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I'm in a similar boat to the author and have also recently deleted my Facebook and Instagram account - although I'll note that the sneaky "to be deleted" state

by amanzi 6y ago

I'm in a similar boat to the author and have also recently deleted my Facebook and Instagram account - although I'll note that the sneaky "to be deleted" state is now 30 days instead of just 7. But, similar to the author, I'm having more difficulty getting rid of WhatsApp. This is my primary means of communicating with friends and family all over the world. And for some of them I know it's just not an option to try get them to switch to another platform, especially since I'm not sure which is the better platform. In my opinion, WhatsApp strikes the perfect balance of security and usability. Telegram makes me nervous due to the Russian roots and the numerous security concerns I've read online. Signal is overly secure to the point that usability for regular folk suffers (I've personally had terrible experience with their support after losing a bunch of SMS messages.) Matrix, Riot, MatterMost, and many other opensource apps all look good but not overly user-friendly for novices. What else is there?

shitgoose 6y ago
Durov (Telegram) had a fallout with Russian government elite who raided his business and now lives in exile in UK (last time I checked). He has no direct links to KGB. Indirect - who knows.
ccktlmazeltov 6y ago
Why would anyone want to get rid of Whastapp.
- amanzi 6y ago
  Only because Facebook owns WhatsApp and people who dislike Facebook as a company do not want to use any of their products.
- bigbugbag 6y ago
  Because facebook. Also security issues, lack of privacy, lack of proper encryption, censorship, etc. among a long trail of reasons. Also whatsapp founder quitting and leaving 850millions dollars on the table doing so over the way facebook makes money out of whatsapp and for th way facebook made him mislead the european commission to have them green light the sale of whatsapp to facebook. He also called repeatedly for people to get rid of Facebook services. for exemple this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhatsApp_snooping_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhatsApp_snooping_scandal and this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reception_and_criticism_of_WhatsApp_security_and_privacy_features https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reception_and_criticism_of_Wha...
  - ccktlmazeltov 6y ago
    whatsApp is end-to-end encrypted and has better encryption than most secure messaging (cough telegram). So stop spreading FUD. It's also not related to the Facebook app so it makes no sense.
bigbugbag 6y ago
The fun part is that whatsapp is actually preventing people like from communicating with friends and family. My phone happens to a smartphone that's not running windows/apple/google so whatsapp never bother to release for this phone. Whatsapp being a walled garden it prevents everyone from the outside from reaching people jailed inside. As you do not have a data plan, I have no internet access with this pocket computer we use as telephone. Whatsapp is utterly pointless and useless to me, and coherent with facebook way of doing things it actively prevents me from contacting other people, which is shocking to me who grew accustomed to thing like email, jabber or sms .
- Fnoord 6y ago
  The amount of people without a "Microsoft/Apple/Google smartphone" (ie. not running iOS, Android, or Windows Phone [sic]) is very low in absolute and relative numbers. You might run say Sailfish OS, they have an Android emulator. Backwards compatibility is extremely important in the software ecosystem.

by amanzi 6y ago

shitgoose 6y ago

Durov (Telegram) had a fallout with Russian government elite who raided his business and now lives in exile in UK (last time I checked). He has no direct links to KGB. Indirect - who knows.

ccktlmazeltov 6y ago

Why would anyone want to get rid of Whastapp.

amanzi 6y ago
Only because Facebook owns WhatsApp and people who dislike Facebook as a company do not want to use any of their products.
bigbugbag 6y ago
Because facebook. Also security issues, lack of privacy, lack of proper encryption, censorship, etc. among a long trail of reasons. Also whatsapp founder quitting and leaving 850millions dollars on the table doing so over the way facebook makes money out of whatsapp and for th way facebook made him mislead the european commission to have them green light the sale of whatsapp to facebook. He also called repeatedly for people to get rid of Facebook services. for exemple this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhatsApp_snooping_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhatsApp_snooping_scandal and this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reception_and_criticism_of_WhatsApp_security_and_privacy_features https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reception_and_criticism_of_Wha...
- ccktlmazeltov 6y ago
  whatsApp is end-to-end encrypted and has better encryption than most secure messaging (cough telegram). So stop spreading FUD. It's also not related to the Facebook app so it makes no sense.

bigbugbag 6y ago

The fun part is that whatsapp is actually preventing people like from communicating with friends and family. My phone happens to a smartphone that's not running windows/apple/google so whatsapp never bother to release for this phone. Whatsapp being a walled garden it prevents everyone from the outside from reaching people jailed inside. As you do not have a data plan, I have no internet access with this pocket computer we use as telephone. Whatsapp is utterly pointless and useless to me, and coherent with facebook way of doing things it actively prevents me from contacting other people, which is shocking to me who grew accustomed to thing like email, jabber or sms .

Fnoord 6y ago
The amount of people without a "Microsoft/Apple/Google smartphone" (ie. not running iOS, Android, or Windows Phone [sic]) is very low in absolute and relative numbers. You might run say Sailfish OS, they have an Android emulator. Backwards compatibility is extremely important in the software ecosystem.