This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
All the purist here would rather use matrix to send messages to themselves...
Signal is an amazing alternative to WhatsApp and one of the few apps you can actually get non-techies to install. If it's not for you then don't use but don't say stupid shit like "why would anyone use it? it's not perfect!".
Actually I was installing signal in my relatives phone to replace the sms app, they used it even without knowing... I understund why they remove the sms part but it was a sad day for me, now noone from my "normies" use it anymore
There is no such thing as "perfect". They will always find something to complain about.
I didn't expect to get cancer from a website called itsfoss.com, but I guess it's time to put an adblocker on my tablet, too.
Adblocker is the minimum requirement for modern web.
Much better.
Firefox+unlock+unlock paywall extension is the bare minimum to navigate.
Brave as fallback if something breaks.
From the official announcement
Can I buy an account on a device that has no Play Services?
Not yet. We have plans to add more payment methods, but currently only offer Play Store in-app payments, which requires Play Services.
Ok so given how long it took them to allow an alternative to phone numbers, it will probably be at least 5 years before you can pay using a de-googled phone. I really don't understand what's so hard for them to accept crypto, they already do for donations. Smells like government involvement.
Seriously, if the point is to just have some monetary cost, why not just accept it as a bit of crypto?
Because setting up crypto portals at scale, and most importantly so they can't easily be hacked and drained or used for money laundering, is not a simple matter.
That's shitty, they have some cryptocoin don't they? Sure it's not great but if you exchange from some other currency and pay fast there's not much risk
Yup they have their own crypto but they won't accept it for creating accounts.
if you exchange from some other currency
Exactly. I can see why they probably won't accept Monero for regulatory reasons, but just accept bitcoin so I can use a swap and pay with my monero
it gets worse
The feature currently requires Google Play Services, as payments run through the Play Store, making it such that devices without Play Services cannot access it
I would rather give Signal my phone number than use a smartphone with Google services.
... don't they know that as soon as you use your Google account you're ID? Like doesn't that defeat the whole purpose?
No, they DO know that.
The only way to communicate anonymously across the internet is Tor.
Hmm, I bet there’s a hidden 50 cent surcharge. Damn it, Loch Ness Moster, I ain’t giving’ you no tree fiddy!
Oh God dammit, it's nessy again.
I gave him a dollar to make him go away.
Well, of course he's not gonna go away! You give him a dollar, he's gonna assume you got more!
What are the practical differences between them?
Deltachat has an extremely smooth on boarding process and is the same app for all platforms, but it cannot do voice calls or screen share (you can leave voice messages though).
Jabber/XMPP generally has a less smooth UX, and different apps across different platforms (except the Movim client, which is a web app that works on all platforms, but doesn't do reliable notifications on mobile).
With the Movim client, Jabber/XMPP is basically a complete Discord and Signal replacement. It can do group video calls, screensharing with audio (only with chromium based browser for now), as well as voice and text channels under different servers.
Oddly enough, once you make that three fiddy payment signal will now potentially have a payment method linked to your account.
If this is true that payment method can essentially be tied to a identity.
I suppose the reason they are choosing to do this is to prevent a influx of bot accounts and spammers/scammers.
And if you are worried about Google's involvement in this, Greyson Parrelli of the Signal team points out that the payment runs through the same zero-knowledge proof setup it uses for donations.
Looks like there is some way of decoupling the payer identity from the signal user
I figured they must be doing something along those lines, thanks for sharing!
Could you all just stop trying to flee corporate greed jumping from one company to another? We already have XMPP, Matrix and other descentralized solutions.
Signals reliance on phone numbers is my biggest problem with it. I don’t understand why they can’t move away from them entirely.
You need something to limit spammers using the service to sign up a million accounts
You can already today share a username instead of a phone number, this is just extra for signup.
Yeah why am I donating $10 a month every month for them to come up with shit like this. Google? Really? Now I question what else is going on behind the scenes.
If Signal had zero value to the three letter agencies, they probably wouldn't be allowed to exist. Sucks, but I wouldn't trust them much more than anything else American.
Honestly, for super secret communications, leave your phones at home and meet up irl.
if you’re donating, you should know they have a system to collect payments zero-knowledge (which they’ll also use for the $3)
Hopefully in the future they will offer the ability to pay with Monero.
Why is Signal always doing weird shit?
By paying through a bank card, you are identifying yourself. So this means dick unless you can do it with an anonymous gift card thing, but even then, they trace that shit a lot more than you may think.
Signal is about privacy, it's never been about anonymity. The purpose is to encrypt your communication, not hide who you are.
What do you think a phone number is
I have this in Threema. Thank you
