Signal – an ethical replacement for WhatsApp
Signal – an ethical replacement for WhatsApp
Moving from WhatsApp to Signal is an important action, right now. WhatsApp’s parent company, Meta, has been involved in several cases of election interference: America in 2016, Trinidad and Tobago …
When they dropped sms support I was no longer able to convince people to migrate to signal.
Before I could make the argument that you need one sms app anyway so that app might just as well be Signal instead of the one that comes preloaded with your phone. That way people would gradually get more and more secure messaging as time went on. When sms support was dropped, Signal could not replace an existing app and adding another messing app is much less appealing than replacing one.
Humans are too stupid to switch from convenience to slightly less convenience even if they get privacy for free. Any amount of discomfort is too much and changing an app is basically death.
I will use the opportunity to remind that Signal is operated by a non-profit in the jurisdiction called "the US". This could have implications.
A somewhat more anarchist option might be TOX. There is no single client, TOX is a protocol, you can choose from half a dozen clients. I personally use qTox.
Upside: no phone number required. No questions asked.
Downside: no servers to store and forward messages. You can talk if both parties are online.
TIL I have no family I care to keep in touch with and I have no friends.
My wishlist is an app which is not linked to a phone number, is multi platform and has a web app. It should be none US and open source. That isn’t too many requirements and yet nothing seems to full fit the bill? Anyway good luck trying to get school parent’s groups to use something other than WhatsApp.
After Trump was elected and inaugurated, Signal has finally been gaining some steam here in the Netherlands.
It's still an American company, so it's not ideal. But it's still significantly better better than letting a tech giant like Facebook have control over the most commonly used chat app.
WhatsApp needs to go and Signal is the most likely way in which we can achieve that. We can worry about the American elephant in the room later.
I wish I could do this, but trying to convince people to ditch an app they've never had problems with and where they all have their family, friends, work groups and school groups already mashed together, how do you convince them? Its not even about me convincing my friends or family, its about everyone else doing the same and when everyone has so many contacts in WhatsApp, that number starts to snowball real quick. Its just not feasible to try and explain this to someone who literally doesn't care. I mean even though I myself know what Meta is and how Zuck is complete asshole, I still can't switch off of WhatsApp because nobody I know is on Signal and I'd just be alone there. What's the point? WhatsApp is pretty much the first app anyone installs on their phone (regardless of platform), they're not gonna switch now.
It's ethical because it runs on donations and has a non-profit business model.
Meta likely spends at least $1 billion a year running WhatsApp.
Please donate to Signal if you use it.
I would like nothing more, but so few of my contact group are willing to switch away... despite all of Meta's bullshit. I resent being made to use it whilst their AI/ads encroach further and further.
The exit plan from WhatsApp is quite simple. Start by installing Signal and setting it up – it takes only a couple of minutes. Then, resume any WhatsApp conversations on Signal if that person is already a Signal user. If they are not, then switch to regular text messaging and gently suggest to that person to switch over to Signal.
Sadly for me, this doesn't really work for some relatives as
- They live abroad and the cost of sending text messages abroad is not insignificant
- Some are so tech un-savvy that even installing a new app by themselves is too much.
All I can do for those relatives is to leave WhatsApp installed but take away basically every permission I can, including running in the background.
I will switch to signal when I can avoid installing stuff on bunch of my devices. Until web version is available, sorry it hard for me to switch and for me to convince other people to switch.
Ya it’d be better if it didn’t require a phone number but it’s a solid start as it’s build up a user base over the past decade. Matrix is good but I know far less people that use it and it’ll be a long time of growing with nerdy/geeky communities before it starts getting more mainstream users
Compare with Zangi Private Messenger. Yes, every country who has jurisdiction has access. Just ask yourself, which gov do I trust more with my private chats?
I can't call ethical an app that relies on Electron.
Anyone using Session? I finally got most of my friends and family on Signal so I'm not gonna switch but I just heard about it, seems pretty good.
i dont use whatsapp that much anyways