As someone who uses signal every day, signal does kinda suck for group chats. If we all stop simping for a moment and actually talk about its issues:
Maybe they’ve fixed it but from my experience individual chats in signal are fine but group chats can be pretty shit. If someone doesn’t have service and their message fails to send, when the message finally does send, it just inserts itself into the conversation at the current time instead of putting it in at the original time it tried to send. So it ends up being completely out of context.
I also have friends that have the iOS signal app and if they don’t open it for a while notifications stop working so they don’t see my messages and I have to text them instead.
Also the phone to PC link can be buggy as well with not all messages going through or getting transferred.
Devil’s advocate: if a delayed message is put far up the conversation history, it may not be seen when it finally goes through? Although notifications could mitigate that to some extent.
YMMV?
I use Signal for a couple of group chats, people who have finally decided the extra security is worth everyone moving across from WhatsApp/Messenger for. Had no problems.
Then again, I’m not a big online-messaging-person generally so maybe there’s a lot of issues I don’t get round to seeing.
I don’t remember and can’t find a post I saw in the past recommending better video chat applications for more than two users. I believe one was Jitsi and another Wire. I just found another video conferencing application someone recommended online: MiroTalk. Different open source software excel in different areas.
Sorry, I just realized this post is about instant messaging platforms and not specifically their video chat features.
I like Element better because of its Markdown capabilities (though still very limited) and the ability to edit messages. I used element for my team coding projects in college, which worked very well and integrated nicely with our GitHub updates, but it sucked for video conferences. Signal barely holds up for two-user video chats, though that could be my internet or someone else’s.
I also want to self host my own XMPP server someday.
There is Revolt. Maybe younger people will like that more.
Getting my friends to use Jitsi was actually really easy, because Jitsi actually worked, and Google Meet didn’t (people’s voices were breaking up very very badly).
As someone who uses signal every day, signal does kinda suck for group chats. If we all stop simping for a moment and actually talk about its issues:
Maybe they’ve fixed it but from my experience individual chats in signal are fine but group chats can be pretty shit. If someone doesn’t have service and their message fails to send, when the message finally does send, it just inserts itself into the conversation at the current time instead of putting it in at the original time it tried to send. So it ends up being completely out of context.
I also have friends that have the iOS signal app and if they don’t open it for a while notifications stop working so they don’t see my messages and I have to text them instead.
Also the phone to PC link can be buggy as well with not all messages going through or getting transferred.
Devil’s advocate: if a delayed message is put far up the conversation history, it may not be seen when it finally goes through? Although notifications could mitigate that to some extent.
There’s not too many better alternatives out there
Whistles casually
https://github.com/pluja/awesome-privacy#instant-messaging
https://github.com/pluja/awesome-privacy#teamworking-tools
https://github.com/pluja/awesome-privacy#video-and-audio-conferencing
https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted#communication---custom-communication-systems
https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted#communication---irc
https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted#communication---video-conferencing
https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted#communication---xmpp---servers
https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted#communication---xmpp---web-clients
https://github.com/redecentralize/alternative-internet#messaging
True, I prefer Matrix. My homies use Element.
YMMV? I use Signal for a couple of group chats, people who have finally decided the extra security is worth everyone moving across from WhatsApp/Messenger for. Had no problems.
Then again, I’m not a big online-messaging-person generally so maybe there’s a lot of issues I don’t get round to seeing.
Referencing my buried comment with suggestions:
Getting my friends to use Jitsi was actually really easy, because Jitsi actually worked, and Google Meet didn’t (people’s voices were breaking up very very badly).
Gotta love it when opportunity knocks.
I tried self hosting Jitsi a couple years ago and it was buggy as hell. Haven’t tried the non-selfhosted version really.
Recently heard there is also Jami, which is similar to Jitsi