9 ms·

Signal Technology Foundation is now open for donations

152 points by Krasnol 7y ago

mattl 7y ago
$50 million in initial funding from Brian Acton. That’s approximately 50 years of the FSF budget or 100 years of OpenBSD. I wish them well.
- jmathai 7y ago
  They're in a very different space than FSF/OpenBSD and competing directly with well funded companies like Facebook, Google, Telegram, etc. Brian Acton, Whatsapp founder, probably understands this better than anyone.
  - toyg 7y ago
    You spelled “competing directly with nation-state security services” wrong.
  - mattl 7y ago
    Oh I’m sure. Just putting it into some context.
  - random023987 7y ago
    > and competing directly with well funded companies like Facebook, Google, Telegram, etc. As opposed to competing with well funded companies like Sun, IBM, SGI, and Microsoft? Sometimes producing a better, more open product is more important than funding numbers.
  - colechristensen 7y ago
    So? They're a messaging app. Basic communication is not that complicated, it does not take that much effort. Whole operating systems are not less complicated than exchanging messages because of differences in competition. If Google started selling sandwiches, Subway wouldn't start requiring 30 people to make your lunch.
    - schoen 7y ago
      Subway probably does have more than 30 people involved with menu design, quality control, and logistics in order to ensure that you get a consistent sandwich, though. (although when I used to eat at Subway a lot as a kid, somehow the Subway in one town always seemed tastier than the location in a nearby town... hmmmmm)
      - toast0 7y ago
        Subway offers franchises different levels of ingredient quality. I've seen discussions about some ingredients where restaurants that paid for the higher quality usually put a smaller quantity, and people use that as an indicator. Also, depending on when you were a kid, you may have had one restaurant that still cut the bread using the wedge technique.
    - jmathai 7y ago
      It is actually quite complicated to convince a consumer to use your app instead of Facebook Messenger. Especially when you don't possess an ecosystem of services that they and their friends already use on a daily basis.
      - eitland 7y ago
        It wasn't that hard for Whatsapp: - Provide excellent clients. - Promise to take payments and not mine data or show ads. - Use few but smart employees. - Profit. Telegram managed to get this right too, and I'm disappointed with both of them for now, Whatsapp for selling out and Telegram for starting yet another crypto currency. Both managed thanks to people going around selling it. At the point were I - either need more than mail envelope security (protection against causual snooping by local mail delivery) - or were Signal or Matrix becomes equally usable as Telegram I'll be happy to move, as will many others I think. Provide a better messaging systems - and this time show me up front how you won't get away legally with selling out for > 10 Billion USD - tell me about it and watch me sell it. PS: protip: do charge reasonable payments like Whatsapp did! Or sell API access or something that makes you aligned with the users instead of investors.
  - jammygit 7y ago
    Microsoft is pretty well funded too
- toast0 7y ago
  OpenBSD and FSF don't have to pay for SMS/voice calls for user registration or a messaging infrastructure.
- jammygit 7y ago
  A secure messenger is important for civil society, but that is a good amount of funding to play with. Time to send some extra money to other foundations? Which other tech foundations are worth donating to these days? Ideas: - EFF - Mozilla - Software Freedom Conservancy
  - brianzelip 7y ago
    - Free Software Foundation - Wiki Media
  - newscracker 7y ago
    Matrix, perhaps, since it's still evolving and is a decentralized solution focusing on privacy and security without the need for a phone number? [1] [1]: https://shop.matrix.org/ https://shop.matrix.org/
bvandewalle 7y ago
I love that this is led by Brian Acton, ex-WhatsApp founder who must know from first hand experience how badly an alternative to Facebook is needed in this space. I use signal as my main messaging app and wish them well.
- gojomo 7y ago
  I was super-impressed with Acton's creation & principled stewardship of WhatsApp, but with regard to Signal, he's been essentially invisible since the initial announcement of his donation/involvement. His name only appears twice at the `signal.org` website: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Asignal.org+Acton https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Asignal.org+Acton His name doesn't appear in any recent Signal news – such as this, about the foundation being ready to take donations. As of April, he was supposed to be speaking at the 'TechCrunch Disrupt SF' conference that happened earlier this month – https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/03/whatsapp-brian-acton-disrupt/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/03/whatsapp-brian-acton-disru... – but he wasn't on the final schedule/speakers-list and I've seen no followup coverage indicating he actually spoke there. It'd be good to know what his actual involvement is, before transitively having confidence in Signal based on Acton's experience.
erichocean 7y ago
Is Signal still proprietary?
- ChristianBundy 7y ago
  Signal is open source. Are you thinking of Telegram?
  - erichocean 7y ago
    Maybe I'm mis-remembering, but IIRC their protocol is proprietary—even though the code is open source. So it was more like "you can read the source, but can't do anything new or different with it."
    - jethro_tell 7y ago
      It may be the server code that is or was unavailable. The app has always been open.
      - 0xdeadb00f 7y ago
        Server code is available, but you can't run your own server and communicate with the rest of the Signal users. (Federation isn't possible with this protocol, which kind of sucks).
        jraph 7y ago
        If I understood correctly, the Signal protocol can be federated (and actually, I just learned that Signal was federated in the past with servers managed by Cyanogenmod between 2013 and 2016), but Moxie does not believe federation is a good thing for Signal. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_%28software%29#Federation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_%28software%29#Federati...
        maksim-m 7y ago
        > Federation isn't possible with this protocol, which kind of sucks Moxie has a blog post explaining why Signal won't support federalization: https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ "After three weeks, sealed sender now represents over 80% of overall Signal messaging traffic." https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1075918894521495552 https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1075918894521495552 This would be impossible to achieve with federated protocol.
cgidriver 7y ago
This is great news!
cascom 7y ago
I just wish i could get more people to adopt it - between whatsapp and text/imessage people are not interested in another messaging platform...
thecybernerd 7y ago
Are there any android OEMs that ship Signal as the default messenger application?
- mattl 7y ago
  Does it handle regular SMS and MMS on Android?
  - climb_stealth 7y ago
    It handles regular SMS just fine on Android. It's great as you can set it as your default messaging app and for regular contacts it sends SMS and for Signal users encrypted messages. It's iOS where it doesn't work AFAIK as you can't replace the default messaging app.
  - feanaro 7y ago
    Yes.
  - h4waii 7y ago
    Yes it does, it integrates very well on Android -- very similar "invisibility" that iMessage has on iPhones.
  - RealityVoid 7y ago
    Yes it does. I installed it out of curiosity and use it as my messaging application. But I think that using it like this, without the secure messaging(since I have no one to send secure messages to) you don't really get any benefit.
  - tssva 7y ago
    It does but you will not be able access SMS and MMS messages sent in your prior SMS app in Signal. This has prevented me and based upon multiple threads found while trying to see if it was possible many others from switching to using Signal as my default SMS messenger. It used to be able to import your prior messages but lost the ability to do so and the developers don't seem particularly open to bringing it back.
tylermenezes 7y ago
I've been really disappointed in how, despite the huge amount of funding recently, Signal is still operating like a small community-powered OSS project. I once opened an issue for 15-second freezes after sending each message, +1'd by other users, and my bug report was closed and locked with a very rude message from one of the (paid!) developers to "Please, when you open a bug, talk about the user impact." Seriously... are you kidding me? You have $50M and you're going to close and lock a bug about 15sec lag when sending messages because it's not obvious what the user impact is? And if I, as a former developer, YC alum, etc. can't open a bug report without getting a rude lecture from the Signal team (seriously fuck you Scott Nonnenberg), what hope is there for a casual user? I went back to re-read it just to make sure I wasn't exaggerating, and nope! It makes me mad thinking about what would happen if my non-technical friends needed help. They'd just switch. I really want Signal as a concept to succeed, but after having used it for years and seen the bugs, and the disregard the developers have for users, I think something like Telegram is unfortunately the better bet.
- half-kh-hacker 7y ago
  I sent in a pull request for Signal-Desktop this month and am yet to receive any reply whatsoever for 20 days now.
- Marsymars 7y ago
  If I was running a project geared for the long-term, I wouldn't treat $50 million like "$50 million to spend", but as a $50 million endowment where the goal is to not spend the principle.
  - jammygit 7y ago
    There is also the matter of scale however: if you could grow your users, maybe you could secure more funding/donors long term as well
    - markovbot 7y ago
      But its obviously a lot more likely to be around long term if they don't blow all their cash in a short term attempt at grabbing a few more users and hope to get more later.
jakebasile 7y ago
I've tried Signal many times, but their lack of certain features continues to make it a no go for me. There's still no real multi device support, no tablet support, no Siri support, and no backup cloud or otherwise (switch phones and lose everything!). I understand that these are complex issues but Signal is competing with iMessage for my usage and it can't win without these.
- oil25 7y ago
  I use Signal because the most important thing to me about a messenger is security and privacy. Other features notwithstanding, iMessage simply does not offer the same guarantees as Signal so long as Apple manages encryption keys vs the users themselves, and obviously remains closed source and proprietary. In other words, I would only consider Signal to be a truly end-to-end encrypted application of the two, and that's of utmost value to me.
  - jakebasile 7y ago
    That makes sense, and I am glad that signal exists for people like you who want what they provide. For me, iMessage / FaceTime achieve good enough security while also letting me use any of my devices (except my windows machine!), and I don't lose everything if I switch phones. I think that signal could better achieve their goals by making some time for usability work.
- colordrops 7y ago
  Signal's purpose is to be secure and private. If these are not primary concerns, it is unlikely that Signal would be the best option for you, as there will always be someone with more money and developers to out-class Signal feature-wise.
  - jakebasile 7y ago
    Signal's goal has always been claimed to be to bring security to the masses though. My sticking points are not unique to me, but will likely be considered table stakes to compete with the industry titans like Facebook Messenger and iMessage.
neiman 7y ago
I would love to use Signal, but I have two issues with it. One, it insists on me giving more permissions to Google services, where it's very difficult to go around this requirements. But worse, it relies on me a phone number as an ID. I keep changing my phone number, I don't wanna share my phone number, and I really think that the computer in my pocket should finally be completely separated from this old concept of a phone. Please give me another way to open a Signal account.
- oil25 7y ago
  > it insists on me giving more permissions to Google services Can you clarify what you mean? I use Signal without Google Play Store/Services and am curious about said requirement. > it relies on me a phone number as an ID I dislike this also, but what's the alternative? A phone number is (usually) a long-lived, relatively immutable identifier which is convenient, memorable and portable. It is highly usable and that may be more important than other considerations.
  - mattl 7y ago
    An email address? A username?
    - oil25 7y ago
      For most users, I think maintaining exclusive ownership of a phone number is much easier than securing their email account or a traditional username+password credential, so posit it's a natural fit for a secure mobile messenger.
      - dbrgn 7y ago
        Maybe for a secure messenger, but for a private one? It bugs me that I need to share my phone number with people that I want to contact on Signal, especially since Signal claims to focus on privacy. A private messenger should be usable anonymously, shouldn't it?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
newscracker 7y ago
[Preface: I use Matrix/Riot, Signal, Telegram and Wire for chats, and have been using these for more than a few years] Considering the very slow pace of development on UX and stability, the $50 million initial grant and the creation of Signal Foundation don’t seem to have achieved much. As recently as a few months ago, on the latest iOS and latest version of Signal, I’ve seen some contacts get multiple device changed messages from me even though nothing had changed (no change in device, no change in OS). The few contacts who do use it also complain of message delivery issues. There’s still no way to backup chats on iOS. There’s no easy way to get back group memberships when changing devices. Combine all these with how much the UX and feature set lag behind that of Telegram, I still see Signal as a niche laggard. As pointed out by others, using a phone number as the identifier is a big drawback for something that focuses on security and privacy (Telegram shares the same drawback). What’s worse is that Signal, like WhatsApp, exposes one’s phone number to everyone else in a group (something Telegram got right for a long time by making one’s phone number invisible by default; after privacy issues in the Hong Kong protests, Telegram quickly provided an update so that even people who have your number in their contacts, through enumeration in the case of oppressive regimes, wouldn’t know that you’re on Telegram). I can go on and on, but Signal is not something I’d recommend to people who need secure, private and reliable messaging. I’m currently looking forward to UX improvements in Matrix and its clients. A decentralized solution is probably the best bet for our freedom.
logic 7y ago
I'm about to receive a librem5, and Signal is going to be one of the biggest stumbling blocks for me to switch over. The electron desktop app can't serve as a replacement even if it could run properly (it needs to be tethered to a phone that can run the Android or iOS mobile client, with the SIM for your number installed), and open source reimplementations are few and far between (and then there's the issue where they don't want third-party implementations or forks talking to their servers, and they don't federate, so it's not like you can actually run your own server and continue to talk to anyone). I'm sure the librem5 community will eventually scaffold something to make this work, and it might even be somewhat user-friendly, but I can't imagine a scenario where Signal themselves are positive about it. So, it's back to SMS for me. And convincing my more technical friends to give Matrix a try again, in the hopes that the UX issues aren't as bad for them in late 2019. I wish Signal the best of luck, I really do; their goal is laudable, most of their source is open, and they're smart folks. But a very limited developer community (and open hostility to the kind of community that might result in broader platform options) means I've stopped suggesting it to folks, because I won't even be able to use it myself very shortly.

152 points by Krasnol 7y ago

$50 million in initial funding from Brian Acton. That’s approximately 50 years of the FSF budget or 100 years of OpenBSD. I wish them well.

jmathai 7y ago
They're in a very different space than FSF/OpenBSD and competing directly with well funded companies like Facebook, Google, Telegram, etc. Brian Acton, Whatsapp founder, probably understands this better than anyone.
- toyg 7y ago
  You spelled “competing directly with nation-state security services” wrong.
- mattl 7y ago
  Oh I’m sure. Just putting it into some context.
- random023987 7y ago
  > and competing directly with well funded companies like Facebook, Google, Telegram, etc. As opposed to competing with well funded companies like Sun, IBM, SGI, and Microsoft? Sometimes producing a better, more open product is more important than funding numbers.
- colechristensen 7y ago
  So? They're a messaging app. Basic communication is not that complicated, it does not take that much effort. Whole operating systems are not less complicated than exchanging messages because of differences in competition. If Google started selling sandwiches, Subway wouldn't start requiring 30 people to make your lunch.
  - schoen 7y ago
    Subway probably does have more than 30 people involved with menu design, quality control, and logistics in order to ensure that you get a consistent sandwich, though. (although when I used to eat at Subway a lot as a kid, somehow the Subway in one town always seemed tastier than the location in a nearby town... hmmmmm)
    - toast0 7y ago
      Subway offers franchises different levels of ingredient quality. I've seen discussions about some ingredients where restaurants that paid for the higher quality usually put a smaller quantity, and people use that as an indicator. Also, depending on when you were a kid, you may have had one restaurant that still cut the bread using the wedge technique.
  - jmathai 7y ago
    It is actually quite complicated to convince a consumer to use your app instead of Facebook Messenger. Especially when you don't possess an ecosystem of services that they and their friends already use on a daily basis.
    - eitland 7y ago
      It wasn't that hard for Whatsapp: - Provide excellent clients. - Promise to take payments and not mine data or show ads. - Use few but smart employees. - Profit. Telegram managed to get this right too, and I'm disappointed with both of them for now, Whatsapp for selling out and Telegram for starting yet another crypto currency. Both managed thanks to people going around selling it. At the point were I - either need more than mail envelope security (protection against causual snooping by local mail delivery) - or were Signal or Matrix becomes equally usable as Telegram I'll be happy to move, as will many others I think. Provide a better messaging systems - and this time show me up front how you won't get away legally with selling out for > 10 Billion USD - tell me about it and watch me sell it. PS: protip: do charge reasonable payments like Whatsapp did! Or sell API access or something that makes you aligned with the users instead of investors.
- jammygit 7y ago
  Microsoft is pretty well funded too
toast0 7y ago
OpenBSD and FSF don't have to pay for SMS/voice calls for user registration or a messaging infrastructure.
jammygit 7y ago
A secure messenger is important for civil society, but that is a good amount of funding to play with. Time to send some extra money to other foundations? Which other tech foundations are worth donating to these days? Ideas: - EFF - Mozilla - Software Freedom Conservancy
- brianzelip 7y ago
  - Free Software Foundation - Wiki Media
- newscracker 7y ago
  Matrix, perhaps, since it's still evolving and is a decentralized solution focusing on privacy and security without the need for a phone number? [1] [1]: https://shop.matrix.org/ https://shop.matrix.org/

bvandewalle 7y ago

I love that this is led by Brian Acton, ex-WhatsApp founder who must know from first hand experience how badly an alternative to Facebook is needed in this space. I use signal as my main messaging app and wish them well.

gojomo 7y ago
I was super-impressed with Acton's creation & principled stewardship of WhatsApp, but with regard to Signal, he's been essentially invisible since the initial announcement of his donation/involvement. His name only appears twice at the `signal.org` website: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Asignal.org+Acton https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Asignal.org+Acton His name doesn't appear in any recent Signal news – such as this, about the foundation being ready to take donations. As of April, he was supposed to be speaking at the 'TechCrunch Disrupt SF' conference that happened earlier this month – https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/03/whatsapp-brian-acton-disrupt/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/03/whatsapp-brian-acton-disru... – but he wasn't on the final schedule/speakers-list and I've seen no followup coverage indicating he actually spoke there. It'd be good to know what his actual involvement is, before transitively having confidence in Signal based on Acton's experience.

erichocean 7y ago

Is Signal still proprietary?

ChristianBundy 7y ago
Signal is open source. Are you thinking of Telegram?
- erichocean 7y ago
  Maybe I'm mis-remembering, but IIRC their protocol is proprietary—even though the code is open source. So it was more like "you can read the source, but can't do anything new or different with it."
  - jethro_tell 7y ago
    It may be the server code that is or was unavailable. The app has always been open.
    - 0xdeadb00f 7y ago
      Server code is available, but you can't run your own server and communicate with the rest of the Signal users. (Federation isn't possible with this protocol, which kind of sucks).
      - jraph 7y ago
        If I understood correctly, the Signal protocol can be federated (and actually, I just learned that Signal was federated in the past with servers managed by Cyanogenmod between 2013 and 2016), but Moxie does not believe federation is a good thing for Signal. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_%28software%29#Federation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_%28software%29#Federati...
      - maksim-m 7y ago
        > Federation isn't possible with this protocol, which kind of sucks Moxie has a blog post explaining why Signal won't support federalization: https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ "After three weeks, sealed sender now represents over 80% of overall Signal messaging traffic." https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1075918894521495552 https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1075918894521495552 This would be impossible to achieve with federated protocol.

cgidriver 7y ago

This is great news!

cascom 7y ago

I just wish i could get more people to adopt it - between whatsapp and text/imessage people are not interested in another messaging platform...

thecybernerd 7y ago

Are there any android OEMs that ship Signal as the default messenger application?

mattl 7y ago
Does it handle regular SMS and MMS on Android?
- climb_stealth 7y ago
  It handles regular SMS just fine on Android. It's great as you can set it as your default messaging app and for regular contacts it sends SMS and for Signal users encrypted messages. It's iOS where it doesn't work AFAIK as you can't replace the default messaging app.
- feanaro 7y ago
  Yes.
- h4waii 7y ago
  Yes it does, it integrates very well on Android -- very similar "invisibility" that iMessage has on iPhones.
- RealityVoid 7y ago
  Yes it does. I installed it out of curiosity and use it as my messaging application. But I think that using it like this, without the secure messaging(since I have no one to send secure messages to) you don't really get any benefit.
- tssva 7y ago
  It does but you will not be able access SMS and MMS messages sent in your prior SMS app in Signal. This has prevented me and based upon multiple threads found while trying to see if it was possible many others from switching to using Signal as my default SMS messenger. It used to be able to import your prior messages but lost the ability to do so and the developers don't seem particularly open to bringing it back.

tylermenezes 7y ago

I've been really disappointed in how, despite the huge amount of funding recently, Signal is still operating like a small community-powered OSS project. I once opened an issue for 15-second freezes after sending each message, +1'd by other users, and my bug report was closed and locked with a very rude message from one of the (paid!) developers to "Please, when you open a bug, talk about the user impact." Seriously... are you kidding me? You have $50M and you're going to close and lock a bug about 15sec lag when sending messages because it's not obvious what the user impact is? And if I, as a former developer, YC alum, etc. can't open a bug report without getting a rude lecture from the Signal team (seriously fuck you Scott Nonnenberg), what hope is there for a casual user? I went back to re-read it just to make sure I wasn't exaggerating, and nope! It makes me mad thinking about what would happen if my non-technical friends needed help. They'd just switch. I really want Signal as a concept to succeed, but after having used it for years and seen the bugs, and the disregard the developers have for users, I think something like Telegram is unfortunately the better bet.

half-kh-hacker 7y ago
I sent in a pull request for Signal-Desktop this month and am yet to receive any reply whatsoever for 20 days now.
Marsymars 7y ago
If I was running a project geared for the long-term, I wouldn't treat $50 million like "$50 million to spend", but as a $50 million endowment where the goal is to not spend the principle.
- jammygit 7y ago
  There is also the matter of scale however: if you could grow your users, maybe you could secure more funding/donors long term as well
  - markovbot 7y ago
    But its obviously a lot more likely to be around long term if they don't blow all their cash in a short term attempt at grabbing a few more users and hope to get more later.

jakebasile 7y ago

I've tried Signal many times, but their lack of certain features continues to make it a no go for me. There's still no real multi device support, no tablet support, no Siri support, and no backup cloud or otherwise (switch phones and lose everything!). I understand that these are complex issues but Signal is competing with iMessage for my usage and it can't win without these.

oil25 7y ago
I use Signal because the most important thing to me about a messenger is security and privacy. Other features notwithstanding, iMessage simply does not offer the same guarantees as Signal so long as Apple manages encryption keys vs the users themselves, and obviously remains closed source and proprietary. In other words, I would only consider Signal to be a truly end-to-end encrypted application of the two, and that's of utmost value to me.
- jakebasile 7y ago
  That makes sense, and I am glad that signal exists for people like you who want what they provide. For me, iMessage / FaceTime achieve good enough security while also letting me use any of my devices (except my windows machine!), and I don't lose everything if I switch phones. I think that signal could better achieve their goals by making some time for usability work.
colordrops 7y ago
Signal's purpose is to be secure and private. If these are not primary concerns, it is unlikely that Signal would be the best option for you, as there will always be someone with more money and developers to out-class Signal feature-wise.
- jakebasile 7y ago
  Signal's goal has always been claimed to be to bring security to the masses though. My sticking points are not unique to me, but will likely be considered table stakes to compete with the industry titans like Facebook Messenger and iMessage.

neiman 7y ago

I would love to use Signal, but I have two issues with it. One, it insists on me giving more permissions to Google services, where it's very difficult to go around this requirements. But worse, it relies on me a phone number as an ID. I keep changing my phone number, I don't wanna share my phone number, and I really think that the computer in my pocket should finally be completely separated from this old concept of a phone. Please give me another way to open a Signal account.

oil25 7y ago
> it insists on me giving more permissions to Google services Can you clarify what you mean? I use Signal without Google Play Store/Services and am curious about said requirement. > it relies on me a phone number as an ID I dislike this also, but what's the alternative? A phone number is (usually) a long-lived, relatively immutable identifier which is convenient, memorable and portable. It is highly usable and that may be more important than other considerations.
- mattl 7y ago
  An email address? A username?
  - oil25 7y ago
    For most users, I think maintaining exclusive ownership of a phone number is much easier than securing their email account or a traditional username+password credential, so posit it's a natural fit for a secure mobile messenger.
    - dbrgn 7y ago
      Maybe for a secure messenger, but for a private one? It bugs me that I need to share my phone number with people that I want to contact on Signal, especially since Signal claims to focus on privacy. A private messenger should be usable anonymously, shouldn't it?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

newscracker 7y ago

[Preface: I use Matrix/Riot, Signal, Telegram and Wire for chats, and have been using these for more than a few years] Considering the very slow pace of development on UX and stability, the $50 million initial grant and the creation of Signal Foundation don’t seem to have achieved much. As recently as a few months ago, on the latest iOS and latest version of Signal, I’ve seen some contacts get multiple device changed messages from me even though nothing had changed (no change in device, no change in OS). The few contacts who do use it also complain of message delivery issues. There’s still no way to backup chats on iOS. There’s no easy way to get back group memberships when changing devices. Combine all these with how much the UX and feature set lag behind that of Telegram, I still see Signal as a niche laggard. As pointed out by others, using a phone number as the identifier is a big drawback for something that focuses on security and privacy (Telegram shares the same drawback). What’s worse is that Signal, like WhatsApp, exposes one’s phone number to everyone else in a group (something Telegram got right for a long time by making one’s phone number invisible by default; after privacy issues in the Hong Kong protests, Telegram quickly provided an update so that even people who have your number in their contacts, through enumeration in the case of oppressive regimes, wouldn’t know that you’re on Telegram). I can go on and on, but Signal is not something I’d recommend to people who need secure, private and reliable messaging. I’m currently looking forward to UX improvements in Matrix and its clients. A decentralized solution is probably the best bet for our freedom.

logic 7y ago

I'm about to receive a librem5, and Signal is going to be one of the biggest stumbling blocks for me to switch over. The electron desktop app can't serve as a replacement even if it could run properly (it needs to be tethered to a phone that can run the Android or iOS mobile client, with the SIM for your number installed), and open source reimplementations are few and far between (and then there's the issue where they don't want third-party implementations or forks talking to their servers, and they don't federate, so it's not like you can actually run your own server and continue to talk to anyone). I'm sure the librem5 community will eventually scaffold something to make this work, and it might even be somewhat user-friendly, but I can't imagine a scenario where Signal themselves are positive about it. So, it's back to SMS for me. And convincing my more technical friends to give Matrix a try again, in the hopes that the UX issues aren't as bad for them in late 2019. I wish Signal the best of luck, I really do; their goal is laudable, most of their source is open, and they're smart folks. But a very limited developer community (and open hostility to the kind of community that might result in broader platform options) means I've stopped suggesting it to folks, because I won't even be able to use it myself very shortly.