Knowing what a privacy nightmare all meta apps are, I’m wondering if there is an alternative option which is more privacy friendly but still has some of the ease and simplicity of some features such as messenger.

I already know there will be friends I can’t convince and thats fine, I may just have to accept that. But if I could avoid using it as much, I’d really like to.

  • Karcinogen@discuss.tchncs.de
    27·
    2 months ago

    What has helped me convince my friends is to mention the features and not mention the privacy. Most people care about features and convenience but don’t care at all about privacy. When I’m trying to convince my friends to switch to Signal, I usually say something along the lines of “it’s like iMessage for Android” and give a small demonstration of the features.

    • dan1101@lemm.ee
      12·
      2 months ago

      You can say that shared photos are higher quality than SMS. That’s how I got some of my friends to switch.

  • twinnie@feddit.uk
    21·
    2 months ago

    Signal’s good, it just behaves largely like WhatsApp. I find Telegram a bit crappy.

  • FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io
    191·
    2 months ago

    Signal or Matrix are the only acceptable options I can think of off the top of my head.

    I would not recommend Telegram or Whatsapp due to security concerns.

  • AlexWIWA@lemmy.mlEnglish
    12·
    2 months ago

    Going to echo the choir and say signal. It’s honestly the best chat app I’ve used. I’d recommend it even if it wasn’t encrypted at rest.

  • Bassman1805@lemmy.world
    102·
    2 months ago

    Decent privacy focused messaging app isn’t difficult. Signal and Telegram are the biggest ones.

    Convincing people to join it is the hard part. There’s no shortcut there.

    • troed@fedia.io
      16·
      2 months ago

      Telegram is Russian spyware and has no security whatsoever by default.

      Signal is good. Matrix is good.

      • LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works
        6·
        2 months ago

        *has no end-to-end encryption by default.

        Also, they used to really suck at encryption back in the days, and haven’t really earned my trust back.

        • troed@fedia.io
          81·
          2 months ago

          … and no encryption of groups.

          It’s a huge Russian psy-op where they pretended Durov had to go into exile while he in reality cooperated with the regime.

          • LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works
            1·
            2 months ago

            I fully agree, but I would be extremely surprised if they didn’t have transport encryption. Just no E2E, meaning that anyone who can get access to or impersonate the servers can read all your messages.

  • loaExMachina@sh.itjust.works
    81·
    2 months ago

    Both Telegram and Signal are decent, tho they require a phone number to sign up and are more similar to WhatsApp. Then there’s Matrix, but it’s like the fediverse, you must find or create and instance, they might find it complicated. Same for IRC.

    • CubitOom@infosec.pubEnglish
      101·
      2 months ago

      Signal no longer requires a phone number to sign up for. Also telegram really should not be recommended at all if the focus is on privacy.

      Update: I am wrong, signal does require a phone number.

      Maybe try simplex as that doesn’t require a phone number.

  • d00phy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    2 months ago

    I love signal, but I would add to tell Android users NOT to let it replace their default text messaging app. They will have a Bad Time. Other than that, Signal’s great!

      • d00phy@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        To be clear, I didn’t say people shouldn’t replace the default messaging app, I said do use Signal to do it. Every time I’ve tried it’s a shit show.

        Edit to add, since SMS was apparently dropped, it might be better. I take it nobody uses SMS anymore?