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All I need is a better chat app, that Facebook won't buy. I can now text, voice record, send photos/selfies and video messages easily to my social circles. Conn

All I need is a better chat app, that Facebook won't buy. I can now text, voice record, send photos/selfies and video messages easily to my social circles. Connecting to second degree connections is fast and everyone I know has an account. I want to leave Facebook but I can't give up such an amazing chat experience that keeps me connected to my family and close friends. Even if I got my immediate family to use a different app, I'd have to keep Facebook for old friends :( . (edit, spelling)

dx034 8y ago
Only using whatsapp without other facebook accounts should still be fine. Whatsapp has end2end encryption (unlike FB messenger) and if you don't use other FB products they can't use your data for ads. Obviously not as good as an independent messenger but will cause the same revenue loss for FB.
- oarsinsync 8y ago
  I believe that’s only text. Try sending someone a video. Takes a while. Try forwarding that video to someone else moments later. Happens pretty quickly. Same applies with photos in my experience. I’d assume voice notes,location pins, etc are also subject to this as well.
  - fwn 8y ago
    WhatsApp reduces the quality of your media and saves it in a second folder of your gallery. If you forward already converted media it will be taken from the gallery in it's compressed, substantially smaller version.
    - oarsinsync 8y ago
      On iPhones it has a splash screen for compression and then a separate spinner in the chat for the upload progress for videos. That second upload spinner doesn’t occur for immediately forwarded videos.
      - fwn 8y ago
        That is interesting and different from what I have experienced on Android. I've no explanation for that.
  - dx034 8y ago
    It's all encrypted. Encryption in group chats is a bit weaker to provide better usability (there was an article recently I believe) but messages itself are encrypted. And since we're talking here about usage of data for ad tracking, any encryption is likely good enough. They can of course still track meta data, e.g. tailor your ads based on interest of contacts. But if you only use whatsapp (ad free), they own't make any money with it.
- majewsky 8y ago
  > if you don't use other FB products they can't use your data for ads They're still siphoning their data. Just refuse WhatsApp access to your phone's address book, and see how it outright punishes you for doing that. Most of my WhatsApp contacts maintain their own names in their profiles, yet WhatsApp stubbornly shows their phone number as contact name. I usually identify contacts by looking at the profile picture (or by the conversation history if they changed that recently). Then again, I only have 3-4 contacts on WhatsApp. I would be less willing to put up with this if there were dozens of active contacts in there.
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> that Facebook won't buy Facebook will buy because it’s profitable to buy. Monopoly power is a known mode of market failure. (Note: you don’t need 100% of a market for the deleterious effects of monopoly power to manifest.) The only solution is blocking future acquisitions and breaking up Facebook.
- simias 8y ago
  Facebook won't buy IRC or any distributed open source decentralized protocol. Chats, newsgroups, email... The net used to be a lot more open and decentralized that it is now, maybe it's time to go back a couple of decades?
  - aerique 8y ago
    Won't they do with decentralized chat what they did with XMPP?: integrate support for a while to keep users from getting away and then drop that support again when the time is right?
    - needcaffeine 8y ago
      Like...Slack.
rootlocus 8y ago
How about: https://telegram.org/ https://telegram.org/
- 908087 8y ago
  How about we stop suggesting a messaging app that styles itself as privacy-oriented and encrypted despite not being end to end encrypted by default, and using questionable encryption even for the optional E2E functionality that nobody uses?
  - rootlocus 8y ago
    E2E encryption enabled by default wasn't in the OP request. But instead of being snarky, how about you suggest a better alternative?
    - 908087 8y ago
      Signal.
VikingCoder 8y ago
I'm pretty sure what we all need is a better chat protocol, and multiple apps that implement it.
wellboy 8y ago
No telegram with several hundred million users?

dx034 8y ago

Only using whatsapp without other facebook accounts should still be fine. Whatsapp has end2end encryption (unlike FB messenger) and if you don't use other FB products they can't use your data for ads. Obviously not as good as an independent messenger but will cause the same revenue loss for FB.

oarsinsync 8y ago
I believe that’s only text. Try sending someone a video. Takes a while. Try forwarding that video to someone else moments later. Happens pretty quickly. Same applies with photos in my experience. I’d assume voice notes,location pins, etc are also subject to this as well.
- fwn 8y ago
  WhatsApp reduces the quality of your media and saves it in a second folder of your gallery. If you forward already converted media it will be taken from the gallery in it's compressed, substantially smaller version.
  - oarsinsync 8y ago
    On iPhones it has a splash screen for compression and then a separate spinner in the chat for the upload progress for videos. That second upload spinner doesn’t occur for immediately forwarded videos.
    - fwn 8y ago
      That is interesting and different from what I have experienced on Android. I've no explanation for that.
- dx034 8y ago
  It's all encrypted. Encryption in group chats is a bit weaker to provide better usability (there was an article recently I believe) but messages itself are encrypted. And since we're talking here about usage of data for ad tracking, any encryption is likely good enough. They can of course still track meta data, e.g. tailor your ads based on interest of contacts. But if you only use whatsapp (ad free), they own't make any money with it.
majewsky 8y ago
> if you don't use other FB products they can't use your data for ads They're still siphoning their data. Just refuse WhatsApp access to your phone's address book, and see how it outright punishes you for doing that. Most of my WhatsApp contacts maintain their own names in their profiles, yet WhatsApp stubbornly shows their phone number as contact name. I usually identify contacts by looking at the profile picture (or by the conversation history if they changed that recently). Then again, I only have 3-4 contacts on WhatsApp. I would be less willing to put up with this if there were dozens of active contacts in there.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> that Facebook won't buy Facebook will buy because it’s profitable to buy. Monopoly power is a known mode of market failure. (Note: you don’t need 100% of a market for the deleterious effects of monopoly power to manifest.) The only solution is blocking future acquisitions and breaking up Facebook.

simias 8y ago
Facebook won't buy IRC or any distributed open source decentralized protocol. Chats, newsgroups, email... The net used to be a lot more open and decentralized that it is now, maybe it's time to go back a couple of decades?
- aerique 8y ago
  Won't they do with decentralized chat what they did with XMPP?: integrate support for a while to keep users from getting away and then drop that support again when the time is right?
  - needcaffeine 8y ago
    Like...Slack.

rootlocus 8y ago

How about: https://telegram.org/ https://telegram.org/

908087 8y ago
How about we stop suggesting a messaging app that styles itself as privacy-oriented and encrypted despite not being end to end encrypted by default, and using questionable encryption even for the optional E2E functionality that nobody uses?
- rootlocus 8y ago
  E2E encryption enabled by default wasn't in the OP request. But instead of being snarky, how about you suggest a better alternative?
  - 908087 8y ago
    Signal.

VikingCoder 8y ago

I'm pretty sure what we all need is a better chat protocol, and multiple apps that implement it.

wellboy 8y ago

No telegram with several hundred million users?