[vpShane]

This means nothing good, Meta and its products are a privacy nightmare, with WhatsApp having major market share outside of the U.S.

People need signal. It's not perfect, but it's the best available.

No source code, wait list, special compatibility with a for-profit ad based company. No thanks.

[Nextgrid]

Signal still doesn't allow you to backup/export chat history on iOS into an open format? I think now they have some bullshit proprietary paid cloud storage solution (why not let me use the cloud I already pay for?), but for years they haven't had any solution for iOS at all.

Last time I had to reinstall my phone I ended up having to use & fix some Github project that simulated Signal's transfer protocol to simulate a target device to export my data.

I then deleted Signal and migrated to iMessage/WhatsApp and called it a day.

[B-Con]

Any time an app has bizarre functionality gap on iOS, I assume it's because of Apple's anti-consumer bullshit app restrictions.

No idea if that's actually what's going on, but Apple thinks of their devices as appliances and hates when apps offer pro-customer features.

[jolmg]

> Signal still doesn't allow you to backup/export chat history on iOS into an open format?

> I then deleted Signal and migrated to iMessage/WhatsApp and called it a day.

That doesn't fix anything, does it?

Last time I tried to export a years-long WhatsApp chat, I was only able to export a few-weeks-worth, IIRC. WhatsApp chat exports also don't include media. It's just a txt file. The backup is limited to using Google and it's done in such a way that you're not allowed to download it yourself.

The only way to export the chat was to use the web client and scroll all the way to the top, then copy-paste the HTML out of web-inspector once everything loaded. I don't think that's possible anymore. IIRC, the web client now tops at some point with a message like "use the Android app to look further back".

[digiown]

Signal doesn't allow you to do that on any platform. The only way I know of to get the data out is via some random github project to extract operate on the encrypted backup from android: https://github.com/bepaald/signalbackup-tools

[ivm]

Signal's UX is years behind even modern WhatsApp, let alone Telegram, which is closer to a blogging or social platform. We can't expect mass adoption of such a clunky app simply because it's more private – it has never worked that way.

[palata]

Maybe I'm old, but there is nothing I use in WhatsApp that does not exist in Signal. What are you missing there?

[UserMark]

I've been beta testing https://www.joinmorse.com lately it's in very early stages, but it's promising (if you don't care about the "social" features).

[nottorp]

Doesn't this signal thing require a phone number?

[fragmede]

and people using it. That may not matter much to you, but that's usually what people what from their chat app.

[p1anecrazy]

Just use Telegram, at least it’s not U.S. made

[maqp]

* Not end-to-end encrypted by default.

* No end-to-end encryption for groups.

* No end-to-end encryption for desktop meaning normal use when working on computer requires you and your friends to constantly whip out phone to send 1:1 secret chats. Nobody wants to do that so they revert to non-E2EE chats.

* Terrible track record with end-to-end encryption deployment from AES-IGE to IND-CCA vulnerabilities

* CEO pretends to be exiled from Russia but in secretly visits Russia over SIXTY times in 10 years https://kyivindependent.com/kremlingram-investigation-durov/

* Zero metadata protection from server

* Open source, but it's meaningless as it only confirms the client doesn't protect content or metadata from the server.

[palata]

I think Signal is a better alternative, even though it's US made. It's open source.