Don’t ask me for a phone number and I’ll use it.
When did WhatsApp start allowing signups without a phone number?
No clue. Never even tried to use it since it’s a Meta product. I was referring to Signal’s phone # requirement being a non-starter.
So what do you use now?
Matrix
I use Element.
I use both and have been happy with both, but note that Element / Matrix have recently announced the intent to add paid service tiers.
The irony of you posting this on lemmy, which won’t allow posting from a VPN or masked email addresses is not lost on me.
The amount of hoops I had to jump through to make this comment and maintain some semblance of privacy is infuriating but at least it’s not reddit I guess?
But do go on about your security standards…
Edit: BTW, you can set signal to hide your number completely. Combined with FOSS-based encryption keys on-device makes signal the only choice for trying to maintain freedom of expression globally.
Nothing will protect anyone from messaging with a snitch who knows how to screenshot though. Food for thought… get to know your neighbors now.
If you’re reading this comment, I posted it from proton vpn
It doesn’t matter if you hide the number; at some point they deanonymized you when you signed up.
Want to be a dick about “hoops”? Get a number that isn’t traceable. It can be done, but it’s tough. I doubt its possible in the countries that really need anonymity of association.
Duck duck Go VPN connection here
I will use the opportunity to remind that Signal is operated by a non-profit in the jurisdiction called “the US”. This could have implications.
A somewhat more anarchist option might be TOX. There is no single client, TOX is a protocol, you can choose from half a dozen clients. I personally use qTox.
Upside: no phone number required. No questions asked.
Downside: no servers to store and forward messages. You can talk if both parties are online.
You can use Signal with a different client. Signal being operated within the US has no effect. As of now the jurisdictions that I know of to be worried about are:
Sweden, where a law is proposed to add an encryption backdoor
The EU, where leadership is pushing for an encryption backdoor
France arrested the founder of Telegram for using end to end encryption in Telegram
Australia in 2018 passed a law that enabled the government to require communications platforms add a backdoor for government decryption. The Director of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) said that “privacy is important but not absolute”. Which has the same vibes as “this is not about human rights, this is about human life.”
WhatsApp was previously suspended in Brazil for refusing to hand over decrypted messages.
China and Russia are very obvious problems. Here’s an easy one of many examples
The White House both in Trump’s first term and in Biden’s presidency were pro-encryption. Signal and Tor were US government funded projects. That’s not to say the US is great on encryption, and there have been laws in the past that did/were proposed to limit it. But, as of now, it seems that the US is (edit: one of) the most hospitable jurisdictions for encrypted messaging non-profits.
BTW, I’m not saying using Tox is bad, or that Signal is good, I’m just talking about the US jurisdiction part.
You can use Signal with a different client.
Can you advise, which one would be a good one? Because I actually use Signal too, it’s just misbehaving a lot recently.
I have had endless difficulties with Signal forcing upgrades on me and requiring to sign in on the phone, under threat of deactivating my account (I use it on a PC).
I’ve never used any, but Molly seems well liked
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Hell yeah. Tox continues to rock. If anyone wants to chat, HMU, here’s my key:
fdd7005639c618263ab2eedab974f7576c7c0ded6217eed9e9dc0344c622e72aeef7055f8b4d
Not sure if you’re actually sincere or are sarcastically making fun of Tox’s onboarding. That’s a long key.
Thank you for telling me. I am being sincere: https://h0p3.nekoweb.org/#Contact h0p3
They’re probably not joking, TOX IDs are like that. :) Mine is:
CA9A4C1968AA38CC93CB32F31F3682AB897ABA42C90E6F0EA5E1FB541930FD64138B4CC09AD*
(*the number opposite to the first is the number that comes after one, to hinder any spam bots)
Humans are too stupid to switch from convenience to slightly less convenience even if they get privacy for free. Any amount of discomfort is too much and changing an app is basically death.
They see no value in it. They don’t see that privacy is proactive measure that can protect you.
On Facebook, especially in my family, accounts get lost and hacked. One fine day, it might be someone with more influence in the family who’s attacker might make off with stolen bank information or passwords.
but “that’ll never happen”, right?
TIL I have no family I care to keep in touch with and I have no friends.
How do we know signal isn’t also run by a techbro who just wants our data?
I don’t think that the founders are bad people. If you look at their history of work, they have done enormous amounts of work in the computer security sector. The founder, however, did run a cloud based WPA cracking service.
Meredith Whitaker, who is the president, used to work at Google doing research for “issues related to net neutrality measurement, privacy, security, and the social consequences of artificial intelligence”.
In 2018 she then staged walkouts at Google over concerns of sexual misconduct and citizen surveillance.
The people on Signal’s board seem to be trustworthy people with a pretty airtight background. You have to worry more about the mobile operating system compromising you than do you about Signal.
Does it really matter who made it if you can see the source code? You don’t have to trust them.
That’s kind of a core tenet of libre/open software, innit? Independently verifiable software that you can change at your pleasure.
Compare with Zangi Private Messenger. Yes, every country who has jurisdiction has access. Just ask yourself, which gov do I trust more with my private chats?
My wishlist is an app which is not linked to a phone number, is multi platform and has a web app. It should be none US and open source. That isn’t too many requirements and yet nothing seems to full fit the bill? Anyway good luck trying to get school parent’s groups to use something other than WhatsApp.
Matrix and Element. Run your own server if you want or use a server that’s not in the US.
XMPP/Jabber via a web client like movim.eu sounds like it ought to work!
You can also look into Snikket as a host for small groups like friends or family, but can continue to use the Movim web client even if you’re hosting with Snikket rather than Movim itself.
I would like nothing more, but so few of my contact group are willing to switch away… despite all of Meta’s bullshit. I resent being made to use it whilst their AI/ads encroach further and further.
I wish I could do this, but trying to convince people to ditch an app they’ve never had problems with and where they all have their family, friends, work groups and school groups already mashed together, how do you convince them? Its not even about me convincing my friends or family, its about everyone else doing the same and when everyone has so many contacts in WhatsApp, that number starts to snowball real quick. Its just not feasible to try and explain this to someone who literally doesn’t care. I mean even though I myself know what Meta is and how Zuck is complete asshole, I still can’t switch off of WhatsApp because nobody I know is on Signal and I’d just be alone there. What’s the point? WhatsApp is pretty much the first app anyone installs on their phone (regardless of platform), they’re not gonna switch now.
Well, just an anecdote:
I simply deleted my WhatsApp and moved to signal. Just did it.
People installed the app, at least the ones that cared about staying in touch. Which was most everyone I cared about staying in touch with. A few of my friend groups also moved the group chat to signal, though all of them do have other ones with the people who didn’t care enough to move too, but I hear it isn’t that big a deal, they had multiple groups before and will have in future, doesn’t really feel like any extra hassle they say.
It’s been fine. No problems. I’ve had more trouble trying to explain to my extended family why I’m no longer posting on instagram. Those I never had in WhatsApp either back in the day, so they “stayed in touch” by watching my pictures I suppose. But I just consistently tell people they can reach me always via signal or plain old sms.
I guess the biggest thing to be scared about would be fomo for most, but I don’t really care enough, I’ve got so much going on already that it’s more of a blessing that I don’t have to be involved in every conversation or meme sharing or whatever.
It really gets so easy after simply switching. Just do it and that’s that. The people worth anything come with you, it’s just another app and another group chat or personal chat. Most already have discord and the meta messenger whatever its name is these days anyway. I know zero people with only one messenger/chat app and unsplintered groups across them. It’s not a big chore, and if it is, there’s always sms.
I guess the biggest thing to be scared about would be fomo for most
I don’t mind missing out on some things, but I would mind missing out on literally all of the things. Everyone is on WhatsApp and trying to convince people to switch to a different app when, from their perspective, their current app has over 99% uptime, their kids, their family, their extended family, their friends, all are on WhatsApp. Its the same for me, its everyone. Its just a different situation in Europe.
Yep. I know the details. I’m tech savvy enough, but I use what my contacts use, and I’m not leaving WhatsApp. Same goes for youtube. The content I consume is there. There is no suitable alternative until the content creators switch. It’s not really about the technology at all.
WhatsApp is pretty much the first app anyone installs on their phone
Is this really the case?
Maybe it’s a regional thing. I’m in the northeast US, and nearly everyone I know uses Facebook Messenger as their main form of communication, even people who don’t touch Facebook at all. I hate Messenger for the same reasons that people hate WhatsApp, but I still have to use it because my entire social circle does. If I want to message someone outside Messenger without giving my phone number out, I use my Google Voice number.
I’ve only ever used WhatsApp to talk to work contacts overseas, and I’ve only ever used Signal to talk to paranoid drug dealers, which is a use case that’s mostly been replaced by Telegram now.
Outside of North America, most other countries’ use WhatsApp as a choice for personal and business uses is WhatsApp. Rest are mostly dominated by Facebook messenger. Excluding China which has WeChat domestically.
How Meta was ever allowed to buy WhatsApp without triggering anti-trust laws is beyond me.
Many of my European and South American friends are having a hard time because that’s where all their families and friends back home are, and it’s hard to get them to use something new, especially the older folks.
How Meta was ever allowed to buy WhatsApp without triggering anti-trust laws is beyond me
It was still called Facebook when they bought it.
In my region in Europe, it really is. EVERYONE uses WhatsApp. I’m not sure the last time I saw someone use SMS, its all WhatsApp. iOS, Android, its all there.
Anyone know why the Signal app isn’t available on F-Droid? Isn’t it supposed to be open source?
I think it’s by request. the fdroid team build every single app in their repos which means that they are not always fully up to date, so signal argues that whenever they need to push a security release people on froid would take forever to update.
I think I’ve had this issue with simplex. I’ve had to wait over 2 weeks for an update. That’s why I’m using obtanium for it instead
Molly is in f-droid, though it’s technically third party. Looks identical though.
I was looking at Molly.im and it has its own f-droid repo. There are two options: with and without Google servicios.
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After Trump was elected and inaugurated, Signal has finally been gaining some steam here in the Netherlands.
It’s still an American company, so it’s not ideal. But it’s still significantly better better than letting a tech giant like Facebook have control over the most commonly used chat app.
WhatsApp needs to go and Signal is the most likely way in which we can achieve that. We can worry about the American elephant in the room later.
America is not a monolith. Signal’s developers are very much aware of the risks of operating there and probably already have several escape plans given recent developments. I also think five-eyes probably has access but getting it might be computationally expensive.
Wish more of my contact list would switch over to Signal. It’s nearly the same. I don’t see why it’s so hard for some people to just start using Signal instead of WhatsApp.
Oh well.
My dad won’t switch from Facebook messenger so now we have to talk via unencrypted sms
groups/channels?
“But why, everyone is on WhatsApp”, and also a lot of businesses. “Privacy? I’ve got nothing to hide, what are they gonna do eith my info?”
I tried switching my family over, but being unable to install it on a second device or tablet was a deal breaker.
The exit plan from WhatsApp is quite simple. Start by installing Signal and setting it up – it takes only a couple of minutes. Then, resume any WhatsApp conversations on Signal if that person is already a Signal user. If they are not, then switch to regular text messaging and gently suggest to that person to switch over to Signal.
Sadly for me, this doesn’t really work for some relatives as
- They live abroad and the cost of sending text messages abroad is not insignificant
- Some are so tech un-savvy that even installing a new app by themselves is too much.
All I can do for those relatives is to leave WhatsApp installed but take away basically every permission I can, including running in the background.
They live abroad and the cost of sending text messages abroad is not insignificant
Signal is free just like whats app. For text, calls, and video. So that isn’t a problem.
I too have friends and family in different countries, one of which is crazy about whatsapp. I simply tell them this is how we are going to do things now, and walk them through it. It is not hard. If they can’t do it, well then we don’t need to communicate this way. Whatsapp is not an option. It is that simple.
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How did they get WhatsApp installed? Is a FaceTime or other video option available? Never give up, never surrender
I was with them helping them out. For reasons I won’t discuss here I won’t be able to visit them anymore, so that avenue is gone 😞.
I like Signal. I even got all my close friends and family on it, specifically to message me because I won’t use whatsapp. The PIN reminders are annoying it enough to be legitimately holding it back from mass appeal imho
Turn them off
I got tired of asking my family to download yet another app. Went iPhone at this point.
