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What is a privacy friendly application that you'd love to have, but no one has developed yet? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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[–] 84 points 2 years ago (37 children)

An open source and private chat app that everybody wants to use

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  • [–] 44 points 2 years ago (28 children)

    Signal works. The adoption is fairly slow, but I've had friends slowly begin to use it.

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  • [–] 18 points 2 years ago* (5 children)

    Signal gets some things right, but others wrong, such as phone numbers and centralized architecture. As such, it doesn't fit the "everybody wants to use" part.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    WhatsApp uses phone numbers and a centralized architecture. Remind me how many people use it?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    Seeing how the dumb community feels trapped now that Meta stopped supporting KaiOS, I can tell there are a lot of people that wish they could leave the service. A lot of spaces make you feel like you have to use it, not want to use it. I used a few months while I was in the UK, but after that I’ve been lucky enough to delete my account as the service was useless elsewhere where other places I lived, no one used it.

    …That said, I now have issues with LINE as a defacto chat option locally that gets in the way. My account was crushed after they canceled LINE Lite which was 10× smaller with no bloat or trackers & I refused to “upgrade” (where like WhatsApp & Signal, one is forced to have a mobile device as a primary device). Largely I can inconvenience everyone by making them choose a different means of communication (with email be largely the only common denominator) but if I were dating again, I would inevitably be forced to use the unsafe app putting myself in the position a lot of WhatsApp users feel they are without effective choice.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    "some people use" ≠ “everybody wants to use”

    (And are you sincerely suggesting WhatsApp, which is run by one of the largest and most aggressive privacy invaders the world has ever known, as a privacy friendly application? I would suggest re-thinking that position if you want to be taken seriously.)

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    The guy I replied to is saying that not everyone wants to use Signal because it's centralized and based on phone numbers. But billions of people use WhatsApp despite being exactly that. Signal nails the privacy stuff but obviously people don't give a shit because they're using WhatsApp anyway.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    I've been using Signal since like 2016 and have not seen any appreciable adoption rate whatsoever within my social network.

    I used to actively try to get people to use it but I got enough ambivalent or negative responses that I just stopped asking.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

    deleted

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    Exactly. And I gave up trying even when it was "easier". Not to mention, since it can't do SMS anymore, I actually helped my mom. stop using it, because then she'd need 2 different messaging apps. She and I now use Google Messages to text and whatever Google is calling the integrated video chat app now.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Yeah, a new messaging app is definitely a hard sell for me if it's data/wifi only. I have Discord for unimportant internet conversations that can wait for me to burn data and texting for important things like work because I get unlimited texts. Having a separate app for a couple of people would be annoying.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (3 children)

    My problem is that it does not work on multiple devices at the same time, so I have personally given up on it. Maybe it has changed, did not check for a long time.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    It works everywhere except Android tablets, and you can just use Molly for that.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Signal is great. I miss when it worked with SMS. There are 2 E2EE SMS apps that I'm aware of, bit one is not well supported and the other needs quite a bit of UI work before it's usable by the general public. Also, neither can be used as the default SMS app on Apple phones,but that's not the app's fault.

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  • [+] -11 points 2 years ago (9 children)

    They are currently in bit trouble as their funds are gone

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago

    I don't think they're in trouble, they're just talking about long term funding because it's relevant. Can't expand and get more funding without mentioning that you need it

    Of the articles I saw about funding

    • one was by Signal, estimating future costs
    • one was by that Grayzone guy, misrepresenting where funds were from (said it was CIA lol), how much was being changed (title implied it was entirely CIA funded but it was a past, publicly documented investment by a government program)
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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    Source?

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    This was the article that raised a small stir. Some question the motivation and accuracy of some of the statements. The grabber quote is:

    The unprecedented disclosure’s motivation was simple - the platform is rapidly running out of money, and in dire need of donations to stay afloat.

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  • [–] -4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (4 children)

    One of their own posts. No motivation to research a link for you

    https://signal.org/blog/signal-is-expensive/

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (3 children)

    Making an extraordinary claim, and then saying you're too lazy to provide a source weakens your claim

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Research it yourself. This is a random lemmy comment and not a scientific paper.

    https://signal.org/blog/signal-is-expensive/

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    Signal feels the closest, it's basically equivalent to other messaging apps. Somewhat cleaner and easier to use IMO

    The only downside is chat backups for people coming from Messenger, in particular those on iOS devices. Streamlining that process might get me to go "contact me on signal, I don't check messenger often", but right now I get why there's a last bit of friction with my friends

    WhatsApp has a similar limitation but they walk you through the backups process. Even then, they limit backups to google drive iirc. Signal could do something similar, but much better by explaining the process and opening up backup locations

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Some of the hurtles I've encountered using privacy focused chat apps with friends and family is the lack of smooth group chats and adding people remotely.

    Some apps have a QR code feature but also allow you to enter a code. It can be a challenge to setup with older family members.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago*

    boomers will always complain and cry.

    in their minds, they should be able to buy a device and when they open it up, it should already come pre-installed with their granddaughter's name and contact ready to go through a mind reading technology that knows that knows who bought the device and knows who exactly they want to talk to and when.

    Star Trek on steroids or something idk.

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