Let's hope they'll be able to continue to use it. It (and all other messengers with proper E2EE) is already on track to be outlawed in Sweden and France, and the new government in Germany will be pro mass-surveillance, too.
this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2025
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Privacy
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Moral of the story? Use ~~selfhostable~~ decentralized messaging instead.
Milk is getting more expensive. Moral of the story: Buy a cow.
I really wish people would stop being so delusional about the average person’s technological abilities. jUsT TeLL grAn To sPin Up a mATrIx SErvEr.. stfu
"Everyone should be hosting a server" was NOT my point, sorry if I got misunderstood. My mother could in no way host an XMPP server on her own - but I could register her an account on mine.
Rather, I meant: a) if you can host it, suggest your friends and family to use your server; b) if you can't - that is still better: with multiple public servers available, there is no single point of failure, you can choose a server in whatever jurisdiction you want, or even an onion/i2p one.
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No way in hell my relatives are going to use a messenger I selfhosted. My brother doesn't even use Signal for whatever reason, even though even my grandmother has it.
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true but this is not yet easy enough for normal humans. selfhosting anything is not yet easy enough
And is potentially even less secure if someone who has no idea about managing a server at all tries to spin up an online service.
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We have never come across one that is as easy to use as Signal and has no problems with encryption, either that it can have its encryption turned off, it breaks easily or that it makes dubious claims with few-no audits to back them up.
Plus the common person enjoys the fun features of Signal or other easy messengers, most decentralised messages do not have these features, are indefinitely working on them or make them not as easy to use, leading to most being uninterested in those messengers.
We have tried most if not all of them, than most and they are definitely lacking as much as we wish they were not. Decentralised encrypted (or partially encrypted) messengers always seem to have problems whether it's with their encryption, moderation tools, connectivity or the lack of other features.
My dad just said in the WhatsApp group, why not move to signal. I tried moving friends and family before, but now that there has been anti meta media reports in some news sources. But especially reports on signal in almost every major newspaper and news source.
It seems not only a push because of privacy, but even more a anti big tech(especially us tech) and buy/use eu stuff push.
I don't mind the push I'm just curious if people stay on signal. Previous time there was a push to signal (during whatsapp technical difficulties and privacy push) people quickly want back to whatsapp.
Now my volunteer work, 1 friend and a family chat already moved to signal. The only thing I did was some explaining that you can just send images and so on. (That it's not something scary)
What are the major differences between what you can do on Whatsapp vs Signal?
Whatsapp let's you donate your contact list and social network to meta for them to resell.
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A lot of VPN servers in Netherlands may have something to do with it.....
Why? Because the Dutch national broadcasters keep plugging it as an alternative to Whatsapp.
Aside... Two apps keep getting mentioned as alternatives, Signal and Element/Matrix, but in MHRO both are not viable as replacements.
Signal: still a US app, CIA funded, provides their encryption backbone to Whatsapp, recommended by governments & FBI. Matrix/Element: Developed in Israel, with ties to IDF, preferred by NATO (NI2CE)
IDGAF who funds it or who develops it.
- E2E encrypted
- security review by independent party I trust which says there are no holes or bugs
- open source
Those three things are all that matters.
Signal is funded by the CIA now ? And I thought Element is in the UK?
Signal does seem to have some ties to the CIA
There seems to be a completely different Israeli company called matrix. I can't find any link between the two.
It's old and convoluted, something like a precursor to element got funding from Israel or something
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I would have rather seen Element but hey, it's a step in the right direction.
Why? Matrix sucks as an instant messenger app, it's better as a Slack/Discord alternative.
Only because I'm not aware of other decentralised Signal alternatives. That's on me.
XMPP
SimpleX is pretty rad.
Indeed, but funded by VC which makes me uneasy about its future.
Huh, I missed that. From the announcement:
Also, funding the work to transition the protocols to non-profit governance model would not have been possible without the donations we received from the users.
Our pledge to our users is that SimpleX protocols are and will remain open, and in public domain, so anybody can build the future implementations of the clients and the servers. We are building SimpleX platform based on the same principles as email and web, but much more private and secure.
If they stay true to that, they're probably planning on building for-profit apps on top, while keeping the foundation free.
That sounds reasonable to me. Hopefully that happens.
Fair. I'll still be on watch, since venture capitalists are scum. Hopefully donations will eventually become stable enough for a revenue stream for them.
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Isn't Element based of Matrix? From what I've read, Matrix is a bit mid (not exactly mid, but I can't think of any other word).
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