this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2026
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Privacy
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It's also important to continue educating people about the fact that Signal is incredibly problematic as well, but not in the way most people think.
The issue with Signal is that your phone number is metadata. And people who think metadata is "just" data or that cross-referencing is some kind of sci-fi nonsense, are fundamentally misunderstanding how modern surveillance works.
By requiring phone numbers, Signal, despite its good encryption, inherently builds a social graph. The server operators, or anyone who gets that data, can see a map of who is talking to whom. The content is secure, but the connections are not.
Being able to map out who talks to whom is incredibly valuable. A three-letter agency can take the map of connections and overlay it with all the other data they vacuum up from other sources, such as location data, purchase histories, social media activity. If you become a "person of interest" for any reason, they instantly have your entire social circle mapped out.
Worse, the act of seeking out encrypted communication is itself a red flag. It's a perfect filter: "Show me everyone paranoid enough to use crypto." You're basically raising your hand.
So, in a twisted way, Signal being a tool for private conversations, makes it a perfect machine for mapping associations and identifying targets. The fact that Signal is operated centrally with the server located in the US, and it's being developed by people with connections to US intelligence while being constantly pushed as the best solution for private communication should give everyone a pause.
The kicker is that thanks to gag orders, companies are legally forbidden from telling you if the feds come knocking for this data. So even if Signal's intentions are pure, we'd never know how the data it collects is being used. The potential for abuse is baked right into the phone-number requirement.
There's no such social graph to speak of. Signal does not know who is speaking to whom.
Three-letter agencies have served them legal subpoenas many many times and they never turn over anything more than the above information.
Filter for...what, exactly? The hundreds of millions of people who value private and secure communications?
We do, because they publish them publicly.
The only people who know this are people operating the server. Period.
See the link I provided above.
Yup, that's precisely what it's a filter for.
Trust me bro is not a viable model for anybody who actually gives a shit about their privacy.
The reality of the situation is that Signal asks users for information it has no business collecting during the sign up process, and this information can be used in adversarial ways against the users. People using Signal are making a faith based judgment to trust the operators of this server.
Apparently they don't store contact info.
https://signal.org/blog/looking-back-as-the-world-moves-forward/
The problem is that you just have to trust them because only people who actually operate the server know what they do or do not store. Trust me bro, is not a viable security model. As a rule, you have to assume that any info an app collects, such as your phone number, can now be used in adversarial fashion against you.
And that is the problem with anything you don't write yourself. And for anything you do write yourself: Are you smarter than the three-letter agencies?
You don't have to trust anybody when you run your own server, or you use a server that doesn't collect information it has no business collecting.
No need for that when self hosted open source projects exist
Best alternative?
It really depends on your needs and what people you communicate with are willing to use. A few platforms that are notable in no particular order.
SimpleX Chat is probably the gold standard right now. It uses absolutely no user IDs such as phone numbers, no usernames, no random strings of text. Instead, it creates unique, pairwise decentralized message queues for every single contact you have. Because there is no global identity, there is no metadata connecting your conversations together.
Session is a popular Signal alternative. It doesn't require a phone number and routes your messages through an onion-routed decentralized network that's similar to Tor. Since your IP address is hidden and messages are bounced through multiple nodes, no single server ever knows who is talking to whom, stripping away metadata.
Jami is completely decentralized, open-source platform. It uses Distributed Hash Tables to connect users directly to one another without a central server. Notably, it supports high-quality voice and video calls.
I really want simplexchat to evolve and get more features. If they ever make a lot of mod tools and the possibility to make giant servers with thousands with chatrooms like discord I could see it having mass appeal due to the ease of "signup"
yeah it definitely has some promise
heard SimpleX is really good, the only thing that bothers me is their vc funding model. It makes me feel a bit suspicious.
Yeah, I'm leery about anything where vcs are involved as well for obvious reasons. The tech itself does seem solid though, and it is open source. If it does start moving in a sketchy direction at least it could be forked at that point.
I like your analysis, and would love your thoughts on matrix(assuming you have ofc)
It's better than Signal since you don't have to disclose any personal info, but people have pointed out some issues with federation in it. Again, it's one of those things that may or may not matter based on your use case.
That link seems dated (Nov. 2024). If anyone finds a more current critique, pls send. I also get auto-kicked from HLC simplex group, so I'm not sure what to think of them but commando's matrix server was amazing befored abandoned
Probably Briar. Encrypted, P2P, and doesn't require anything but a username and password to sign up. Pretty sure that username doesn't need to be unique, it's just what people will see you as in messages.
Downside is it's only Android, so many people are left out.
sadly Briar has been stuck at the "cool idea" stage for years. Still no desktop app, still no iPhone app.
Still working android app.
If the username doesn't have to be unique, couldn't you impersonate people?
It doesn't work like a centralized server for connecting contacts. You use a unique link per device to initiate the original connection with others at a distance or you can use QR codes in-person.
The link just tells briar where to route the messages and looks like:
So there's no way to impersonate someone directly. If you made two contacts and they use the same username, I suppose you could mistake them, but their contact connection keys will not be the same.
Hopefully that makes sense, if you look in the app or their site, it's probably explained clearer.