Invidious link: https://invidious.tiekoetter.com/watch?v=TzGEmXync5M
An overview of Signal’s long list of flaws (phone number id, Play service payments, centralized infrastructure, etc) and the history of The Signal Foundation of ignoring many of these issues.
Signal is disappointing. And I am tired of pretending that it’s not. I have been using and recommending Signal for longer than it existed. Signal just came out with a feature we have been waiting for for 8 years.
You see 8 years ago, the only flaw Signal had was that it required a phone number to register and find contacts. This was bad, because it meant you couldn’t get an anonymous Signal account, which meant you could get hacked or abused by anyone who knew your phone number. It was also easy for authoritarians to censor people’s access to Signal by denying phone registrations by country code.
The reason for the phone number requirement was to prevent spam. The primary function, was to use your phonebook to quickly onboard new users and send notifications whenever anyone in your contact list signed up on Signal. A very convenient Silicon Valley feature that allowed people to quickly connect with their friends and also let domestic abusers find out their victims are trying to contact a lawyer’s office over Signal.
This is letting perfection be the enemy of progress. Lots of complaints, but what realistic alternative is there?
Matrix is far more superior to Signal, both in usability and privacy!
Signal is open source but it’s hosted centrally. So you’re trusting their server.
Matrix is a protocol it’s not hosted anywhere. But the primary developer and host instance now called Element and its server implementation synapse. Tho I’ve come to distrust Matrix, the metadata leaking is one thing but then combine that with the fact that .org is basically the default server and you almost have to federate with it. Matrix’s origin is Israel’s intelligence community, initially started by Amdocs, a spyware graphite-like company known for creating backdoors, and then they gave it to a UK group that formed a company, then crowd funded it while they pretended like Amdocs wasn’t caught in multiple global spyware scandals already. The project’s design is awful from a ‘privacy’ perspective, with the design specifically allowing third-parties to silently ‘intercept’ users’ data–all whilst still being ‘E2EE’. It’s a feature. That’s the amusing thing about its absolutely shit design, but regardless of design choices, encryption has always been a lagging component of the program. I will say that Matrix does not have a good security track record for E2EE and all of the clients use their software to do it. Plus, the apps all sucked last I used them, Element was the best and it was still buggy as all hell, and the Linux app is just an electron wrapper, and it was too hard to use for most of my “normal” friends (I agree, they should get good, but they do not get good, what should I do hold 'em at gunpoint and install Fedora, my options are limited). And the rooms had such a bad CP spam problem they stopped them from being publically searchable, you (now still?) have to know the room’s addr to join. Even still, with that CP problem, it becomes hard to reccomend family/friends to make an account.
The cynic might observe that the whole thing was proposed with foresight as to create a compromised leader ready to be adopted by organizations that felt they needed a higher degree of security. Matrix is a good solution, or so government bureaucrats are told.
Let Tel Aviv inside.
If that’s a dealbreaker, you should probably use something security-oriented like Signal. (requiring phone numbers is also not my favorite, and the single point of failure is not the best either)
If you want privacy SimpleX seems like better option than Matrix.
Thanks, need to look into this.
It is 1000% not superior in usability.
I think that’s one of the things: it’s hard enough to convince people to use Signal. It’s probably not the best choice, but I can get (some) people to use it.
Damn you(r implications) are right. There’s no alternative messengers around 😔 /s
Alternative messengers which are privacy focused or friendly?
I noticed you didn’t list any.
The best messengers are no messengers at all, they’re protocols. But here are just a few off the top of my head: