2y ago

what messaging apps do you use?

Hi friends,

I'm new to Lemmy but I think I like where it is heading in general. I would like to ask, do you have any specific apps used for ?

As a community that seems more focused on decentralized platforms, I thought this could spike up an interesting discussion

I have been using mainly Viber and FB messenger. I did try to convince friends and family to move over to simpleXchat, as it seems the most privacy focused alternative I have found, but basically failed.

I would love to hear your input!

93 comments

Signal
- I dropped it when they decided to get rid of SMS. I don't want to be treated like I can't be trusted to be responsible for my own privacy and security. I understand the difference between an SMS and an encrypted Signal message and was fully aware of which contacts had Signal and which did not have it.
  In my opinion they should have disabled SMS by default and made it an option with warnings to enable in the settings. They had already been doing borderline questionable things with crypto and the stories that I did not want in a messenger app... this was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.
  I'm patiently waiting for a decent fork of Signal with SMS enabled, or a decent open source RCS client... unfortunately I landed on Google Messages for now.
  
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I belive the reason why SMS was dropped was because of the unreliable interaction between two endpoints: If you're communicating with a contact over RCS in Google messages, and you'd send them a message over signal- they'd receive an SMS. But throttling reply would be over RCS and signal wouldn't be able to display that since there isn't an open API for signal to interact with RCS messages. So the whole reason to drop SMS support was due to inconsistencies of how messages in androids would be handled.

I use Signal kinda exclusively. Managed to migrate my friends and family away from WhatsApp a few years back (I am living in Europe).
- How did you do it ? I cant get them to migrate.
  
  I just started selling them drugs, and told them we use signal now.
  
  Around the time when Meta announced some big privacy changes to WhatsApp, it became a hot topic in the news since everyone here uses WhatsApp.
  I took advantage of that situation to talk to my friends and family about how much better Signal is. I set up our existing groups like Family Chats, Friends, and Sport Groups on Signal, and helped some people install the app. I kept reminding and urging them to switch and assured them we would continue using Signal, everything will stay the same just super secure.
  To make it clear to everyone still on WhatsApp, I changed my profile picture to say "please contact me via Signal." Surprisingly, within 1-2 weeks, everyone I care about made the switch and, to my surprise, they still use Signal today.
  Honestly, if it wasn't for all the privacy concerns about WhatsApp in the news, I think convincing them to switch would have been much harder.
  
  To be real, getting someone to change their habit is near impossible and when that happens, just send them SMS.
  
  The way I did it was getting rid of the apps I no longer wanted on my phone. This forced people to send text messages. If they try sending a good pic/video it would obviously fail. Their only option was usually something more difficult than just installing Signal. I don't provide Whatsapp as an alternative. I did lose some contacts, but close friends/family will obviously opt for the better messaging experience compared to default SMS.
- Managed to migrate my friends and family away from WhatsApp
  Please tell my how I beg you
  
  Uninstall WhatsApp
  Family+friends will get notification that you left in every group you were in, and lose their shit. They will call you asking wtf is happening
  Try to calm the waters by telling them you found out Meta is a bad company and you don't want to participate it
  Get confusing looks and asked wtf is wrong with you
  Try to divert the complexity of the subject by mentioning that they can just download Signal and reach you there
  Get scoffed and manage to get one or two nearest friends on your Signal app
  Still get contacted by everyone's else on whatsapp and by your grandmother on FB messenger , although you ain't there
  Sucessfully managed to keep your 2 contacts on Signal and even see it growing to 4 over a year.
  Wait till Signal fucks up, delete it, install SimpleX, start over again
  
  Around the time when Meta announced some big privacy changes to WhatsApp, it became a hot topic in the news since everyone here uses WhatsApp.
  I took advantage of that situation to talk to my friends and family about how much better Signal is. I set up our existing groups like Family Chats, Friends, and Sport Groups on Signal, and helped some people install the app. I kept reminding and urging them to switch and assured them we would continue using Signal, everything will stay the same just super secure.
  To make it clear to everyone still on WhatsApp, I changed my profile picture to say "please contact me via Signal." Surprisingly, within 1-2 weeks, everyone I care about made the switch and, to my surprise, they still use Signal today.
  Honestly, if it wasn't for all the privacy concerns about WhatsApp in the news, I think convincing them to switch would have been much harder.
- My brother got everyone to switch from FB messenger to WhatsApp and then FB bought whatsapp and prompted a second switch to signal
- It's not perfect, but it is the best alternative for the masses.

I wish more people in my life would use Signal but I've given up on converting people from WhatsApp.
I pretty much just use everything. my messaging folder has Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord, SMS, etc lol.

Elements (Matrix) as much as much as possible. I bridge a lot services through it. Though Signal would be the second most.

Whatsapp is the norm here so I begrudgingly use that. Wish more people were on Signal, Matrix or Telegram.
- You can apparently bridge Whatsapp and Matrix. I have looked into it for a few evenings but got nothing running despite having some experience with self hosting stuff. It was a while ago though.
  
  There is an Ansible repo. It does all you need. It's just some configuration in one file. Maybe takes a few hours to read through, but it can set up early everything Matrix has to offer and is well documented... It just really is a lot.
  
  Something like this where you can bridge into other RCS apps, just with phone number, is what I would need for both private and work stuff.

I mainly use Signal, but sometimes have to fall back to SMS for people that aren't on Signal. I also have matrix accounts, but I never really use them since I don't have anyone among my friends and family that uses matrix.
- Does signal allow two phones yet?
  I have two phones and signel can't comprehend me signing in on both of them at once. Such a stupid limitation IMO.
  
  No, I don't think so. I still think that it requires a different phone number on each phone. But I agree with you that it is annoying that they do not allow it, especially since they could simply imitate the functionality that exists on the desktop apps.

93 comments