Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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I got a new job. whatsapp group (20 people) is migrating to signal because I don't use it. (lemmy.ml)

submitted 3 months ago by GravitySpoiled@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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I understand that it may be problematic sometimes but this was very smooth. I didn't even say anything.

A: what's your number for the whatsapp group Me: I don't have whatsapp because of facebook. B: ok, we have to use signal then A: ok

And that was it. Life can be very easy sometimes

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[–] naught101@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Doesn't every phone have an SMS app? What's the benefit of having SMS in signal?

[–] ohwhatfollyisman@lemmy.world 16 points 3 months ago (2 children)

the core benefit was in adoption. it was easy to get parents, for example, saying that they jist have to bother with one app for all of their messaging.

the minute they have to contend with sms and signal, they don't mind adding whatsapp in the mix as well.

[–] akilou@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 months ago

Conversely, they do mind having multiple apps and only send sms

[–] naught101@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

I mean, if the main draw-card is convenience, then signal isn't going to have much holding power (especially when combined with the network affect problem and attentions grabbing design of other message apps).

Signal will only really succeed if there is a critical mass of people in your circles who care about security to some degree (it works well for me for this reason).

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 months ago

Not having to guess which app has the person you'd like to contact.

[–] akilou@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The benefit is that Signal displaces the default sms app and is also Signal. Rather than having to jump between 2 apps.

[–] zingo@sh.itjust.works 8 points 3 months ago

Well, they partly took that "feature" away because people thought they were sending encrypted SMS messages which is not true. False sense of security.

They just took the secure high road and ditched SMS. It also made the app leaner with a smaller attack surface.

I think they did the right decision. Signal is the secure choice for the masses.

Having said that, I'm using Molly-Foss as it has less footprints, no Google messaging framework, leaner than Signal, with no crypto payment, and an encrypted database at rest.