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!
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.
Basically, Signal could have implemented RCS messaging themselves, making them the de facto iMessage replacement on Android, but they chose not to so that their devs could instead spend their time building NFTs into their platform or whatever the next shiny bauble is.
I still use Signal for lack of a credible alternative but dropping SMS support in favour of NFTs and Stories was fucking dumb. They need to focus on being the best messaging platform first, then focus on expanding into other markets and functionality.
Signal could have implemented RCS messaging themselves
That would have been great, except Google doesn’t provide an API for developers to use RCS in their own apps like they did with SMS. Google’s basically forcing everyone (long term) into their messaging app, which I suspect will eventually be the “iMessage” of Android since there wont be any alternative “texting” apps.
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.
This works 100%.
To be real, getting someone to change their habit is near impossible and when that happens, just send them SMS.
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.
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
In about ~20y I should be able to convert all my friends away from Whatsapp then!
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.
Elements (Matrix) as much as much as possible. I bridge a lot services through it. Though Signal would be the second most.
With bridges, it’s truly the one app to rule them all.
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.
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.
Signal. I refuse to use whatsapp even though that’s what most people I know use.
I tried to migrate friends and family to Signal a couple of years back. Only managed with 3 people :/.
Unfortunately here (Italy), WhatsApp is too much widespread as reach out method now. Especially for businesses, from restaurants to, say, the family doctor.
I use Signal!
Element (Matrix)
Signal is my go to. Some of my friends refuse to download it, so I just text them. I’ll use iMessage on iOS and Google Messages on Android. But if I can use Signal, I will
- Signal,
- Whatsapp only for groups on a free prepaid Number nobody knows, on a 2nd phone bridge to matrix.
- Threema for 1Person ;)
- remaining via SMS.
How’d you get the free prepaid number?
We have some offers here, free Sim with 1€ credit. So only can recieve sms and calls.
Phone bridge!? can you elaborate please?
The messages of these WhatsApp groups are forwarded to Matrix chats and their responses are forwarded to WhatsApp which means they can use their Matrix chat client (Element or FluffyChat or whatever) for messaging their friends on WhatsApp.
Delta Chat is awesome encrypted/secure messaging via imap and thus compatible with anyone who has an email address.
Conversations is an excellent XMPP client.
I use Cinny. It’s a desktop app for Matrix.
Signal and WhatsApp. WhatsApp only because a lot of people won’t switch to Signal (or Threema, or Matrix).
