-20

Signal is just a company selling privacy (self.technology)

submitted 1 year ago by gthutbwdy to c/technology@lemmy.world

75 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Signal is a centralized app, run by a company. If they are offered enough money or legal threat they will sell out or close.

I am sure people will make an argument that its FOSS and people will just fork it if it goes bad, but a new fork will have 0 users and Signal will still have all of your old contacts. Why not make a switch now? Before it is even more popular and you have more reasons to stay? Why fork it if there are already decentralized apps that use same encryption, like XMPP apps?

Sure you can find flaws in every app, including XMPP implementations, but if we will have to write code for a new Signal fork, why not just fix whatever is that bugs you in XMPP clients?

If you want to use Matrix, that is fine as well, we can always bridge the two open protocols. But you cant bridge Signal if their company doesn't allow it.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] gthutbwdy 2 points 1 year ago

I disagree. There are many FOSS decentralized projects that are still running today, including XMPP, that are doing fine and make even better and more secure software than Signal. All centralized privacy apps so far closed or started sharing data with governments. Statistically that is far more likely scenario then a popular FOSS app to lack devs.

[-] SirEDCaLot@lemmy.fmhy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

I agree that there's plenty of FOSS projects as good as or better than Signal from a crypto POV.

NONE of them are anywhere close to signal when it comes to number of users. And if your friends don't have it, then you can't talk to anyone on it.

And if your friend loses their phone and finds out they just lost all their chats too, they're gonna say 'fuck that, I'll just use iMessage so next time I don't lose anything'.

[-] gthutbwdy 1 points 9 months ago

Exactly, that is a problem with network effect. This is why it is so important to build a network effect on an open protocol, because we will get stuck otherwise on Signal or any other centralized apps. Only when a network is completely open and anyone can create a new network being bridged to the old one, will we have an actual solution to the problem. Switching people to Signal is counter-productive in the long run.

We should tell everyone that wants to listen, the importance of this and how much of a big deal it is to be available on a decentralized network, even if you are not using it. Because then we have a chance to fight the network effect until there is enough potential users to actually make a switch.

this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2023

-20 points (37.8% liked)

Technology

59674 readers

3236 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS