Welcome! This is a community for all those who are interested in protecting their privacy.
PS: Don't be a smartass and try to game the system, we'll know if you're breaking the rules when we see it!
Some of these are only vaguely related, but great communities.
Why? Because the Dutch national broadcasters keep plugging it as an alternative to Whatsapp.
Aside... Two apps keep getting mentioned as alternatives, Signal and Element/Matrix, but in MHRO both are not viable as replacements.
Signal: still a US app, CIA funded, provides their encryption backbone to Whatsapp, recommended by governments & FBI. Matrix/Element: Developed in Israel, with ties to IDF, preferred by NATO (NI2CE)
Signal: still a US app, CIA funded
Honestly, this gives me more confidence in it. The CIA is very interested in keeping its people safe, so if they're using it, its in their interest to ensure it's secure. If they do put in a backdoor, I happen to be a US citizen so I'm unlikely to be a target since the CIA is all about surveillance on outsiders (FBI is domestic). FBI and Signal rarely agree, but they agree that Signal is great, so I think that's a pretty strong endorsement.
Add to that Edward Snowden recommends it, and he's certainly an enemy of both the CIA and the FBI at this point.
I use Telegram, like betamax have I backed the wrong horse?
Nah we good bro (I have zero objective data to back this up but I want to think it's true because I'd be too lazy to move)
I would have rather seen Element but hey, it's a step in the right direction.
Why? Matrix sucks as an instant messenger app, it's better as a Slack/Discord alternative.
Only because I'm not aware of other decentralised Signal alternatives. That's on me.
XMPP
SimpleX is pretty rad.
Not yet, it lacks a lot of the features Signal has and does not even have a proper ipad ui yet, nor proper profile syncing between devices.
If it ever has these it might be useable by the masses, until then it'll be only the interest of privacy nerds.
Though really the most important thing is its lack of audits and a transparency report like Signal has. How can we be sure that its encryption/other security is up to standards or they don't hand over anything to cops/courts without these two things? These are what most messengers fail at, especially open source decentralised ones to be fair.
Yeah, it's a cool toy, but when I was picking a messenger to sell my SO on, Simplex failed my basic requirements:
Signal passed, so we went with that.
Simplex is still rad though, and I want to try building something on top of the protocol. I'm working on a P2P Reddit/Lemmy, and Simplex could be rad for DMs or something.
It only sucks because you keep using Element. Its the worst client out there, if you account for "doneness"
What’s better? I’ve only used Element
Cinny