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Is Signal still a trusted company in the industry? They are based in the USA.

blfr 18d ago
Yes, very much so. It is basically a standard across the western world for politicians, journalists, whatsapp refugees... Of course there are many alternatives but most of them have most of their users here, on HN. MacOS, iOS, Windows, Linux, Android are all made in the US and are also virtually universally used. This idea that people avoid American products is super niche.
- macns 18d ago
  Yes they're used all over the world but .. super niche? Have you been living under a rock? https://www.zdnet.com/article/europes-plan-to-ditch-us-tech-giants-is-built-on-open-source-and-its-gaining-steam/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/europes-plan-to-ditch-us-tech-... https://github.com/switch-to-eu/switch-to.eu https://github.com/switch-to-eu/switch-to.eu https://www.europeanswitch.com/why-european-providers/ https://www.europeanswitch.com/why-european-providers/ https://www.techspot.com/news/112362-europe-may-restrict-microsoft-amazon-google-handling-sensitive.html https://www.techspot.com/news/112362-europe-may-restrict-mic... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/europe-zoom-teams-france-us-b2913584.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/europe-zoom-... linux us made in the US? An open source OS, with collaborators from all over the world initially started by a finnish student and still actively the main orchestrator of it, linux torvalds. Not to mention the thousand distros derived from it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux PS: take this post as an opportunity to educate yourself rather than downvoting it.
YPPH 18d ago
Country of origin doesn't tell you much on its own. Linux is American too, and few question its trustworthiness. What matters is the code being open source and auditable, not where the maintainers live.
- autoexec 18d ago
  "Linux" doesn't keep centralized records that the government can get their hands on. The fact is that the government in the US can (and does) march into US companies and demand access to their data. The government will install their devices on the company's network and even take over entire parts of their offices. What your data sits, who has access to it, and what kind of record the local government has of abuses of their authority are very important things to consider. Much more important than if the code is open source.
autoexec 18d ago
Nope. They started permanently keeping sensitive user data in the cloud and have reused to update their privacy since. see: https://web.archive.org/web/20250117232443/https://www.vice.com/en/article/signal-new-pin-feature-worries-cybersecurity-experts/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250117232443/https://www.vice.... https://web.archive.org/web/20230519120156/https://community.signalusers.org/t/proper-secure-value-security-pins-are-too-easy-to-brute-force-sgx-is-not-reliable-enough/15096/2 https://web.archive.org/web/20230519120156/https://community...

blfr 18d ago

Yes, very much so. It is basically a standard across the western world for politicians, journalists, whatsapp refugees... Of course there are many alternatives but most of them have most of their users here, on HN. MacOS, iOS, Windows, Linux, Android are all made in the US and are also virtually universally used. This idea that people avoid American products is super niche.

macns 18d ago
Yes they're used all over the world but .. super niche? Have you been living under a rock? https://www.zdnet.com/article/europes-plan-to-ditch-us-tech-giants-is-built-on-open-source-and-its-gaining-steam/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/europes-plan-to-ditch-us-tech-... https://github.com/switch-to-eu/switch-to.eu https://github.com/switch-to-eu/switch-to.eu https://www.europeanswitch.com/why-european-providers/ https://www.europeanswitch.com/why-european-providers/ https://www.techspot.com/news/112362-europe-may-restrict-microsoft-amazon-google-handling-sensitive.html https://www.techspot.com/news/112362-europe-may-restrict-mic... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/europe-zoom-teams-france-us-b2913584.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/europe-zoom-... linux us made in the US? An open source OS, with collaborators from all over the world initially started by a finnish student and still actively the main orchestrator of it, linux torvalds. Not to mention the thousand distros derived from it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux PS: take this post as an opportunity to educate yourself rather than downvoting it.

YPPH 18d ago

Country of origin doesn't tell you much on its own. Linux is American too, and few question its trustworthiness. What matters is the code being open source and auditable, not where the maintainers live.

autoexec 18d ago
"Linux" doesn't keep centralized records that the government can get their hands on. The fact is that the government in the US can (and does) march into US companies and demand access to their data. The government will install their devices on the company's network and even take over entire parts of their offices. What your data sits, who has access to it, and what kind of record the local government has of abuses of their authority are very important things to consider. Much more important than if the code is open source.

autoexec 18d ago

Nope. They started permanently keeping sensitive user data in the cloud and have reused to update their privacy since. see: https://web.archive.org/web/20250117232443/https://www.vice.com/en/article/signal-new-pin-feature-worries-cybersecurity-experts/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250117232443/https://www.vice.... https://web.archive.org/web/20230519120156/https://community.signalusers.org/t/proper-secure-value-security-pins-are-too-easy-to-brute-force-sgx-is-not-reliable-enough/15096/2 https://web.archive.org/web/20230519120156/https://community...