joke somewhere in here 😂
- FTFY:
  Since we're all using Lemmy, an open source, decentralized, self hostable platform, wouldn't suggesting XMPP make much more sense?
  
  Why xmpp over matrix? Seems generally like older tech that doesn't have modern chat features.
- It is kinda slow, the clients it has are bad and also this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32780665#:~:text=based%20on...-,If%20you're%20privacy%20focused%2C%20do%20not%20use%20matrix%E2%80%A6,metadata%20it%20leaks%20is%20astonishing.&text=The%20metadata%20that%20Matrix%20%E2%80%9Cleaks,email%2C%20or%20OMEMO%20encrypted%20XMPP.
  
  It may not be perfect yet, but ill take the superior design approach (decentralized and self hostable) any day. The details can be improved over time. Matrix can improve its metadata handling, signal will never be decentralized and self hostable.
  On top of that, if you get your friends and family on your instance like I have, the metadata isnt even a problem since everything is contained on my server anyway.
  
  We’re using it and it’s fast and the Element client is great.

I found the hardest part was convincing people to move away from the incumbents such as WhatsApp / FBM etc as all their contacts / friends / family were already using those platforms.
- Network effect 😃
- Same, I tried to move to Signal a couple years ago, but I couldn't get anybody except one friend to follow, so I gave up on it. I would try again, but I know it wouldn't go any different, yet.

Signal is good but I just can't make the people I text regularly to switch.
- This is why it was so good that Signal supported SMS. It was much easier to get people to switch when they didn't have to think back who was on Signal and who was not before starting a conversation. Now people just default to text because they know everyone has that, and they don't have to waste time opening Signal, seeing yup, not on there before opening their SMS app, if they even bother.
  
  I dropped signal when they dropped sms. I get why they did it but they removed their usefulness for most people. You could. Normally convince someone to use it foe sms and then start using the secure features with that person. Now without sms most people wont even consider it.
  
  Well that's more secure /s
  
  This only ever worked on Android so while helpful, it wasn't a panacea by any means as it didn't actually reach most people. Last time I had some numbers, the downloads across the App Store and Play Store were very similar so it probably ever reached about half the users. That's if we assume everyone on Android used it, which wasn't the case. 🤷
- I got my sister to install Signal so that we could more security send financial receipts back and forth, etc. But I have another friend that doesn't want to install it because, "...it's another app I have to deal with...".
  
  When people make this statement I never understand it. My mother also keeps saying that she does want to deal with anymore apps than she has. What exactly does she mean by that. The app updates are automatic and the app just exists on the menu when not used. It is not like the app needs maintenance/tweaking to run

People in the comments saying others in my network wont install so its pointless for me. All i want to say is Mate , dont be a sheep. I had 1000+ contacts and i installed signal then sent a message to everyone saying i am on signal and uninstalled whatsapp. Around 200 contacts moved to signal just because they value me Tl;DR know your worth
- I stop talking to people who send me mass messages advertising apps because I actually do know my own worth.
  
  Mate its 2023, you should know why signal is better than whatsapp and other data harvesting apps. Since you joined lemmy i think you support FOSS so why not support the apps that doesnt fuck you over.
- I totally understand your point, but far from being a sheep, I live in a country where Whatsapp is the standard even for government, healthcare, college, private work. On the other hand showing people an app that only do better on privacy, which should be enough but it doesn't, but has no other appeals/features is a war lost before it's start. I'm happy many of you could do the switch. Best I could do, and I know I'll get ranted for this, was get as many people as I could to telegram. Please be gentle.
  
  I feel ya mate. Lets just hope whatsapp fucks up and goverments stop using it
  
  You did see this coming, but I don't understand why people associate Telegram with security in any way. It openly states that it's not end to end encrypted and everything is visible to the server! And if you enable end to end encryption for a particular chat, its functionality is severely restricted.
- Maybe I'm just stubborn, but if someone really wants to talk to me, they should respect my sense of privacy. If not, I'm just not taking to them - read: I'm not translate

Or just use Matrix/Element. No phone number needed, plus federation!
- The disadvantage of matrix is that a lot of metadata is generated. Good architecture in terms of idea, but unfortunately no privacy messaging.
  
  Depends on the use case. For one on one messaging or small group chats, Signal is great! If you need a Slack/Discord replacement, Matrix is your go to.
- @Cevilia @TendieMaster69 XMPP Matrix. Proper IETF internet standard, less bloat and not dependent on venture capital funding.
  
  The main problem with XMPP is that there is literally no clients with good UI.
- I gave up on Element. It was using more battery than any other app and I didn't know anyone else using it. Now I'm just using Session or Telegram for anonymous messaging. Yeah, I know Telegram is not ideal.

I personally prefer apps on the matrix network! Www.Matrix.org has a list of client apps, but I've found Element is great on windows, steam deck, and android! Call quality and chat stability can get weird sometimes, but overall it's very very secure and pretty feature rich! 🙂
From the little bit I researched, it's kinda similar in the way that the fediverse works! It's decentralized, and one account works everywhere. Good stuff!
- If it's decentralised, hosted by various unknown parties that can tamper with it as much as they like without thorough oversight, how can it be considered very secure? This is what worries me.
  
  Well you still choose the instance your on. Don't use one from an uknown party. If you can, just host it yourself, it's not very demanding. But I find signal to be much simpler to introduce to your parents for example, just because it's like Whatsapp and just works.

Signal frustrates me, because Signal Foundation is clueless on what people actually want and it just feels like their product direction is so baffling it somehow turned into another failed Google messaging app without being a Google product(they even hired a former Google exec to run Signal!) I've never touched their crypto or stories, and I thought the SMS support removal makes zero sense and their justification is flimsy at best, it gave me Hangouts flashbacks.
The main problem with removing SMS support isn't that I can't convince my friends and family to switch any more(though very annoying), it's that since Signal has marketed itself as a highly private messaging app, it now has a certain reputation of being used for... particular things. Without SMS support, even having Signal installed on your phone looks suspicious, since you can't say that you're using it as a nicer SMS app anymore.
- Likewise, I uninstalled as soon as they made the baffling decision to remove SMS. It became yet another competing messaging service.

The issue with Signal is hardly anyone I know is on it.

I'd love to switch to Signal but the lack of sms makes it a NO from me. Everyone I know uses sms on their phone, and there's no way I'll be able to convince them to use two messaging apps when sms is already universal and convenient. 😭
- It always baffles me that apparently in some places people still use sms. I mean besides the fact that it isn't encrypted at all, sms doesn't even give you group chats, the ability to send images and videos or many other of features basically every other messenger has, right? Where I live it's about (just guessing the numbers here tbh) 90 % WhatsApp, 7% telegram and 3 % signal. Is there any reason that in some places so many people stay with SMS? I don't think I've send or received one in the last 10 years or so (besides companies sending me a TAN or whatever)
  
  I've never used group chats, so that was never an issue. Most people don't care if their messages are encrypted. And sms automatically swaps to mms when sending pictures and videos.
  Donno why Whatsapp never took off on the U.S and tbh I'm glad since Meta owns it.
  
  As an iPhone user who most of the people I message are also iPhone users. I need sms to communicate with the 3 or 4 people who use android and they don’t have any other app for messaging.
  
  I read that's mostly an US thing. For some reason a lot of people still text there.
- There's no point in Signal if you want to use SMS
  
  The idea isn't that I want to use SMS, the idea is to get people used to using one single app. Back when Signal had SMS support, it was my primary texting app. Anyone who had Signal I could talk to over Signal and anyone who didn't I talked to over SMS. This got me to convert several friends and family to Signal, and we were able to immediately switch from SMS to Signal chats.
  Removing the barrier of juggling apps is paramount. No casual user wants to have to remember who they talked to on which app.
  
  I want to use Signal. Not everyone else on my contacts list does.
  It was much easier to convince people to switch to Signal when you could just say it takes the place of your SMS app. Now it's just another app to keep track of.
  
  You're missing the point. Removing sms support just adds another barrier to it. No one else in my family cares about privacy as I do.

I prefer matrix since no phone number is required for signup there.

Do they still require your phone number to sign up?
- Yep.
  
  That sucks imho

Got a surprising amount of contacts to move into signal from Whatsapp, though the iMessage gang can't stop iMessaging.
As an android user, I don't see why you would want to use something that restricts your secure messaging to a single platform.
As a result of Signal's poor decision to stop SMS service, I frequently forget to check my SMS app for messages.
- As an android user, I don't see why you would want to use something that restricts your secure messaging to a single platform.
  Convinience
  That is like the main thing apple has going for itself and people are not ready to let go of this convinience for other benefits
  
  Yep, that always seemed to be the reasoning, even if downloading the Signal app takes no more than 15 seconds to download and start using.
  Though I definitely get not wanting to juggle 3 or 4 chat platforms.

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Been using Signal for a very long time now, with my SO, parents, brother and a few friends. But it's inevitable to also use WhatsApp side by side. Selling/Buying on the local marketplace? WhatsApp. Workplace colleagues? WhatsApp. That group of buddies where only 1 or 2 converted to Signal? WhatsApp.
- Same thing here, only a couple of my friends have Signal. Everyone else uses Whatsapp.
- WhatsApp has full E2EE and you can configure it to only store messages and backups on your device. Obviously others could save a cloud backup, but the backup is still fully encrypted as well. Messages aren't accessible by Meta and they can't be forced to turn them over to local governments, so it's really not a bad messaging app overall if you have to use it.
  
  I'd be fine with using it as my messenger of choice if they open sourced it and allowed us to run our own servers

I've used Signal for years. Absolutely incredible messenger that does it all, and then some. Much better UX than FB Messenger and Whatsapp.
- Does all what, though? It's very basic compared to telegram and even WhatsApp.

I absolutely LOVE signal! And I’ve even gotten my friends convinced to sign up recently and move some of our group chats! Yay no green bubble and yay privacy!

I've used Signal from the earliest days. It has its flaws, but for the average human, it's the best fucking end to end encryption message platform around.
- The default Google messaging app now uses the exact same e2e encryption as Signal
  
  Default google message isn't cross platform though.

I've been trying to get my wife to use signal for ages and she won't budge. She won't budge because she doesn't want to install another app that from her perspective does the same thing as texting (she's not as privacy conscious as I am and doesn't really care that signal encrypts missages). Lately I've been trying to sell signal as mre reliable since my work office has shit cell reception and once in a while messages will git completely lost in the aether. Signal is more featurefull than sms/mms imho.
My sister, her husband, and one of my friends use signal so there's that.
Ultimately I'd probably prefer everyone use matrix but it's not as accesible as signal.
- I laughed at your "...she doesn't want to install another app...". I have a close friend that told me the same thing.
  I was able to convince my sister to install Signal so that we could more securely send financial receipts back and forth, etc.
  More than one of you in this thread have mentioned Matrix. I realized I signed up for it during the Great Migration about 3 weeks ago, but I haven't spent any time there yet. How is it the same/different/better than whatever else? Curious. (I suppose Google might be my friend in this situation.)
  
  It's federated like mastodon/lemmy (and might interoperate but idk). It doesn't require a phone number. I don't use it a ton but like that it's decentralized.
- Maybe you could try to convince through other features, like sending sharper images, videos, audio messages or video calling etc.
  If you get closer with her friend circle (or if she gets closer to your friend circle), you could propose to make a group chat, where you can keep each other up to date or plan future activities together. Your wife will probably not want to miss out on that.
  Don't talk about encryption or security to normal people, who are not into tech. They do not care. Only talk about features, that they can actually use, and only in situations were this would be useful. Don't be preachy about your messenger use, don't make them feel stupid.

Question: in 2019 Australia passed an encryption law that requires every piece of software used in Australia to have a back door for law enforcement to access to ‘counter terrorism’, wank, wank.
Does Signal have back door access in Australia?
- Simply put, no. The signal protocol as well as the app is open source. Although I imagine signal would not be on the Australian app store for lack of compliance, which is why you can download the app directly from their website. WhatsApp actually uses the signal protocol, but they close sourced it so there's no way to tell if FB put a backdoor into it
  
  As an Australian who uses Signal I can say it’s definitely on the iOS App Store, not sure about Google Play store but I assume it would be.
  
  It's on the Google Play store as well.
- I think you're referring to the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Act 2018, also described in this Verge article.
  My understanding is that this doesn't actually require a backdoor be pre-built. It does require that, upon notice, a company or individual provide access to encrypted data (eg, via a backdoor) or assist in obtaining that access in some way, up to introducing a backdoor into their own software or compromising it. There is however a "systemic weakness" limitation, such that no one should be required to introduce a somewhat vaguely defined "systemic weakness" in their software in order to comply with demands. There's also no requirement that a backdoor be added before requests.
  I expect that this means Signal would just stop offering software in Australia if they received a request, or make an argument about systemic weakness, though what Australia would likely ask for would be targeted replacement of the app with a signed but malicious version, to avoid that argument. There is also a question of enforceability against foreign companies: Australia is not the US, with the ability to extradite people who have no real connection to them, so Signal could quite possibly just ignore the Australian law.
  If I recall correctly, the law also applies to individuals, and could compel them to maliciously act against other organizations; I remember there being the argument that the law meant that security-minded companies and projects should not allow Australians to contribute to their software at all.
- God that’s fucking dystopian
  
  It’s a running joke amongst us Aussies to visitors, man… Don’t ask what you can’t do in Australia, ask what you can. It’s an easier list to explain.
  And they passed that bullshit encryption law over Christmas/NY 2018, by the way, when none of us were paying attention. We came back to work on January 2 and it was signed into law.
  Personally, I thought it was our Government’s most sneaky and disgusting moment.
- Do they require to have a backdoor into the actual app (on your phone) or into the servers.
  I'm not sure how data is stored locally (probably encrypted tho), but some time ago the FBI demanded Signal to give them all of the data they had on a specific account. All they were able to get was the phone number of said account and the account creation date.

I heard its used by media people to contact each other or their sources which is a little convincing.
- That was one of the original use cases. For whistleblower protection. Edward Snowden helped in the making of the signal protocol, because it's something he wished he had access to.

I use signal on my phone and laptop but a while back they stopped supporting tablet versions. Wish they would bring that back.
- It works well on my iPad, but I can't speak for Android tablets.

My problem with Signal is that nobody I know uses it, which unfortunately makes it useless.
Other than that, I genuinely think it's pretty great. But you'll have to persuade people to leave Facebook and WhatsApp en masse before it becomes ubiquitous enough to be useful.
- Funny how things can be different. In my circle everybody uses it, even my mom. We've also had a very active group chat with my friends for many years in Signal.
  
  How did that happen? Have you all used Signal from the beginning or did you switch over from something else
- My whole family iaabon Signal because we are mixed android/iOS, and Messages sucks. I wish I could get more of my friend son it though.

I've been using Telegram primarily and it's nice being able to logon to any device and have my chat history, but it doesn't seem secure at all. I imagine the NSA has direct access to it.
- Isn't Telegram developed by russians?
  
  The CEO is Russian. He formerly owned VK and sold it off to the Russian govt iirc. Though, he didn't sell it off without destroying documents containing user info which the Russian govt wanted which in resulted in a warrant for his arrest. Telegram now operates in Dubai with teams working in several other countries like Ukraine. He chose Dubai mainly because of their laws that so far have been favorable to tech companies and not being so heavy handed on censorship.
  There are 8 data centers none of which last I read operates in Russia. I think there used to be one until Russia banned Telegram as the company refused to allow access to their servers. The ban was lifted several years later but Telegram still hasn't opened a data center there. And the way these data centers work is chats are excepted and the encryption keys to those chats are never stored in the same location. For years governments like Germany and India have been finding Telegram for either not taking down content they don't like or not doing enough to suppress speech. I believe Germany is in the lead as every year they keep leveling millions of dollars worth of fines.
  Of course, feel free to do your own research as a lot of this is off the top of my head what I read over the years and why I remain using Telegram as my primary "do everything" for light social media and messaging friends and family.
  I do like the simplicity of Signal though but I always worry about losing my backup data like I did once and would hate to lose all that history and photos shared with text context somehow if my phone ever got lost (knock on wood never happened).
  I look forward to Signal ditching the need to share phone numbers and instead use usernames. But for now, Telegram has a lot of flexibility and utility that Signal doesn't have or can ever match due to the focus of said app.
  
  Why is that relevant to the conversation?
- Telegram has no end to end encryption as default. You can enable it with secure chat but that is making the chats unaviable in other devices.
  I can really recommend signal, been using it as my only messaging app for years and it just is so more secure. Most people installed it too after I asked them to do it to keep contact

Love signal, just for me, I know 2 people who use it. Tried to get a group chat to move there but WhatsApp has too big a grasp.
- Here in the US at least, Whatsapp is not nearly as prevalent as some other parts of the world. I got all my coworkers in my 6 person department to use it. I got my SO to use it. Somehow getting my family to start a group chat was one of the harder ones. I'll keep doing my part :)
  
  I and everyone I know, including my students, just use text. ¯(ツ)_/¯ (the arm is broken here, too...)

I love Signal, but was unable to convince enough of my network to migrate. They are mostly stuck using Meta's spyware (Instagram and Whatsapp). In the end, Telegram seemed like a good mid-way for enough of my friends and peers.
- How is telegram any better than that? Unless you use Secret Chats it is not even end-to-end encrypted.

Hello there, and welcome to our community! I hope you like it in here.
Could you please include some body text as to why should people know this, and how would that help them? It’s our second rule. Thank you :)

My main messaging app is telegram, what would be the advantage in moving to signal? ( Pretending I manage to convince at least my main contacts )
- There's the rub. Unless privacy is your highest priority there isn't any advantage. I wish I could convince my main contacts to move but convenience is a higher priority for them.
  
  Makes sense, and yes for me it has to be a balance between convenience and privacy.
- Telegram chats aren't e2ee by default. You're essentially putting your chats on a server owned by a rich Russian person as a hobby.
- Mostly privacy. Signal is completely encrypted end-to-end. Telegram is only encrypted when choosing private chat with one person. Group chats are not encrypted in telegram, they are in signal.
  
  You can make encrypted group chats in telegram it's only broadcast channels that are not encrypted which signal does not have in the first place.
  So basically the difference is, on signal it's only encrypted while on telegram you can choose.
- For one on one chats and group chats, Signal and Telegram have about the same experience. Telegram's main feature, imo, is the public channels.

What about Matrix? Much better, IMO

After convincing a shitload of iMessage users to get telegram, I'm not going through that again.
- Still better than iMessage or WhatsApp!
  
  Definitely

The only information that is stored on the Signal servers for each account is the phone number you registered with, the date and time you joined the service, and the date you last logged on."
Ahem, and a list of contacts, they've improved since, but it used to be that this was a simple hash of the phone number which is obviously vulnerable to a very easily generated rainbow table.
- and a list of contacts, they’ve improved since
  I’m confused. Are you saying they still store contacts but with better encryption or that they no longer store contact information?

It has its downsides as well. Though better than WhatsApp and telegram obviously
https://www.freie-messenger.de/en/warumnicht/signal/
- I have to say that some of the points on that site are outright ridiculous.
  First off, they quote the privacy officer of the German protestant church, who has no technical background according to his own bio:
  "… when using Signal, data protection concerns remain, especially because this service processes personal data of its users outside the scope of the GDPR. The use of this messenger service can therefore not be recommended.”
  Not sure what that's supposed to mean, because the GDPR applies based on user location and not company location. Although I'm going to grant that having servers in US jurisdictions may be a concern.
  And he goes on to say that Threema (for profit, proprietary server code and (at the time) client code) and SIMSme (for profit, fully proprietary) are preferable over Signal because of the jurisdictions they're in. Not sure about anyone else, but I'm going to trust the open source software more, regardless of what jurisdiction the servers are in.
  I do have to give him credit for recognising a "self-hosted messenger service based on established and freely available protocols on federated servers" as the best option, though.
  negative: actual server software used does not have to match the version published on GitHub
  Fair, but how many other messaging services publish server code at all?
  negative: terms of use (external) as well as privacy policy in English only
  I suspect there's very little overlap in the Venn diagram of people who use (or even know of) Signal and people who don't speak English.
  negative: weaknesses in authentication for encryption
  This boils down to users trusting Signal as a certificate authority and not verifying their contacts "security number". Fair point, but a user can still choose to use Signal in a way that removes those weaknesses.
  Of course, since we're on a federated service, I expect people to jump on the chance to recommend Matrix/XMPP instead, but realistically, I've had much more success getting people to use Signal. And apart from federated messengers, I'm not aware of anything better than Signal.
  
  I've been using Signal for what seems like years now.
  I've got 4 contacts (5 if you include a martial arts school I no longer attend), and only char with 2 of them regularly: my brother and sister.
  I've downloaded and installed Briar, Session, and Simplex, and keep meaning to test them out with the help of my wife ('s phone) to see what they're like.
  
  The GDPR applies to companies looking to utilise the software. So the church or any other entity bound by the GDPR cannot use the software due to it's closed structure with servers in the US. This is absolutely a concern since business is conducted over messenge apps nowadays. I must've broken GDPR when communicating with my students about tutoring over WhatsApp. Our midwife must insist on threema with no alternatives. For the church this means they cannot communicate amongst themselves over Signal.
  The site has a German audience in mind so the fact that the privacy policy not being accessible to non-English speakers is an obvious concern. I don't understand how "well only few non English speakers use it" is an excuse.
  And lastly the fact that Signal is the only CA means that they can use a machine- in-the-middle attack on their own users and there is no way to protect against it.

If only they still supported sms....
- Doesn't your phone already have a sms app?
  
  Its immensely difficult to convince your circle to download yet another app to message a handful of people. It is much easier to convince them to replace their SMS app.

Garbage. And this is spammy.

My network is all on Signal and Signal has been good to us. Matrix may become the way of the future but for now Signal is a good place to be for this lot.

I think Signal is trying too hard to be secure, and they are missing a lot of convenience features.
For example, you can't migrate from Android to iOS or vice versa. You'll lose all your messages and groups.
Or it's really hard to export all the photos someone sent you. I get that my iCloud library isn't as secure, but I really want to make sure I don't lose those photos if I lose my device. The photos aren't that sensitive.
The security notifications are also well-meaning, but hard to make sense of. You sometimes get notifications for changed security numbers, when people change their phone, sometimes folks show up twice in groups, etc. It's all a bit hard to understand and difficult to use.
And finally, it seems that messages are sometimes delivered a bit unreliably or with a long delay.
- That's what I always said. Signal only does one thing right, encryption, and that's it. The rest isn't great, they kept the server side code hidden for 1 year to implement the shitty MoxieCoin (so Moxie and his friends could get rich) and removed SMS recently.
  I moved to Telegram and the features are so great there's no way I'll ever use Signal. If you really need E2EE you can use it in personal chats. For regular chats, the fact that you have access to all your messages from everywhere is really convenient.
  
  unless u can convince everyone to start a private chat.. the chats are not private. at all. afaik.
- Small price to pay for security. Maybe some small features are worth giving Zuckerberg and friends access to the most intimate personal shit in your life. For me it’s not a problem.
  
  This attitude results in the app never gaining any traction and losing what traction it had.
  
  "I don't want to give Zuckerberg all my information for free, or ever, at all" - is what I've said to people when they ask why I don't have Whatsapp. For the most part, they shrug as if to say "fair enough". By and large, it's become an acceptable reason.
  Through the past few years, I've been communicating with my five best friends via Signal. They installed the app and started using it just to stay in touch with me. Like I said - best friends, they did that for me.
  But their gesture have been rewarded...! ...with Twitter-thread-style text walls from Yours Truly! About whatever subject is on my mind that night.
  From the 70s films of Robert Altman, to the impact of The Stone Roses on 90s British music, to the difference between Baroque and Rococo, to Major League Baseball rule changes, to Bitcoin miners in Xinjiang and Kazakhstan, to Neutrino Cosmic Background Radiation, to good ol' fashioned meme shitposting - surreal memes, recursive memes, dank memes, bone hurting juice... you name it, we got it.
  So far, they don't seem to mind it too much. It doesn't happen every day and I gotta feel inspired, as opposed to bored texting.

I used signal for about a month and kept having issues with it. After i removed it from my phone i received over 100 texts i never got while using it.

Signal set the industry standard for encryption and privacy, and it's what I tend to point people towards. The one down-side is that it is still tied to your phone number, so solutions like Element/Matrix or XMPP with OMEMO might be a little better for some use cases. My wife, kids and I use Conversations(.)im for our intra-family chats and use Signal for talking to everybody else.

I've been using signal for a few years. I'm now in a situation that I use two different phones but signal only allows you to be connected to a single device, and you only see the messages in your history for the particular device you received it on. You can't migrate messages, the UI is extremely basic and isn't a responsive design so you have no control over window size on larger screens. There's just so many annoying little things about it, but overall it's pretty solid. I'm looking for a better solution now though.
It really needs some more effort put in on UI design, data migration and linked devices. Development is very slow. I hoped it would improve but nothing has changed for years.
- Try Telegram. It's feature rich and works flawlessly on multiple devices.

I see a lot of people here struggling to get contacts to drop sms and imessage. i have had success in getting a lot of friends on signal because cross platform group mms is dogshit.
i can't get any whatsapp people to budge though
- Tell them more and more companies are moving to Whatsapp for marketing and Meta are doing more and more to make it easier and more annoying. Or maybe the spam will start and they will move themselves

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