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I don't get why talking about signal without mentioning that the same exact protocol is used by the (wildly more popular and Facebook owned) WhatsApp. All my fa

I don't get why talking about signal without mentioning that the same exact protocol is used by the (wildly more popular and Facebook owned) WhatsApp. All my family members, even an old uncle, use WhatsApp. Much easier for them, it has some cool feature nonetheless. So, my comms woth basically my whole family and friends is end-to-end encrypted. None of them was proactive in doing this, it just fell on their laps and - above all - there was Zero friction. We should advocate for making encryption default in more and more popular services, instead of writing the n-th guide or op-ed about how we all should use this or that encrypted service for the technically inclined.

aisofteng 10y ago
WhatsApp has a userbase in the millions, if not billions. It may use the same protocol as Signal (I wasn't aware it does), but its existence is marketed as and understood as that of a messaging app. Signal's identity, in contrast, is predicated upon security. Based on that, along with the fact that Whatsapp is owned by Facebook and so its functionality can be changed by its owners, I would also probably advise acquaintances concerned about privacy to use Signal over Whatsapp. (Personally, I've been using Threema for E2E encrypted communications with friends who care about privacy enough to not want to use Facebook Messenger or other Facebook-owned platforms.)