So here’s the thing, every time I try to move away from Facebook messenger I run into the same problem, nobody else in my friends or family actually want to use a secure, private messenger app like signal or telegram, my wife, my parents, my in-laws, my friends they’re ALL on Facebook and they will never take signal seriously enough to actually use it, it really bums me out that there are these far superior options but without anyone else using them they’re pointless…
Anyway what apps do you use to stay in touch with people?
Mandatory “don’t put Signal and Telegram in the same sentence” notice. Not to be a snob, but Telegram is not “secure and private”, all chats are not end-to-end encrypted by default, everything is stored on Telegram’s servers with “forever-ever” retention. The end-to-end encryption is opt in, uses a dodgy encryption algorithm and has some limitations in terms of who you can contact and from what device etc.
Telegram is owned by Pavel Durov who also created the largest Russian social media platform VK, which later was overtaken by Russian state as a tool for crowd control and propaganda. Even if we assume that Pavel no longer has any ties with Russia and its “government”, his biography should still raise at least some questions around whether one should trust Telegram.
And finally, Telegram seems to be going the “everything app” route lately, which makes it a one stop shop of personal communication, public channels, news, bots, stories etc. (you name it). While it is not a bad thing in objective terms, these features are not built with privacy in mind, as that would pose quite a technical challenge. This means that Telegram’s privacy and security will only be sacrificed more and more to get more of the social features out of the door.
/rant over/
I agree with every point. The last paragraph doesn’t have to be a problem though: telegram has very open and really nice APIs and enjoys a lot of FOSS 3rd party apps (only matched by matrix). Of course, we can only enjoy that as long the API usage is still free to use…
I like to give Pavel the benefit of the doubt and assume he was not a willing participant when Russia took over VK. That said, it still happened, so what is to stop them from taking over Telegram too whether he is complicit or not?
Durov literally decided to leave his home, country, post of CEO after threatened by Russian authorities to share VK user’s data, he could’ve earned millions if not billions is he did so still he chose to leave the country and settle somewhere else. You all just yap, no one will use signal because it lacks a lost of features and no one knows if it is backdoored for FBI or not because it’s literally based in the USA. And most importantly, no one cares about that much privacy. Finally telegram fixed those rare vulnerabilities and frankly no protocol is perfect. IMO, telegram is perfect balance of easy to use + feature rich + privacy + a lot of users (more than X).
My preference is Signal Private Messenger app, but like you, I have problems getting some friends and family to use it. So for the ones that won’t, I just use Chomp SMS for my texting app.
The trick is, 90% of all your messages are probably with the same 1-3 persons. (spouse, friend, family or whatever.)
So just install the Signal app for these 1-3 persons on their phones, and you already have most of your communication going via Signal 👌🏼
My issue with signal is that their desktop app sucks. No message sync, it needs the phone as a relay and it’s made with Electron.
Signal desktop is designed to be a stand alone app that uses the phone phone to first verify the connection via QR but after that relays messages, calls, erc direct from and to the server, inrependently of the phone app.
I got my family on Signal by buying them each a drink to install it. Might be worth trying
Whatsapp in general. Telegram with my wife. Messages with my kid.
Yeah I work on a similar system
WhatsApp in general Telegram for the wife Signal for the wife whilst one of us is working (with notifications on silent)
SMS for everything else.
It’s nice having things compartmentalized.
Presumably because they want a higher degree of privacy / urgency when talking about their plans or the intimate details of their lives, sharing selfies or pics of the kids, fighting, flirting / sexting, and when sharing nudes, but OP doesn’t care about that higher degree of privacy for their friends who they don’t discuss those things with.
And the reason to have a separate app for work safe conversations only with her makes sense since it allows conversations to be nsfw without any extra worry (e.g., will I accidentally open this later when not at work? What if I think you’re off work already but you had to stay late to have a conversation with your boss?) or hassle.
And only having one app for everything else could be because he doesn’t have nsfw conversations there and thus can safely check them at work or because he doesn’t have important conversations there and thus doesn’t need to check them while at work. Or both.
I guess at some point the kids will get to Telegram (probably using a dumb phone at the moment?)
It might not work for everyone, but my general advice is to go cold turkey. Inform your relatives that from now on they can contact you on Signal and then stop using FB. If they value keeping in touch with you, they will follow.
Meanwhile the relatives are potentially thinking “well I guess he doesn’t value keeping in touch with me”.
That’s exactly my point: let’s invert the scenario as there is no reason why we should be the ones compromising. The only objective difference is the privacy of the chosen application. Even if this would be equal too, we have just a much right to demand a specific protocol as they do.
