I only use it because there’s no way I could convince my friends and family to move to anything else.
There’s no point in switching to another app if I then literally couldn’t communicate with the people I need to through it.
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Signal kinda put themselves out of the messaging app battle when they dropped SMS support
I totally get why they did it, but I think a lot of people stopped using it for this reason, unfortunately
I don’t think anyone uses or cares about SMS where I live
Lucky you. SMS is still the primary way people message each other where I live.
That’s rough. I guess at least it’s universal
I don’t mind it so much. At least it’s not Facebook Messenger or Whatsapp. I’d rather die than put those on my phone.
Facebook Messenger is dogshit but WhatsApp works well imo. More features than sms or even rcs. Dogshit privacy though, even if security might be good.
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Yeah, I guess I’m not sure about the actual statistics. I do know it was the point when I realized I wouldn’t personally use Signal because everyone I know uses SMS, SMS federates with email, and if I tried switching to a non-SMS app, I’d be screaming into a void.
The only other message apps people around here use are Snapchat, FB Messenger, and WhatsApp, and I’d rather cut people off than use any of those.
same here. Heck, even Nextcloud Talk is more sophisticated than frickin’ WhatsApp these days…
Same but replace WhatsApp with messenger and iMessage.
I literally installed Telegram/Signal on my families devices, synced their contacts with the app, and said “if you want timely responses, message me here”
Wait until you hear how many people use facebook messenger.
💀
Yeah, that’s the real “internet explorer of messaging services”. Absolutely sucks to use it (doesn’t even.deliver messages to me half the time), but 90% insist on it for chat groupa and such.
Basically all of Scandinavia
I’ll take facebook messenger over whatsapp any day. At least it works on PC and has third party clients
I do have like 2 people I only talk to once or twice a year that I don’t have any other known contact for. But I only use it very rarely because of that. If I ever stop talking to them, I’ll finally delete the whole account.
Signal is the best.
Still waiting for the ability to log in one two phones, and ideally also uncompressed photo/file sending
But yea Signal is great
I don’t think it’s really a chat app. Isn’t it just a text replacement? Or does it just use that number as your ID to use it? I have it, but only ever used it with one guy.
It has lots of nice features over SMS: read/typing notifications, image/video support, proper groups, message expiration. I think that makes it a chat app
I was implying mms as well. Didn’t know about the other additions. I only knew one person with it, and we haven’t spoken in years.
I have all those features with Google Messages (as long as I’m not talking to an iPhone user).
Signal’s UI has improved a lot though. Still I only know one person that uses it.
I wish people would stop using the Crowder meme template.
Same. We even have a nice alternative. https://postimg.cc/rzvDYFXW
From now on, I’ll adhere to the “Calvin: Change my mind” meme format. Thank you for your input. 🫡
Oh shit that is him! I never even noticed before. Major ick.
How come?
He’s a right wing piece of shit who constantly says and does the most unhinged shit. Don’t really follow him, but from the top of my head, he mocked George Floyd’s death, he mocks trans people on a regular basis…
Why?
Because he’s an asshole. A grifting asshole to be specific.
Oh i get it now. The person in the photo is an asshole in real life. It only took me a day of wondering why would someone be an asshole for not liking a meme template 😅
Eh, whatsapp isn’t ideal and its owner is one of the big devils of today, but it’s the only way to send and receive instant messages among billions of people. I despise it, but it’s the only way I can contact people. Needless to say, they don’t give a single flying fuck about privacy.
Whatsapp outages make people migrate to Telegram for 1-2 days at most, nobody ends up staying there. Signal? I’ve only ever met three other people in RL who have even heard of it, and I work in IT.
A more apt comparison would be to languages. Whatsapp is english: clunky, weird, full of nonsense, but it’s what “everyone talks”. Signal would probably be lojban or esperanto.
As a Signal user and an Esperantist I agree. They both require a somewhat curious mind for you to bump into them in the first place. Unless you have that friend/relative who always recommends weird stuff for you (to ignore).
Yeah, but I disagree. Signal doesn’t require that by design, it’s just as easy to use as WhatsApp (unlike something like Matrix or Lemmy). It’s just as easy to switch and has a better privacy. And while I even don’t use it much, I actually know quite some people on it (majority of which is non-techy).
Most (non-techy) people haven’t heard from it and don’t bother searching for alternatives since WA is ubiquitous.
Why would it even be weird or anything? I only use Signal and its pretty much the same as whatsapp on the outside…just in blue. The only reason people dont use it is because “eVerYonE hAs WhAtsApP” and they dont bother. 20 useless crap apps but 2 messengers is too much
as another signal user and esperantist, i unfortunately agree as well. but it doesnt have to be like this
Signal was fantastic until they stupidly killed SMS integration.
I’m not sure I have all of them, but I regularly use (privately)
- encrypted email
- unencrypted email
- text
- Meta Facebook Messanger
- Meta Instagram messages
- Meta WhatsApp
- Signal
- Telegram
- Microsoft Teams (yes, even privately)
I’m tired boss.
Look into Beeper! It just got RCS support in its last update. Not sure if they plan on supporting Teams though.
If you’re tech savvy though, look into setting up your own Matrix server for a Teams bridge.
Beeper looks amazing but is waiting list only.
A very short one. It’s technically open to everyone now!
Well that’s great news! I joined the wait-list last week and got an email saying they’d get back to me when I could get access.
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I have never used Whatsapp nor does anyone I know.
It’s mostly not used in the US afaik. I’ve seen it in a lot of places in Europe and the middle east
According to Statista, 41% of 'muricans use it, which is a rather low number. Meanwhile, Brazil is the whatsapp country, in terms of percentage. In total numbers, that’d be India, as it’s the most populous country in the world.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1311229/whatsapp-usage-messaging-app-users-by-country/
SMS is IE, Whatsapp is Chrome, and Signal is Firefox. Use Signal/Firefox.
I disagree. IE was incredibly proprietary, and SMS is at least an open standard.
IE is…idk Facebook messenger or Imessage or something.
ICQ
Ahh Trillian and Miranda memories…
So how do I get my friends to use Signal instead of fucking Facebook messenger?
You can educate them if they ask but otherwise you can’t force them because most people are very resistant to this type of thing.
Your best option is to stop using FB messenger yourself and tell them they can reach you on Signal. If they’re really your friends, I’d like to imagine they’d follow you over. If your friend group switches, more people are sure to follow which will help speed along mass adoption and normalization via word of mouth to other friends and family.
What is Beeper/Matrix? Although I’m from the golden age of Trillian/MirandaIM 😆
This is whole other category :)
Chrome is the Internet Explorer of the browsers.
Nah definitely safari
Right, WebKit is the alpha versión of Blink and KDEs KHTML the ancestor
Such a weird statement. webkit is and has been a fully released browser engine for decades, companies forked from it for licensing and profit, not because it wasnt ready or complete (at the time)
Same as any browser engine, there isn’t a new engine since 20 years. Apart of Gecko, Blink and WebKit there are nothing else, apart of some experimental ones, mostly discontinued. WebKit is a fork from KHTML (KDE) and Blink is an improved fork from WebKit.
Safari 110%
Steven Crowder is a garbage human and doesn’t deserve a meme template
Wow… I didn’t know who the guy was.
From Wikipedia:
Early in his career, Crowder worked for Fox News and posted satirical videos on conservative media platforms. He then began hosting Louder with Crowder, a daily political podcast and YouTube channel with commentary and comedic content. It includes a recurring segment called “Change My Mind”, in which Crowder invites passers-by to converse. In December 2012, Crowder and members of Americans for Prosperity were involved in an altercation at a demonstration in Michigan concerning the state’s recently passed right-to-work law.[3]
Crowder’s YouTube channel has been demonetized twice, first in 2019 after repeated use of racist and homophobic slurs.[4][5][6][7] His channel was re-monetized after YouTube said Crowder addressed his behavior and content,[8] and it was demonetized again in March 2021, with uploads suspended for a week, after violating YouTube’s presidential election integrity policy against advancing false claims about the election’s integrity.[9] YouTube suspended the channel again for two weeks in October 2022 for violating its harassment, threats and cyberbullying policy.[10] The channel had 5.86 million subscribers as of May 2023.[11] Crowder moved his show to Rumble in March 2023.[12]
You’re absolutely right. He doesn’t deserve a meme template.
To be fair, Wikipedia doesn’t give him justice. He is far worse. Either he is an utter foul or he is a full blown Nazi. I am not saying “oh i disagree with him, so Nazi” I am saying “he supports white supremacists, ‘race realists’, ethno nationalists, by giving them a uncritical platform and by giving people a uncritical platform who give those people a uncritical platform”
If you want see how Steven Crowder does his politics and a good case towards why I think that way, https://youtu.be/cXZ6BZzQeCQ Steven Crowder wanted to know what a white supremacists is and claimed to feel like people are calling him one unfairly and a guy decided to walk everyone to the thought process of how and why people think what they think.
Nah. SMS and iMessage are the IE of messaging. Unsafe and locked in.
Look, I hate Facebook just as much as the next guy. But I live in The Netherlands and it’s the primary way I can contact literally everyone I know. So changing to another messaging app is hard here.
same in India , everyone uses whatsapp even for official communication
I’m from the NLs and removed WA last year. What I liked about switching to Signal: people who care about me also installed Signal, so I didn’t lose that. What I did lose? All the groups that I got into through the years, all of which were completely non-essential. If I need messaging with someone outside Signal I just use sms. The best part of leaving WA is that you’ll find a lot of people willing to install Signal for your sake, and that’s how it becomes easier for others to make the move.
Just removed whatsapp a few years ago. If people need you, they will install Telegram!
Then you find out nobody needs you and you get depressed.
Steven Crowder is the wife abuser of the meme world.
Except it does nearly everything any other messaging app does, so there really is no need to force a switch. Unlike Internet Explorer, that used outdated rendering engine making it both slow and buggy, it was unsafe as it used ActiveX, didn’t support ad-blockers it actually broke or didn’t open most new website.
I hope that the DMA gets passed in the EU. It’ll (hopefully) break the monopoly worldwide
Interoperability is a weird one though. Imagine WhatsApp can connect to Signal, and people use this feature. What would then be the point of using Signal, if WhatsApp gets the data after all?
(Signal has already announced not wanting to support this, I just used it as an example)
I just don’t want to be tied to an apple device to Message people who only have iMessage. I live outside of the US but all my family, friends, and contacts are there.
I feel locked into iOS as international texting and calls would be so expensive.
Both Apple and Google need to get their shit together on this one, put their pride aside and agree on a standard.
I’m an apple user, but I really think the issue is being created by apple. They talked about doing iMessage on android and then someone else was like no we can’t we want people to be locked into their iPhone.
Oh, it’s both. They both act like insufferable little kids with that
Google has also kept RCS proprietary. Google shares the blame as well imo
Thanks, I didn’t know that. I thought it was an open standard.
The point is that anyone could switch at any time and we wouldn’t have to make switch all at once.
There would be real competition.
True. However there are certain advantages
- WhatsApp gets only a part of your data (coz many people might be on different apps)
- You don’t have to run WhatsApp on your device so they can’t collect that data either
I know it’s not perfect but better than the current scenario and a step in the right direction
Since WhatsApp is proprietary, we don’t know if the users are the only ones who can decrypt their messages. I’ll always have to assume Meta can read everything, which is the most sensible data they could possibly collect.
So that alone should be reason enough to avoid it.
Yes. I don’t endorse WhatsApp. What I meant is if you chat with 15 people out of which 5 use WhatsApp, only those 5 chats are potentially readable by Meta. Because those are the only chats which will get sent to Meta servers.
So you have the benefit that the other 10 chats are not readable by Meta.
Yeah, true. And concerning your name and phone number, they probably already have that too, one way or another.
At this point I just assume Meta, Google and Apple have my number due to people storing the number on their devices. Amazon also might have it because people might have paid me via Amazon Pay (and given it access to contacts).
Oh man, I hadn’t heard of the DMA before. How exciting!
I only heard of it because I follow Matrix blog.
I saw the technical discussions (if you are a tech person I would recommend watching those on YT) and it seems that EU is trying to find some middle ground where companies won’t have to incur a lot of losses but still be open and create a fair environment for newcomers.
I think it’s already been passed, it should be coming into force next year!
Oh wow. TIL! Any recommendws sources? I want to read the full coverage
Oh yeah it says it directly on the wiki page you linked XD
was signed into law by the European Parliament and the Council of the EU in September 2022
Lmao my bad. Thanks I’ll read up about it.
WhatsApp seems very conservative with adding new features. I generally feel the features they do decide to add are all pretty useful. Telegram on the other hand doesn’t ever seem to slow down with the new features. Many of them seem great, but just as many I would never use. I’m still wondering why Telegram won’t introduce end-to-end encryption as a default.
e2e encryption makes it difficult to provide fully cross-platform messaging experience, this is probably why they are not looking at it
e2e encryption makes it difficult to provide fully cross-platform messaging experience
Why?
I can easily encrypt a message on my x86_64 Windows desktop, send it to my x86_64 Linux laptop, and also my ARM64 Android phone, and be able to decrypt it perfectly.If I can do it then a development team can too.
Why would it be difficult? Encryption isn’t difficult (any more than adding any essential feature would be) and is platform independent. It doesn’t matter what device you’re using, encryption and decryption are commonly used.
You can easily implement AES 256 in JavaScript. So you can tap the web framework on any device and run your app on just about any platform.
The problem is, They no longer get signal intelligence from it and can no longer monetize it.
The whole sticker implementation is absolute dog shit. How hard could it be to do a half decent implementation with customizable keywords for searching, custom sticker categorization, and backups? I have hundreds, if not over a thousand, stickers and it’s impossible to access them quickly to find the one you want. You end up just adapting to whatever is on your most used list, and you’re stuck scrolling for a while to find a different sticker, which In an active chat group it means you end up reacting super late to everything and the chat has moved on at that point.
MSN and the MSN+ plugin had this nailed down 20 years ago. Even telegram has a better implementation where you just add the entire sticker library for each new sticker; you end up with stickers you didn’t ask for, which is a negative, but everything ends up categorized in SOME way at least.
Its also ridiculous that whatsapp can’t be bothered to offer sticker creation in-app.
Dont get me started on chat participants count limitations and how utterly USELESS archiving a chat is. You can mute the chat and archive it, and a single message will just pop it back to the top of your list, as if you weren’t trying to actively avoid that. And whatsapp has been pretty useless for big chat groups such as big neighborhoods and the like. My HOA hasn’t added me or my friends to the neighborhood chat groups historically due to size limitations, which in itself perpetuated a toxic approach from the HOA where only sycophants are allowed into these groups. Most neighbors are left in the dark over decisions and meetings, which is utter stupidity and has 100% been aggravated by whatsapp’s limitations. Doesn’t matter that they’ve implemented alternatives to this, you try to get hundreds of boomers to understand how to use community chats.
You must live in a huge neighbourhood. Your points are valid, though you can now choose to keep chats archived even when receiving a message. Settings > Chats > Keep chats archived.
Op thinks only the USA exists apparently
I’m from india
Told
I stole this meme from a comment🫣
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