Why does Signal want a phone number to register if it's supposedly privacy first?
Why does Signal want a phone number to register if it's supposedly privacy first?
I remember a time when visiting a website that opens a javacript dialog box asking for your name so the message "hi <name entered>" could be displayed was baulked at.
Why does signal want a phone number to register? Is there a better alternative?
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Privacy ≠ anonymity
Our phone numbers are not private from them.
Despite this, escaping WhatsApp and Discord, anti-libre software, is more important.
It's libre software. Go host the server and change the clients to connect to your custom server and distribute the the users you need.
Agreed, escaping WhatsApp and Discord is the most important part.
Are you saying I have to literally rebuild and distribute my own client APK if I want to use my own server? There's no "settings" in the existing client where you say what server you want to use, like every email client has? That sounds obnoxious.
If you don't trust Signal to run an unmodified server without malicious modifications, then why would you trust their build of the APK?
To truly be safe from Signal's influence you would need to audit the source code and build it yourself.
Personally I have no problem using Signal's servers
To truly be safe from Signal’s influence you would need to audit the source code and build it yourself.
Usually I only install APK's from F-Droid, which always builds its apps from source, rather than using the developer's APK. I'm uncomfortable that Signal doesn't seem to be on F-droid, and I'm in fact hesitant to install it from anywhere else. I'm not currently set up to build Android apps myself. I'm a fairly unsophisticated Android user.
Signal on Android has had reproducible builds for years now.
Sources: Github Readme, Official blog post
Thanks. I'm not a sophisticated Android user and so far have just stayed with installing stuff from F-droid. If the official build matches the F-droid build, that's great. At some point I want to spend some time bringing up Android build tools, but I have too much other stuff going on right now.
I just checked and I installed Signal from F-Droid.
It says Repository: Guardian Project on the app page.
Interesting, I wonder why it's not in the main F-droid repo. Thanks.
I also wondered who builds it from source.
Apparently it is this development team, which, I must say, has several interesting projects active:
Tons of stuff are not on fdroid due to requirements by fdroid, a longer process to push releases, etc...
It works for many apps, but there is IzzyOnDroid for much faster releases as well as dozens of fdroid repos for specific projects by default available on NeoStore.
I am not experienced enough to know the ins and outs of why fdroid is so difficult and slow for some devs, but it has been someone limited in apps at times because of it.
You can use Obtainium and get it straight from Github.
edit: nvm i re-read what you wrote
i agree it does mostly fulfill the criteria for libre software. perhaps not in every way to the same spirit as other projects, but that is indeed a separate discussion.
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