this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2026
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Granted, the part

The globally recommended app by privacy and security experts, Signal, is now being downloaded massively and tops the Danish Google Play Store

is a little ironic, but you gotta push this winning tide and then work from that.

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[–] Muffi@programming.dev 111 points 5 days ago (3 children)

I am from Denmark. I have spent the last 10 years fighting to get schools and government institutions to switch away from American software.

What a waste of time, when all it takes is the threat of an imperialist take-over of Greenland to actually get my fellow countrymen to finally listen and act.

[–] CyberEgg@discuss.tchncs.de 48 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (3 children)

Signal is still centralized US software.

[–] Mucki@feddit.org 45 points 5 days ago (17 children)

It is the least evil for the ignorant technology end user.

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[–] Muffi@programming.dev 13 points 5 days ago

True. I was more referring to the fact that nobody has wanted to move away from Meta, Google and Microsoft solutions because of convenience (until now).

[–] Vincent@feddit.nl 9 points 5 days ago (14 children)

But at least the US government can't listen in on your conversations, and if they don't know your phone number, can't block your specific communications either.

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[–] Quantillion@mstdn.io 2 points 3 days ago

@Muffi @Novocirab
Same. This applies to EVERY non-US country!!
I can't believe that the EU, France, UK, Spain, Italy etc. do not have their own comprehensive Fedi servers for their own institutions, govt departments & citizens! ALL still relying on US tech.

[–] biofaust@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

Italian in Denmark here.

I thank you so much for this! I am amazed at the dependence of all facets of social life and information on Meta and Google's properties.

I am cut out of my building's initiatives because I don't have a Facebook account. There are no events (such as dance events, protests, etc) published anywhere else than on Facebook's Events.

When I propose to be contacted on Signal people look at me as if I was an alien.

You are doing God's work, as a Christian would say.

[–] Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org 82 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Kinda ironic that if the danish representatives in the EU got their way with chat control, danish people wouldn't even be able to install signal (officially at least), since Signal said they would leave the EU in such a case.

[–] dzsimbo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 35 points 5 days ago

I'm pretty sure this isn't irony, but rather a reaction from the population that is realizing the shit their government is doing.

[–] Drekaridill@lemmy.wtf 29 points 5 days ago (3 children)

That is one fucked up looking flag

[–] falseWhite@lemmy.world 12 points 5 days ago

Mashup of Greenland and Denmark flags with signal logo added for some reason.

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[–] Alph4d0g@discuss.tchncs.de 18 points 4 days ago (12 children)

Meshtastic. Let’s get some critical mass. Get single points of trust out of the equation.

[–] paulcdb@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

Sadly Meshtastic is limited to the number of nodes it'll go through (think it was 7) so pretty limited. MeshCore goes up to something like 64 so is better but still both have huge limitations right now besides the 'no nodes around me' issue.

still, I have some MeshCore nodes and hopefully get 1 fairly high up when I can afford the Β£100 to buy it but its a lot to waste when no-one around here is interested.

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[–] architect@thelemmy.club 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The people that are orchestrating the takeover of Greenland literally owns that fucking platform you fucking idiots.

Does no one in the west have a fucking brain?

[–] GarbadgeGoober@feddit.org 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Perfect is the enemy of the good.

Just see it as a first step. Signal is still better than WhatsApp being owned by Meta. If we get more people of WhatsApp, in the future there might be more European alternatives.

There are no big European alternatives the majority of people are willing to switch.

I got rid of WhatsApp last year myself and could only convince 8 people to use Signal. I tried Threema and Matrix, but most normal people are not willing to do this and don't care they give up their data and so on...

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[–] comrade_twisty@feddit.org 25 points 5 days ago (7 children)

Unfortunately Threema the European alternative that’s at least as secure as Signal costs money - and that one time fee is enough to send everyone to Signal.

[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 34 points 5 days ago (2 children)

It's also not open source.

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 34 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

The Threema client is open-source. Which is about the same as with Signal, who release partial open-source code of their server, but it is impossible to actually use.

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[–] Kissaki@feddit.org 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Imagine EU sponsoring a messaging app as part of public infrastructure.

[–] comrade_twisty@feddit.org 4 points 4 days ago

Great Idea. It will probably be called ChatControlsEU and every message is archived and data mined at the Bavarian police departments Palantir instance.

[–] B0rax@feddit.org 11 points 5 days ago

As much as I praise Threema… it frankly sucks compared to the alternatives. Delayed message delivery, sometimes no notifications, somehow dated looking Ui…

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[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 24 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

If only the threat didn't (also) come from inside the house when it comes to privacy. I don't want my national police to have full access to my chats at all times any more than I want the USians to have that access, possibly even less. FBI or CIA isn't going to personally bust down my front door, arrest me and seize all my computing devices because I called a local politician a dick.

[–] copacetic@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Is it about the geopolitics or did SaveSocial's marketing campaign "digital independence day" last weekend (look for #DIday and #DIDit) also contribute? I'm not sure how visible that was internationally or if it was just a German campaign.

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[–] vga@sopuli.xyz 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

From one american service to another american service? Good job m'Danes, that'll show'em.

Less flippantly though, Signal is a better american service, and incremental improvements are good too.

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 14 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Like one of the main things Signal is really terrible at given that it is based in the US and hosted on AWS servers 🀦

[–] VisionScout@lemmy.wtf 11 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (4 children)

Besides being hosted in the AWS servers, there's no way to check if what's running there is the same as the published code. That's why i don't use signal.

When the signal foundation is losing money every year, i can just wonder what will happen when the money runs out. Even the good guys need to eat.

Or what will happen when trump will decide to seize the AWS servers running the signal application server.

[–] devfuuu@lemmy.world 11 points 5 days ago (4 children)

You don't need to care about the server code since the secure bits and encryption that matters is all on the client side and verifiable.

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[–] Vincent@feddit.nl 9 points 5 days ago

It shouldn't matter because you can verify that your data is encrypted and thus not accessible to the server, but also, IIUC, they use secure enclaves so that you can verify that their server is running the published source code.

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