4 ms·

It's a struggle getting non-privacy minded people to change to Signal.

by leksak 9y ago

the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
Not sure if it changed but one of the most frustrating aspects of it has been finding out who actually still uses signal. The few people I knew used it stopped using it and that eventually sealed the deal.
- eadmund 9y ago
  My whole family use it. It's really quite nice.
izacus 9y ago
That's because they refuse to make it seamless in a way iMessage is. Or Telegram. Both of those will work on several devices, have dedicated clients, synchronize messages and iMessage will transparently use SMS (on all platforms). Signal does nothing of the sort - it's impossible to backup conversations, they won't sync to a new device, it won't work on a tablet, it's SMS support is buggy and incomplete and their desktop client is based on a dead technology (and limited to a single machine without SMS support). It also doesn't offer anything over builtin SMS/call support like Telegram does. To top it off, it hijacks SMS store meaning you can't even use OS-based software to backup at least SMS conversations. I can't give Signal to non-tech users and just say "hey, use this instead of SMS", because it won't work and it'll lose their conversations. I can do so with iMessage.
- Vinnl 9y ago
  > their desktop client is based on a dead technology (and limited to a single machine without SMS support) They're working on an Electron version (Chrome apps aren't dead yet, so they still have some time), and I'm using Signal Desktop on two machines.
  - izacus 9y ago
    Are you perhaps also using it on two Android/iOS devices?
    - Vinnl 9y ago
      No, one Android phone, two computers.
  - MaymayMaster 9y ago
    >Electron Absolutely disgusting.
    - r3bl 9y ago
      I'll double my RAM every year if that's what's necessary for cross-platform apps that are truly easy to develop.
    - Vinnl 9y ago
      Regardless of your opinion of it, it's not "dead technology" like Chrome apps are, i.e. apps written using it are not guaranteed to stop working at some point.
      - magic_quotes 9y ago
        I wouldn't be so sure. Electron (libchromiumcontent) is a patchset on top of Chromium and it can be easily broken by upstream changes.
        Vinnl 9y ago
        But its deprecation hasn't been planned, and a binary you provide won't suddenly be upgraded and stop working. That is not the case for Chromium apps.
        magic_quotes 9y ago
        Yeah, I'm actually more worried about Electron devs manpower/ability to catch regressions on the very big and simultaneously fast moving codebase where the upstream project doesn't really care about their use cases. This must be total PITA. Otherwise it's an ok platform, I guess.
- mi100hael 9y ago
  iMessage doesn't sync to new devices either. Only new conversations going forward are available since each device has its own encryption key.
Vinnl 9y ago
The infuriating thing is that Telegram makes it harder. Some of these have been convinced to give Telegram a try sometime in the past, some actually still use it and like it, but in any case: they believe that Telegram's privacy was good enough, and why would they give yet another app a try now?
- miaklesp 9y ago
  You're right. Privacy is good enough and apps do not suck.
  - akvadrako 9y ago
    Telegram privacy is not "good enough" for a commonly used communication platform. Most messages are actually stored in plain-text on middleware servers. I'd be surprised if some state actors don't have access most Telegram messages.
  - Vinnl 9y ago
    If you're switching from WhatsApp to Telegram, you're actually going backwards in terms of privacy, so if that's what you were led to believe, you've been misled.
mtgx 9y ago
My guess is it's because it still feels a little rough around the edges as a chat application, which shows its open source origin (most open source projects lack sufficient funding, etc) Every 6 months or so I try pushing it onto "normal" people, and then I realize something is not working quite right. A while ago it was the Signal desktop app that wasn't importing contacts. I also have an issue now where I can't delete/hide a contact from the contacts list in there, even though it doesn't appear on the mobile app. Speaking of which, I wonder what's their plan for the desktop app, as I believe Google has deprecated those types of apps in Chrome and I don't think it will work anymore in about a year. I've also used WhatsApp more because the native desktop app seems much more reliable. Then it was messages arriving too slow (waiting many minutes to be "pushed" as a notification, which is pretty bad for a chat application). I think it still has this issue. The video call still doesn't seem to work as well as the WhatsApp video call. It seems buggy and the connection is not of the same quality. WhatsApp video calls are more resilient than Google's Duo, too, which switches to audio often. Even the ringtone the video call uses by default is worse than the one WhatsApp uses. I know it seems like a little thing to complain about, and if it was just this one little thing, I probably wouldn't complain about it. But it's all of these together that still stop me from pressing others too much to use it. I would also like to complain about OWS/Moxie's inability to "build a community". Yes, many cryptographers and security people like the app for the good tech it uses and such, but the organization is not actively trying to build a community or care much for it from what I've noticed. I think Durov and Telegram work on that much more, and it's important. In fact, it may be one of the primary reasons why Telegram is so much more popular. OWS/Moxie barely even post on Twitter anymore. They release a blog post every few months. It's hard to "get excited" about the app or want to follow them closely too much when they do this. I think this is also the reason why they're losing/have already lost an opportunity to become the default secure messenger in the Democratic party to Wickr, which is much more active on outreach and stuff like that, even though Clinton's team used Signal in the campaign and they got a lot of good press for it. But they're now blowing all of that away because of their "silence" and non-marketing focus.
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  > My guess is it's because it still feels a little rough around the edges as a chat application When I tried it in 2015, it frequently broke, lost chats, lost history, etc. Security means nothing if the secure app itself is unusable.
lawnchair_larry 9y ago
It's a struggle getting privacy minded people to switch to signal, since it requires giving out your phone number. This is especially an issue for privacy minded women. The Signal team really did not think that through.

It's a struggle getting non-privacy minded people to change to Signal.

by leksak 9y ago

It's a struggle getting non-privacy minded people to change to Signal.

Not sure if it changed but one of the most frustrating aspects of it has been finding out who actually still uses signal. The few people I knew used it stopped using it and that eventually sealed the deal.

eadmund 9y ago
My whole family use it. It's really quite nice.

izacus 9y ago

That's because they refuse to make it seamless in a way iMessage is. Or Telegram. Both of those will work on several devices, have dedicated clients, synchronize messages and iMessage will transparently use SMS (on all platforms). Signal does nothing of the sort - it's impossible to backup conversations, they won't sync to a new device, it won't work on a tablet, it's SMS support is buggy and incomplete and their desktop client is based on a dead technology (and limited to a single machine without SMS support). It also doesn't offer anything over builtin SMS/call support like Telegram does. To top it off, it hijacks SMS store meaning you can't even use OS-based software to backup at least SMS conversations. I can't give Signal to non-tech users and just say "hey, use this instead of SMS", because it won't work and it'll lose their conversations. I can do so with iMessage.

Vinnl 9y ago
> their desktop client is based on a dead technology (and limited to a single machine without SMS support) They're working on an Electron version (Chrome apps aren't dead yet, so they still have some time), and I'm using Signal Desktop on two machines.
- izacus 9y ago
  Are you perhaps also using it on two Android/iOS devices?
  - Vinnl 9y ago
    No, one Android phone, two computers.
- MaymayMaster 9y ago
  >Electron Absolutely disgusting.
  - r3bl 9y ago
    I'll double my RAM every year if that's what's necessary for cross-platform apps that are truly easy to develop.
  - Vinnl 9y ago
    Regardless of your opinion of it, it's not "dead technology" like Chrome apps are, i.e. apps written using it are not guaranteed to stop working at some point.
    - magic_quotes 9y ago
      I wouldn't be so sure. Electron (libchromiumcontent) is a patchset on top of Chromium and it can be easily broken by upstream changes.
      - Vinnl 9y ago
        But its deprecation hasn't been planned, and a binary you provide won't suddenly be upgraded and stop working. That is not the case for Chromium apps.
        magic_quotes 9y ago
        Yeah, I'm actually more worried about Electron devs manpower/ability to catch regressions on the very big and simultaneously fast moving codebase where the upstream project doesn't really care about their use cases. This must be total PITA. Otherwise it's an ok platform, I guess.
mi100hael 9y ago
iMessage doesn't sync to new devices either. Only new conversations going forward are available since each device has its own encryption key.

Vinnl 9y ago

The infuriating thing is that Telegram makes it harder. Some of these have been convinced to give Telegram a try sometime in the past, some actually still use it and like it, but in any case: they believe that Telegram's privacy was good enough, and why would they give yet another app a try now?

miaklesp 9y ago
You're right. Privacy is good enough and apps do not suck.
- akvadrako 9y ago
  Telegram privacy is not "good enough" for a commonly used communication platform. Most messages are actually stored in plain-text on middleware servers. I'd be surprised if some state actors don't have access most Telegram messages.
- Vinnl 9y ago
  If you're switching from WhatsApp to Telegram, you're actually going backwards in terms of privacy, so if that's what you were led to believe, you've been misled.

mtgx 9y ago

My guess is it's because it still feels a little rough around the edges as a chat application, which shows its open source origin (most open source projects lack sufficient funding, etc) Every 6 months or so I try pushing it onto "normal" people, and then I realize something is not working quite right. A while ago it was the Signal desktop app that wasn't importing contacts. I also have an issue now where I can't delete/hide a contact from the contacts list in there, even though it doesn't appear on the mobile app. Speaking of which, I wonder what's their plan for the desktop app, as I believe Google has deprecated those types of apps in Chrome and I don't think it will work anymore in about a year. I've also used WhatsApp more because the native desktop app seems much more reliable. Then it was messages arriving too slow (waiting many minutes to be "pushed" as a notification, which is pretty bad for a chat application). I think it still has this issue. The video call still doesn't seem to work as well as the WhatsApp video call. It seems buggy and the connection is not of the same quality. WhatsApp video calls are more resilient than Google's Duo, too, which switches to audio often. Even the ringtone the video call uses by default is worse than the one WhatsApp uses. I know it seems like a little thing to complain about, and if it was just this one little thing, I probably wouldn't complain about it. But it's all of these together that still stop me from pressing others too much to use it. I would also like to complain about OWS/Moxie's inability to "build a community". Yes, many cryptographers and security people like the app for the good tech it uses and such, but the organization is not actively trying to build a community or care much for it from what I've noticed. I think Durov and Telegram work on that much more, and it's important. In fact, it may be one of the primary reasons why Telegram is so much more popular. OWS/Moxie barely even post on Twitter anymore. They release a blog post every few months. It's hard to "get excited" about the app or want to follow them closely too much when they do this. I think this is also the reason why they're losing/have already lost an opportunity to become the default secure messenger in the Democratic party to Wickr, which is much more active on outreach and stuff like that, even though Clinton's team used Signal in the campaign and they got a lot of good press for it. But they're now blowing all of that away because of their "silence" and non-marketing focus.

zimpenfish 9y ago
> My guess is it's because it still feels a little rough around the edges as a chat application When I tried it in 2015, it frequently broke, lost chats, lost history, etc. Security means nothing if the secure app itself is unusable.

lawnchair_larry 9y ago

It's a struggle getting privacy minded people to switch to signal, since it requires giving out your phone number. This is especially an issue for privacy minded women. The Signal team really did not think that through.