https://soatok.blog/2024/05/14/its-time-for-furries-to-stop-using-telegram/
Edit: Oh yeah, DON’T USE SIGNAL. Use Matrix instead, offers the benefits of signal without the drawbacks of lack of sync and phone number requirements and is decentralized. The fact that everyone is going gaga for signal as “the BEST messaging app” should be a big red flag in and of itself, because hype trains like this aren’t organic, just saying.
One step ahead of the curve; I never started using it in the first place.
I don’t really use it either, but I thought it would be relevant to post here since the pawb.social network uses it to communicate outages, so it might be best for us to try to move away from that to something else, maybe something a bit more open.
It’s time to eradicate any unencrypted, proprietary and maybe even central messaging service in general.
I will literally never use signal until they change it so data is archivable in some form and syncable across devices. I won’t recommend people use it. I don’t care how secure it is. Security is important, but usability is where telegram has signal beat by miles. I’m not hiding nation state secrets. I’m horny posting and chatting with other weirdos that like to be animals on the internet.
I use Signal a little. While it doesn’t sync full history you still get all new messages going forward which is good enough for me.
might I suggest using Matrix instead? End to end encrypted and fully open source (client and server), plus message history gets synced to new devices (assuming both your old and new clients support it, which nearly all do), and as a bonus it doesn’t store data on a centralized server.
Oh, and it supports sticker packs and custom emoji.
Yeah I know this is a hot take but I don’t really like signal much either, but for me it’s mainly because it is a centralized protocol and they attempt to maintain exclusivity over it (Moxie used to go after third party clients because of this).
That’s why I feel matrix is a way better alternative. It still has the option of being secure with the E2E encryption and so long as you save your keys you can still retrieve older messages on other devices. It also has the ability to create public chats, same as Telegram, but with the addition of Spaces, which can group connected chats together (almost like a discord server, except you can also join each room individually).
Also matrix doesn’t require a phone number to sign up so it’s significantly better than Signal in that regard because signing up with email is much more convenient, and probably more secure than phone number sign-up since you can simply use temporary email services.
Yes Signal has issues, but it works well and in what it does is really private and really secure. Matrix is slow, not private and pretty messy
I’ve been using Signal for years, and I can definitely say it’s not “garbage”. I’m not telling anyone else what to use, but there are far worse options out there for sure.
What do you think about soatok’s very vocal opinions regarding matrix? It was at the end of the article. They linked a wall of text of opinions about how they don’t trust the developers of matrix to build a safe platform.
I’m impartial about both platforms, and the way I see it is that Signal would be great if it was decentralized, and Matrix would be great if it used a different type of protocol, even though Matrix does use a fork of a protocol that Signal uses.
I’m not sure what the difference of the protocols Matrix and signal use so I have to look into that in my own time to really find out why one is better than the other like soatok claims haha
Edits: Formatting
So I see Signal recommended instead, but one thing sticks out like a sore thumb. If it’s privacy-focused and it has a windows application, why the need for a phone to set it up?
Signal is a terrible recommendation for any basic chat user. The security is solid, but you give up sooooooo much to get there. The desktop apps are garbage as well, they don’t even sync chat history.
Why is it a terrible recommendation for a basic chat user? If by “basic chat” you mean SMS or iMessage, it is strictly superior
Sync, system support, hoops to jump through, potential loss of chat history, unreliability, lack of account based sign up (until recently?). So many reasons to not recommend it for people. To clarify though, SMS and iMessage are both so terrible I don’t consider them “options”. They’re defaults for people who have no interest in security or interoperability, which are both major important parts of a chat system imo.
Sync
Works fine for me.
System support
Windows, MacOS, Linux, iOS, Android, what more do you want?
Hoops to jump through
What hoops? I typed in my phone number and was good to go.
potential loss of chat history
You said that already. If the worst thing you can say about the messenger is that it doesn’t sync chat history to new devices, it’s probably a decent messenger.
unreliability
Genuinely what?
lack of account based sign up
Like I said, if were comparing it to messengers people are already using, like iMessage or RCM, this is a nonissue.
Sync: No it does not. Do not lie. They don’t support it, it will deliver the message to multiple endpoints, but that is not sync.
System support: The clients for desktop for signal are feature lacking trash. I want all platforms to be first class citizens and it’s VERY clear they are not.
Hoops: Bullshit bro. Bullshit. You might glance over all the steps but that doesn’t mean they’re not there.
Chat history: If I can say at all that it loses my fuckin chats, that’s a shit fucking chat application. I have plenty more trash to talk if ya need it though because that app is hot fucking garbage.
Unreliability: If you spent even a fraction of a minute googling it, you’d see that a lack of notification delivery and other bugs are extremely common. I’ve experienced them. It’s great you’ve had a happy go lucky time, but your experience isn’t the end all be all.
Lack of account based sign up: Literally a massive issue and you’re just dismissing it because it doesn’t affect you. Goodluck getting anyone to hop on board your software preference train with that kind of attitude.
