4 ms·

Wire is massively underrated in general. It’s got a slick UI that’s easy for non techies, it’s got native clients on all major platforms, and it has everything

by sen 6y ago

Wire is massively underrated in general. It’s got a slick UI that’s easy for non techies, it’s got native clients on all major platforms, and it has everything you really need from an e2e IM without the fluff. I’m surprised it doesn’t come up more in these discussions and people just “settle” for Signal or another service that needs your phone number etc.

14 6y ago
I also like wire and just by chance found it to message my kids on their iDevices that don’t have a phone number like iPads and iPods. It works great and has all the main features. I’m even happier now that you guys inform me it’s secure also.
- mercutio2 6y ago
  If they’re Apple devices, why don’t you just use iMessage?
  - Forbo 6y ago
    This is purely speculation into their motivations on my part, but it might have to do with Apple backing up encryption keys to iCloud.
hiq 6y ago
> I’m surprised it doesn’t come up more in these discussions and people just “settle” for Signal Not needing a phone number is nice, but last I checked Wire does little when it comes to metadata, while Signal is more or less the state of the art in that regard. The phone number requirement itself is supposed to be eventually dropped in Signal (although I'll admit it's taking quite some time, and with the spam issues it might take some more).
lucb1e 6y ago
The clients are not actually native, at least on desktop it's just Electron and the mobile clients (Android, iOS) don't feel fast either, but frankly rough edges like these are my only real complaint. Features are available and work everywhere (unlike Signal which has a dumbed-down desktop client and no web client at all), it does everything you generally need and the search is actually superb (better than Telegram even, since tg only does word matching and Wire can do symbol and arbitrary string matching and is also very fast) although limited to one chat so you need to know which chat contains what you're looking for. Meanwhile Element (Matrix) goes "can't search encrypted chats"... useless if you want to communicate something non-ephemeral, you'd need to switch to pgp-encrypted email and all its problems or another chat service. Compared to all the alternatives, Wire with all its faults is the best encrypted messenger. I would recommend it to everyone aside from the network effect: Signal clearly has more users (while being worse on features and privacy). Because it's useless to be alone on a messenger and because it's still a step forwards from the status quo, most of the time I end up recommending subpar solutions.
- hiq 6y ago
  > dumbed-down desktop client That used to be true, but now the desktop client has almost all the feature of the mobile clients. Which feature do you miss there? > Signal clearly has more users (while being worse on privacy) I assume you're talking about the phone number requirement? This is fair criticism, but what about the rest? Signal leaks way less metadata than Wire, which is more similar to WhatsApp in that regard. See also this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14069674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14069674 Some things might have changed, but it's not clear to which extent.
  - lucb1e 6y ago
    For metadata you just have to trust them. Sealed sender doesn't solve that[1], even if it's better than nothing. It's also better than nothing to require no phone number in the first place (Wire), or not to require a payment (like Threema does) which is roughly as hard to make anonymous as getting an anonymous phone number. But either way, they can track everything you send, it's a matter of wanting to. The only way to avoid that is by not sending personal data to semi-/untrusted parties at all (Matrix). Since centralized services are currently also the convenient ones and neither Wire nor Signal show any sign of wanting to use a decentralized protocol, those that can't be bothered to use inconvenient services have to trust that their centralized service is ethical about what they do with your data. The privacy differences are very minimal by comparison when they're all missing one basic feature or other like message editing (Signal), a desktop client (Threema[2]), cross-chat searching (Wire), searching a chat at all (Element), any usable encryption (Telegram), etc. If you're going to use an end-to-end encrypted messenger where the server can't read any contents, the privacy differences are just not that large when you trust them all equally. The only thing that you can objectively compare is what the client sends, since that's something they can minimize and you can actually check. [1] "clients derive a 96-bit delivery token from their profile key and register it with the service. The service requires clients to prove knowledge of the delivery token for a user in order to transmit “sealed sender” messages to that user". It's a bit opaque so in regular English: my Signal client sends something like deliveryKey = H(profileKey, currentTime) to Signal, where my profileKey is something only my contacts and I know. Great, so my contacts only specify the deliveryKey and not who's sending, so you send anonymously! But wait, those contacts connect to Signal with an IP address and are doing other things like updating their profile or registering their delivery keys for their account from that same IP address. 1+1=2 and you know who is sending messages to whom. [2] They have it, but your phone plays Chinese Whispers with your computer and every time your laptop or phone reconnects to wifi/mobile data you need to open the app on your phone and navigate two menus to re-enable it.
ckozlowski 6y ago
Agreed. I've been using it for years, and much to my surprise I've been able to convert most of my extended family into using it. The fact that our parents (60s-70s) are using it successfully to post and share pictures as well I think is a good sign of it's accessibility. The rich media, good voice/video support, and ease at making multi-user discussions are all excellent. The persistence across devices is excellent, and I love that it's just as easy to use on the desktop as it is on mobile. I do think there's some improvements that can be made, such as a better visibly into how to sign up without a phone number (I think this is still the default on the phone app) and a more visible download option on their website (the free version is buried under "Resources" -> "Downloads". You can make backups, but there's no easy method to do a plain text export. I get the feeling sometimes messages get "Stuck", and there's been issues in the past with notifications not being sent or push notifications not getting through certain Android sleep states. Sometimes I'll edit a message just to "resend" it such that it's delivered. Overall though, It's still my secure messanger of choice by far. Glad to see it discussed here.

by sen 6y ago

14 6y ago

I also like wire and just by chance found it to message my kids on their iDevices that don’t have a phone number like iPads and iPods. It works great and has all the main features. I’m even happier now that you guys inform me it’s secure also.

mercutio2 6y ago
If they’re Apple devices, why don’t you just use iMessage?
- Forbo 6y ago
  This is purely speculation into their motivations on my part, but it might have to do with Apple backing up encryption keys to iCloud.

hiq 6y ago

> I’m surprised it doesn’t come up more in these discussions and people just “settle” for Signal Not needing a phone number is nice, but last I checked Wire does little when it comes to metadata, while Signal is more or less the state of the art in that regard. The phone number requirement itself is supposed to be eventually dropped in Signal (although I'll admit it's taking quite some time, and with the spam issues it might take some more).

lucb1e 6y ago

The clients are not actually native, at least on desktop it's just Electron and the mobile clients (Android, iOS) don't feel fast either, but frankly rough edges like these are my only real complaint. Features are available and work everywhere (unlike Signal which has a dumbed-down desktop client and no web client at all), it does everything you generally need and the search is actually superb (better than Telegram even, since tg only does word matching and Wire can do symbol and arbitrary string matching and is also very fast) although limited to one chat so you need to know which chat contains what you're looking for. Meanwhile Element (Matrix) goes "can't search encrypted chats"... useless if you want to communicate something non-ephemeral, you'd need to switch to pgp-encrypted email and all its problems or another chat service. Compared to all the alternatives, Wire with all its faults is the best encrypted messenger. I would recommend it to everyone aside from the network effect: Signal clearly has more users (while being worse on features and privacy). Because it's useless to be alone on a messenger and because it's still a step forwards from the status quo, most of the time I end up recommending subpar solutions.

hiq 6y ago
> dumbed-down desktop client That used to be true, but now the desktop client has almost all the feature of the mobile clients. Which feature do you miss there? > Signal clearly has more users (while being worse on privacy) I assume you're talking about the phone number requirement? This is fair criticism, but what about the rest? Signal leaks way less metadata than Wire, which is more similar to WhatsApp in that regard. See also this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14069674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14069674 Some things might have changed, but it's not clear to which extent.
- lucb1e 6y ago
  For metadata you just have to trust them. Sealed sender doesn't solve that[1], even if it's better than nothing. It's also better than nothing to require no phone number in the first place (Wire), or not to require a payment (like Threema does) which is roughly as hard to make anonymous as getting an anonymous phone number. But either way, they can track everything you send, it's a matter of wanting to. The only way to avoid that is by not sending personal data to semi-/untrusted parties at all (Matrix). Since centralized services are currently also the convenient ones and neither Wire nor Signal show any sign of wanting to use a decentralized protocol, those that can't be bothered to use inconvenient services have to trust that their centralized service is ethical about what they do with your data. The privacy differences are very minimal by comparison when they're all missing one basic feature or other like message editing (Signal), a desktop client (Threema[2]), cross-chat searching (Wire), searching a chat at all (Element), any usable encryption (Telegram), etc. If you're going to use an end-to-end encrypted messenger where the server can't read any contents, the privacy differences are just not that large when you trust them all equally. The only thing that you can objectively compare is what the client sends, since that's something they can minimize and you can actually check. [1] "clients derive a 96-bit delivery token from their profile key and register it with the service. The service requires clients to prove knowledge of the delivery token for a user in order to transmit “sealed sender” messages to that user". It's a bit opaque so in regular English: my Signal client sends something like deliveryKey = H(profileKey, currentTime) to Signal, where my profileKey is something only my contacts and I know. Great, so my contacts only specify the deliveryKey and not who's sending, so you send anonymously! But wait, those contacts connect to Signal with an IP address and are doing other things like updating their profile or registering their delivery keys for their account from that same IP address. 1+1=2 and you know who is sending messages to whom. [2] They have it, but your phone plays Chinese Whispers with your computer and every time your laptop or phone reconnects to wifi/mobile data you need to open the app on your phone and navigate two menus to re-enable it.

ckozlowski 6y ago

Agreed. I've been using it for years, and much to my surprise I've been able to convert most of my extended family into using it. The fact that our parents (60s-70s) are using it successfully to post and share pictures as well I think is a good sign of it's accessibility. The rich media, good voice/video support, and ease at making multi-user discussions are all excellent. The persistence across devices is excellent, and I love that it's just as easy to use on the desktop as it is on mobile. I do think there's some improvements that can be made, such as a better visibly into how to sign up without a phone number (I think this is still the default on the phone app) and a more visible download option on their website (the free version is buried under "Resources" -> "Downloads". You can make backups, but there's no easy method to do a plain text export. I get the feeling sometimes messages get "Stuck", and there's been issues in the past with notifications not being sent or push notifications not getting through certain Android sleep states. Sometimes I'll edit a message just to "resend" it such that it's delivered. Overall though, It's still my secure messanger of choice by far. Glad to see it discussed here.