Is anyone here aware of some alternatives to mentioned instant messaging applications ? Alot of people keep mentioning Signal , however since it is US based I am not going to entertain it as a possibility.
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Wait, what’s wrong with signal?
well … US based.
It is a us based non profit that doesn’t store any information about you, your contacts, or any of your metadata, and encrypts all of your data in transit and at rest, using a strong open source encryption protocol. Signals privacy is so strong that when delivering a message, they cannot tell who the sender is. It is developed out in the open and has been independently audited like four times.
Also you don’t need to purchase the app so boycotting it really only harms you since every other messaging app (that isnt self-hosted) is objectively worse in all of these measures, or has no network effect.
Don’t punish orgs who are doing things right.
It is a us based non profit that doesn’t store any information about you
still it runs in AWS, Microsoft, etc servers, and as any centralized service policy and interests can change at any time in the future, which would be pretty bad when you have several countries fully depending on them, just look the current situation with whatsapp, you can not be resilient/sovereign like that
has been independently audited like four times.
could you provide source pointing to the security audits?
That’s fair. My only real gripe with Signal is that it isn’t federated. Matrix isn’t ready for the general public and I’m doubtful it ever will be, so in the meantime Signal is the next best thing.
source for audits
Not me, but someone on the signal forums helpfully compiled many of them; there are a lot more than I thought! https://community.signalusers.org/t/wiki-overview-of-third-party-security-audits/13243
Not me, but someone on the signal forums helpfully compiled many of them; there are a lot more than I thought! https://community.signalusers.org/t/wiki-overview-of-third-party-security-audits/13243
ok I read it, these are no real security audits but academic reviews of protocol properties etc.
Matrix isn’t ready for the general public and I’m doubtful it ever will be, so in the meantime Signal is the next best thing.
yeah, it is too complex etc. take a look at https://arcanechat.me/ and https://delta.chat/ (I contribute to these open source projects) they are probably the decentralized messengers that are more on pair with WhatsApp etc. super easy to use, no phone numbers or any private data required
Not me, but someone on the signal forums helpfully compiled many of them
thanks for sharing!
It’s serverless though, right? The messages aren’t stored in any of signal’s servers? Or am I mistaken?
It’s also open source, so it would be possible just to fork and use a “European” version of it. Also, since it’s open source, it’s free to use, so no money actually goes to on American company by using it.
https://therecord.media/signal-no-longer-cooperating-with-ukraine. Do i need to say more?
