Yes. WhatsApp metadata is not E2EE, Signal's is. So while Zuck can't read your message, he knowns when you're online, who you talk to, how often you talk to them, where you are when chatting, who are contacts in hour phone, etc. Honestly that E2EE is there more as a fake safety feeling than to protect you. Not even speaking about the closed source E2EE that you can't check they don't store a copy of keys from or scan before encrypting. Neither I would put above Meta.

And even if those people still use WhatsApp with others, if they don't with you Meta looses a lot of data about you.

I would suggest not asking people to switch, but just telling people you don't have WhatsApp anymore and they can reach you on Signal or send an SMS. If you keep it on the side while asking to switch barely anyone will. If you switch, well... after a year pretty much all my friends and family had switched, last few sending SMS. Sending photos en having group chats tend to get people to come over slowely one by one once they can't fall back on WhatsApp. And while SMS isn't encrypted, it also isn't full of trackers. So for most regular people, they are better off as trackers are a bigger threat to them than a possible man-in-the-middle reading your messages.

And in my experience, if you bring it with some tact and put the issue with you (i.e. I'm the crazy privacy guy") instead of them ("i.e. you shouldn't use WhatsApp. You are stupid for not caring about privacy") you won't loose friend or get into fights about it.

Och jeetje, paar weken terug zaten we nog in de tientallen. Gaat lekker!

Back when I was in university, I worked IT support there on the side. One day, a teacher wanted to send a mail to one project group, but accidentally send it to the whole university. Every student, every employee. We didn't reach 13k people but it was a few thousand.

The thing is, in Outlook (which was used for school mail) the default reply button which is looking simply like arrow, was the reply-to-all one. Reply to sender was hidden a few clicks away. Needless to say, this caused similar issues. With the first people just politely trying to tell said teacher he might have maken a mistake, then people went in replying asking people to stop using reply-to-all, and it didn't take long for hell to break loose after that.

To make matters worse, a few smartasses ran some scripts putting the whole receiver list on all kinds of spam advertisement lists, causing a flood of spam send to everyone simultanously with all the reply-to-all-replies. And then people replied to those too. Guess they figured they wouldn't get caught with everyone receiving mails from everywhere. They did tho, and got seriously reprimanded.

The server automatically changed from instant delivery to synchronising every 5 min, but that still meant hundreds of mails every 5 min. Eventually we had to turn off the mail server to make it stop as trying to tell that many people to stop replying is impossible and it clearly wasn't going to die out on it's own.

It was a long day at work, and one I will likely never forget. But I feel like any bigger sized company that has excisted for some longer time has had their own version of this issue by now. I never understood why'd they make reply-to-all the default, instead of reply-to-sender with the to-all version as a smaller button next to it... At least they now added the warning in Outlook "your distribution group has X amount of people, are you sure" or something along those lines when sending to distribution groups of a few dozen or more...

Well there is always SailfishOS which you can run on Sony phones. It's a Linux OS but runs Android apps as well.

I doubt Google will stop offering the bootloader option tho. Because most of those custom roms are based on AOSP, and anything done with that that's open source, can be used again by Google too. I can't imagibe they don't keep an eye on the bigger projects like GrapheneOS. Free innovation, done by passionate people (who tend to make some if the best code).

At the same time, people who'd buy hardware just to flash it with a privacy-focussed OS aren't going to walk into the Google eco-system if they close it. They'll just go further away from it, while now they buy hardware and otherwise support or perhaps even contribute code (be it by development or by "testing" and adding bugs to github). So there is little to gain, only to loose.

Currently own a Sony Xperia 1 IV. Been buying Sony phones for about 10 years now. I can hardly break them even without a case, despite being super clumsy, and Sony actually does interesting innovating things that are useful instead of following trends blindly or relying on marketing.

I run a quite degoogled Android 13 atm. Next phone will be a Pixel however, because I wanna switch to GrapheneOS. Wanting to switch OS is also the only reason I even consider a different brand phone.

I guess Matrix would be your best option then. I use Schildichat as client, which is a fork of Element with some extras.

But if you can't get a plan, why not get a prepaid burner SIM? You can buy a prepaid card for minimal amount and you generally keep the number at least for a year, and you put in 5~10 euro each year you can keep it active endlessly.

A lot of things require a phone number. Here, the goverment needs you to have one, but also most workplaces and even the DHL. Getting a cheap trow-away sim isn't a bad option. Especially since pre-paid SIMs aren't connected to your name like those on a plan are.

Because the threat isn't getting your number stolen, it's about the content of your messages. While the goverment cóuld ask your phone number, they likely already have it unless you got a prepaid trow away that you keep replacing regularily. And even then it cóuld be traced when used anywhere. What they can't get, is your messages. At least not decrypted unless you give it to them yourself. And those are way more interesting. But it's not even about the goverment per se, it's for everything from data hungry companies to your old crazy ex.

Telegram sends everything plain text and stores that on their servers. One man-in-the-middle and we got everything you've said.

WhatsApp says they have E2EE but is propietary and non-checkable, and from Meta who has a rep for finding ways to secretly and unlawfully grab data. Even if you (foolishly) trust them, they do grab metadata from your messages.

Signal isn't about it being FOSS, but about privacy. FOSS just means it's checkable, which is good for security and privacy. They have E2EE not only on message content but also on metdata (unlike most alternatives who only do message contents), do external audits, and are part of a non-profit (which means showing how money is received and spend).

Honestly most online games. I just prefer to game alone than with strangers or even friends. And while there are exceptions to the next point, I am well aware. But I also don't feel like spending my free time having rando's on the internet hate me for not being some awesome e-sporter, or be called a hacker when it does go well, as often seems to be how it goes. Like, I don't get why people would spend their free time on something that just tends to make everything so negative. I have more fun things to do in my free time than get complained at... Honestly, the few online games I do like, you can play alone, and I mainly do, like ESO.

But one of the most loved games that I hate the most is GTA V. Especially the online mode. It's so full of hackers it's nearly impossible to do anything. Heck, I couldn't even go buy a new outfit because some stupid guy was spawning shopping cards above everyones head causing the store to close and me to loose my whole selection of stuff I wanted to buy.... Just why...

I also keep getting confused with the controlls somehow. Wanna get in your friends car picking you up? End up jumping on it's roof or kicking it instead... It's not that I can't game. My hand-eye cordination might suck but that's not even the issue here. I somehow just keep mixing everything up, while I'm fine with other games.

Nope. Maar ik kwam Lemmy paar keer tegen in de commentsectie van Tweakers.net nieuws rondom Reddit's API gedoe. Gezien ik Mastodon wel leuk vind ondanks dat ik niks met Twitter deed, dacht ik laat ik dit dan ook eens proberen.

I think this would be the easiest way honestly. It seems the least extra work or changes. Mods don't even need to work together, just with their own posts. If they're too different on their own, they won't federate anyways.

If people really want a supergroup, it would in this situation only take a new community that does nothing but federate existing ones. But it may not even be needed.

Elder Scrolls' take on Dungeons and Dragons gameplay. If you read Arena's manual, it'll explain that they wanted a game that steers you into one dirrection, but if you want to say "fuck it" and go the other way, the story should support that. Similar to a DnD session where players don't do what the Dungeon Master planned so he has to make up sonething else on the spot.

To this day, that's why the main storyline is relatively short. But a storyline for alternative ways of life than "the hero who saved the world" exist, no matter if you're a warrior, mage, thief, or assassin.

I guess the problem is mainly, as someone mentioned, Twitter is for following, Reddit for interacting.

The fact that you have to look for people to follow or you'll have an empty timeline together with the fact that many famous people aren't on Mastodon makes the switch more difficult for Average Joe than Reddit to Lemmy, as this kind of SNS doesn't require specific people, just people.

I wasn't using Twitter for anything but customer care, so as long as I could find some interesting instances and tags I'm fine there. I didn't switch, just joined, so nothing to miss that I had before.

I guess in that way, Meta has been smart to give their Mastodon-based SNS first to populair influencers before releasing it to the public. Altrough I can imagine Meta's version possibly getting blocked everywhere due to privacy concerns tho.