89 points

Please Signal, use this opportunity. I really want to be on Signal AAAAH

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76 points

They have already announced that they will not be interoperable with insecure messaging apps unfortunately.

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32 points

Why not convince people to use Signal as well? Even my family has a group chat on Signal. Of course, it’s a slow move with most people sticking to non-open chats. But it’s worth the effort I would say.

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16 points

Yeah after two years even my parents and brother are on signal plus most of my close friends, the rest I just use regular sms

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16 points

Most of the world doesn’t use SMS, they use WhatsApp. Plus, SMS is even worse than WhatsApp for privacy and security. And stopping using WhatsApp in most of the world is like not using email, so no “I don’t have WhatsApp, you can only contact me through signal” is possible.

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10 points

The inability to use it on two different phones kills it for me.

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1 point
Deleted by creator
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2 points

You can. Up to 7.

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6 points

I really don’t expect anyone would listen to me.

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7 points

How could they, they aren’t on signal

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3 points

It might work with people you know but is harder to convince people you just met, that’s the reason I still use Whatsapp and recently opened an Instagram.

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1 point

Yeah, but you can still chat with them on the insecure messenger. You can have both on your phone.

What would be the win if signal would support sending messages to WhatsApp? You’d still be putting your trust into meta.

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1 point
*

I remember the days when I spent time convincing people to use chat apps. The last one that stuck was WhatsApp.

I’ve since stopped installing new chat apps because people won’t use them.

WhatsApp just works. Wanna video call my Mum? Push a button. Wanna send a Lemmy meme to my mates? Yeah it’s 3 taps.

I open up Facebook on me birthday and press the ❤️ on the birthday messages then shut it down and don’t use it for another year.

But if I do that with WhatsApp then I don’t hear from people I actually care about.

I actually have a friend that refuses to use WhatsApp like I do with FaceFuck. “How does she do it then?” I hear you ask.

She uses Facebook Messenger.

That’s the hold Meta has on our communications

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2 points

Meanwhile I can do all that what you describe on Signal just as easily as that. A friend of mine often sends me Instagram reels on signal because I don’t have any insta account. And I actually don’t know anyone who has or at least uses a fb account anymore xD

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3 points
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It depends on whether they get a fair offer, or a bullshit one that has to work through the courts and be officially ruled bullshit before they’ll offer anything better.

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34 points
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13 points

That’s so short sided. Signal is useless if all your contacts only use WhatsApp.

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15 points
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8 points

Yeah I believe this to be a fallacy. If all your contacts use WhatsApp, they still haven’t grasped the concept of installing two applications side-by-side. Or they don’t fully understand why people are using signal over WhatsApp. If you fail both of those, congratulations, you’ve failed to be a self-aware tech user and you’re now demoted to a braindead consumer.

I know, mind blowing right? Point is, society in general should not accept others forcing you to keep the WhatsApp monopoly in tact, which is exactly what’s happening here.

It will take some time but eventually adoption will spread, even among your contacts. It’s just a matter of critical mass, and there are some pretty compelling features within Signal that make it a worthy replacement.

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9 points

Eh, my missus insisted we use Signal, but it’s just flat out not as reliable. It misses messages very occasionally and it’s always at the worst possible time.

Like I get that it’s a tiny bit more private than Whatsapp, but I’m not running a terror cell or a paedo ring over here. I just want to know if she wants anything from the shop.

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14 points

It’s private and you can verify that, not to mention it’s non-profit. WhatsApp claims to be private but Meta has broken promises before and doesn’t let us look at source code. It’s not a “tiny bit”

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9 points

Classic “No thing to hide, nothing to fear.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument#Criticism

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11 points

Is there a reason this requirement doesn’t apply to iMessage as well?

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28 points

I’ve read somewhere that iMessage wasn’t considered “big enough” to be considerate a monopoly. Which is bullshit if you ask me.

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57 points

To be fair here in Europe I know no one who uses iMessage.

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15 points

I don’t think it’s ever happened to me that anyone told me that it was inconvenient for them that I didn’t have iMessage, compared to pretty much weekly exclamations of “But why can’t you just use WhatsApp like everyone else!?”

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48 points

Kinda true in Europe though. Don’t know anyone who uses iMessage, it’s pretty much irrelevant. I know the situation in the US is quite different, but ultimately they don’t regulate for the US market.

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3 points

It’s very popular here in 'merica, the land of the zombies.

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3 points

Apple would still feel pressure to add interoperability if all other big players do. iMessage would have a competitive disadvantage if it’s the only one where users are unable to message the rest of the world.

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20 points

Have you met Apple and their walled garden of “IDGAF”?

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20 points

Its only big in the US, most of the planet only sees iMessage as that borderline useless app Apple bundles in their phones.

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8 points

It’s annoying as fuck when I message my wife a video of our kids, it looks like dog shit on her iPhone. I have to instead send it on Whatsapp or signal. I hate apple

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6 points

@aberrate_junior_beatnik @penquin I found a nice page with statistics about the different messengers: engage.sinch.com/blog/most-pop…

It seems that only in the US more people are using iMessage than WhatsApp.

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14 points

Would this mean I could finally ditch what’s app and use only Signal?

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13 points

Not if signal doesn’t want to support WhatsApp, and I don’t think they’re going to unfortunately :(

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54 points

No, Signal announced they won’t implement interoperable messaging.

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13 points

kind of dumb they could get huge market share

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33 points

It’s not. There is no privacy if you send your message to Whatsapp servers.

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39 points

Yeah, this worked so well for XMPP when everybody federated with Gmail chat.

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14 points
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16 points

Does this mean third party apps will be able to interact with whatsapp?

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10 points
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only when the service specifically requests it and agrees to Whatsapp’s terms.

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23 points
Deleted by creator
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4 points

So I [in theory, I don’t know how to start with this on a technical level] could make a third-party Signal-compatible app, but allow it to connect to Whatsapp instead of Signal? Even if I can’t use my Signal account to contact Whatsapp people, that’s still potentially useful. Although I imagine the terms I’d have to agree to to do so would be full of nonsense that stops this being remotely feasible.

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4 points

could make a third-party Signal-compatible app, but allow it to connect to Whatsapp instead of Signal?

you’d have to create a messaging service, not just a client.

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115 points

Meta … can’t guarantee “what a third-party provider does with sent or received messages.”

I’m more concerned with what the first-party provider is doing with my sent or received messages when that first-party is Facebook!

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12 points

Meta … can’t guarantee “what a third-party provider does with sent or received messages.”

We (Meta) can guarantee that we do all the bad stuffs to your data!

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