What's a good alternative to Signal on Android for casual messaging? I don't think Element is a good fit since it's not easy to ask a friend or family member to sign up for Element whereas it's simple to install Signal.
For casual messaging, Telegram is fantastic. Actual multi-session clients across devices. No Electron. Truck loads of features and thoughtful touches everywhere. It's easily the slickest and if you're looking to have friends and family who don't have a lot of patience for technical issues actually convert and stay converted, it's the only one I've found to do the trick.
Searching through your messages by type, really good video messaging, voice messaging, video chats, and the best stickers on any platform.
It doesn't do E2EE by default (you need to manually flip on Secret Chats) and group chats are not E2EE at all, both of which make it HN kryptonite because apparently E2EE everywhere, by default, is the only thing that matters even though there are technical trade-offs to an E2EE-everywhere model. I appreciate I can flip on Secret Chats when I need them but do wish it was an option in group chats.
I selfhost a Matrix homeserver: it's nowhere near ready for primetime and misses a lot of those thoughtful touches less technical people appreciate. If you do want to try to onboard people to Matrix with the Element client (and be very careful because you only get one, maybe two shots with your friends and family before they go back to whatever they were using before) use Mozilla's homeserver for its vastly better performance and option of SSO sign-on.
WhatsApp has a better privacy story than Telegram, because every chat is a 'secret chat' by default. If your using signal, a priority for you is private chat with something the normies in your life can use, otherwise you'd just use whatever is the most popular where you live.
The backdoor only applies to WhatsApp for Business, where companies want a fail-safe to open employee messages e.g. after they've left the company. The fact they're transparent about it should be enough. Do not use WA for Business, for personal private communication. They are not the same product, and the business version isn't truly E2EE.
> WhatsApp has a better privacy story than Telegram
No it doesn’t. It’s owned by the 2nd largest surveillance capitalist; it shares a back-end with Facebook (so at a whim they can use the metadata around your chats to update their advertising models of you and your contacts); IIRC it leaks your engagement to FB (via web link previews).
It's a bit hard to make a case for Telegram's good intentions when they lack the ability to actually deploy usable, ubiquitous end-to-end encryption. They could even pay people like Moxie to implement it for them, which begs the question, why haven't they. Durov absolutely has the money.
Yes WA and FB has access to your communications metadata, but so does Telegram. And every entity that hacks Telegram.
Pavel Durov isn't a magical entity of good will and intentions, he's a Russian guy with sure, decent eye towards good user experience, but the cost for that is too great, considering he's never hired a competent cryptographer to even see if the features the app provides could be implemented in a privacy preserving way. I'd love to be able to defend Telegram's design choices, but the more they spend their time adding "sleek animations" and other bs features, the clearer it becomes it's just another social media platform with same privacy features as Facebook Messenger:
-Not end-to-end encrypted by default (Telegram Yes, FBM yes)
-No end-to-end encrypted group chats (Telegram Yes, FBM yes)
-Opt-in 1:1 end-to-end encrypted chats on mobile (Telegram Yes, FBM yes)
In that comparison, WA comes at the top. But then again, it's a false dichotomy as Signal puts incremental privacy features with no real down-sides.
-Open source clients (Signal yes, WA no)
-Reproducible builds (Signal yes, WA no)
-User-managed groups (Signal yes, WA no)
(And no, Telegram being open source with reproducible builds isn't really worth anything until the verification confirms that it's really using proper E2EE. Currently Telegram's source only confirms that it's not E2EE by default etc.)
As for the surveillance capitalistic aspect, Telegram is only as good as their word. FB wasn't surveillance capitalistic when it started back in 2005. Telegram isn't slaughtering the piglet before it's time to cash in, but they can get hacked at any point, and the hundreds of billions of messages that sit on their server, effectively unencrypted (storing the database key in server's memory is the same as "not encrypted"), Telegram isn't private even if Durov never wanted to use that data. The fact is experts agree such data is a liability, a toxic asset, that nobody can protect forever. Durov isn't as security researcher patching zero-days faster than NSA, GCHQ, Fancy Bear, Unit8200, CCA et. al. find them. Most probably Durov wouldn't even realize a rootkit has been sneaking data out of his server for the past 8 years.
Compared to these risks, WA has been ahead of Telegram ever since they implemented Signal protocol in 2016.
Invading your privacy is literally Zuck’s business model. The entire company operates based on selling an analysis of you and your friends to the highest bidder. Whether they planned that from the start or not, that is the basis of their funding, their IPO and their current valuation. All their products synergise to better invade your life. Duroc may not be squeaky clean, but he has a much better public record on standing up for ethical causes than Zuck. WA’s E2EE is entirely managed by WA - the user has no control over the keys and everything goes via their servers, so can it really be trusted?
I still think the WA privacy story is more suspect than Telegram’s at this point.
>but he has a much better public record on standing up for ethical causes than Zuck.
Paying lip service is not the same as practicing what you preach. I'm not saying Mark Zuckerberg is on your side. I'm saying WA team managed to implement Signal Protocol before Zuckerberg et. al. realized what was happening wrt. WA's data aggregation capabilities. Also, Durov isn't called the Mark Zuckerberg of Russia for nothing. Also, it's not like VKontakte users Durov made his fortune with, had too much privacy. Why is Telegram suddenly a magical fountain of privacy when on tech level it's worse than WhatsApp?
"the user has no control over the keys"
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
"everything goes via their servers"
Kind of the central point of centralized messengers?
Also, with Telegram there is a guarantee 100% of group chats, and 100% of Win/Linux desktop chats go through the server in the form that allows the server to spy on the content. All Telegram clients also leaks the metadata that you specifically enabled E2EE with some person, i.e. you disclose your desire to hide data from all third parties. That type of metadata is extremely valuable, and something WA -- due to ubiquitous E2EE -- is unable to collect.
"I still think the WA privacy story is more suspect than Telegram’s at this point."
Your opinion doesn't override that of Matthew Green, or Bruce Schneier who have explicitly advised to NOT use Telegram. I have never seen a security expert recommend Telegram, and don't expect you to provide evidence on the contrary, either.
> Why is Telegram suddenly a magical fountain of privacy
I didn't say it was. I said the Telegram _story_ was _better_ than WA's at this point.
> when on tech level it's worse than WhatsApp?
I'm not arguing that Telegram has a better or worse technical model; I'm arguing that the WA business model and senior leadership and share structure, which controls its tech, creates a _story_ which is less trustworthy.
I take your points about WA appearing technically better.
You're evaluating Telegram with many paragraphs given to your metric, which is E2EE. That's fair enough but it's not representative for what many users outside of the HN bubble are evaluating by. For me I value all of the features I wrote in my original comment in this thread more than I value E2EE by default. If someone were to come to me and offer me E2EE by default without those features I would say no thank you.
What I don't want is a corporation behind my chat app whose business is in monetizing my data. If Durov can keep Telegram out of that business I will be pleased.
Oh please. You're complaining about technical person evaluating technical product on technical level, on a technical forum.
E2EE is the bare minimum for security these days, as so carefully explained by the message you're replying to.
"If someone were to come to me and offer me E2EE by default without those features I would say no thank you."
This is such a loaded and unthoughtful comment. It assumes you have to make a choice. You don't, at least per technical reasoning. The only situation where you can't have E2EE is massive groups, and it's obvious those have no expectation of privacy. Anything else, I can explain to you on a technical level why it can be done in a privacy preserving way, and the only reason its not, is because Telegram's team lacks the know-how. Signal has already shown they can pull off pretty much any feature in a privacy preserving way.
So the question is not "what features do I need", but "should all my features be actual features". A feature that doesn't protect your privacy by definition can be used to spy on you, and I'm sure we both agree that is not a feature.
So ask yourself
Group chat with end-to-end encryption (Signal) or
Group chat without end-to-end encryption (Telegram).
Which one do you choose? The answer is obvious.
>What I don't want is a corporation behind my chat app
Also, you should know Telegram is not a non-profit like Signal. Telegram is a limited liability _company_. It's a for-profit entity, and the LLC only means, the owners are "legally responsible for its debts only to the extent of the amount of capital they invested".
> This is such a loaded and unthoughtful comment. It assumes you have to make a choice. You don't, at least per technical reasoning.
When Signal provides these features, please feel free to ping me back here but until then, the proof is in the pudding and the Signal pudding doesn't taste like the Telegram pudding.
As Signal's client is open source and its server is whenever they feel like it, I'm sure they'd also value your contribution to prove out your point.
Sure, because you need all 32GB of RAM but not your human right to privacy. Also, this is an argument against Signal's client, not excuse why you can't have E2EE on non-electron native client.
>"Truck loads of features and thoughtful touches everywhere."
So, eye candy. Not very strong argument.
>"Searching through your messages"
Only exact messages. Gets incredibly slow once you go past few weeks. Client-side searchers are as fast as your phone, i.e., fast.
>"video chats"
Not E2EE for groups
>"best stickers"
1:1 match between my Signal and Telegram sticker packs (50+ packs)
>"even though there are technical trade-offs to an E2EE-everywhere model"
The problem with this BS claim, is you can't point to a single trade-off. Everything you mentioned can be done with E2EE.
>"but do wish it was an option in group chats."
So the question is, why aren't you demanding it?
>"When Signal provides these features, please feel free to ping me back here but until then"
Again, which features? Please provide an actual, exact list so we know when to ping you.
>"the proof is in the pudding and the Signal pudding doesn't taste like the Telegram pudding."
The problem when you add a ton of sugar into a pot of porridge made from shit, is now you have a ton of sugar with an even coating of shit in it. No matter how much eye candy you glue on top of insecure design and spaghetti code that is Telegram, the fundamental truth is, it was never empowering you, only its owners who are collecting as much data about you as FB does, if not more.
EDIT: Fixed lack of E2EE on video calls to mean group video calls. Apologies if this looks like moving the goal post, not my intention.
Actually, I value a non-electron client way higher than E2EE. In fact, the incredible desktop client is one of the main reasons I am a huge Telegram proponent.
You're right in that the 1:1 video chats are E2EE, but not group video chats. This is my concern, but since you weren't making the claim, it's my mistake and now fixed.
It's not my intention to be aggressive towards you or anyone else. It's the argument (or lack of arguments) I'm attacking, not the person.
Facebook Messenger, Hangouts, Google Chat, and above all SMS / iMessage. Whatsapp by all accounts is the most popular (as much as I personally detest it).
I know I know, not HN-fare exactly, but they're easy, popular, and work. That's all that most of our's social network actually cares about. There's a lot of discussion in this thread about detailed encryption/security policy, but while I am a privacy nut, none of my non-IT friends/family could possibly care less... And they're not wrong. This convoluted encryption which severely limits multi device usability Andb frequently has louse ui is out of proportion with other comms methods such as email also used. While I may stand up for principles of privacy, my family isn't wrong asking why should their exchange of recipes or birthdays wishes be any harder than necessary.
> Facebook Messenger, Hangouts, Google Chat, and above all SMS / iMessage. Whatsapp by all accounts is the most popular (as much as I personally detest it).
Given you’re calling out WhatsApp specifically as a service you detest I’m going to assume you rank it last of all these options. Why is this? WhatsApp is E2EE, has a simple UI (at least IMO) and doesn’t store messages centrally. If I claimed to be a privacy nut I’d put WA above any of these.
Usability; and I hope I indicated clearly that it was a personal detestation over an objective claim :)
for what little it's worth: Facebook Messenger, Hangouts, Google Chat, let alone messengers of yore like ICQ, MSN, AIM, etc all allow me to create a userID & password on computer and use them from any device of my choosing, as well as change/transfer/obsolete devices seamlessly.
Whatsapp is bound to my phone number and device, and its experience with multi-device is.... actively hostile. My preference is to not type messages on a 1.5" keyboard, but rather on any number of ergonomic keyboards and devices I use around the house and work. Whatsapp is simply prohibitive for my usage, and for positively no actual (as opposed to theoretical/principled) benefit whatsoever. I've pulled what little hair I have trying to use it, but the 27th time it locked my account for using too many devices (Oh noes! I have a phone, tablet AND a laptop? Crazy me:), I gave up.
(privacy wise, also, my phone number is one of the more private and static pieces of identifying information I own; I guard it carefully and I have no idea why I need to expose it to everybody I want to communicate with, as opposed to anonymous and disposable userID or even email).
I did not mean to turn this into anti-whatsapp rant though; Many other E2EE-focus services are similar. Whatsapp just happens to be wildly popular and, for my use-case, completely and actively impractical :-/
Right. I’m just surprised that WhatsApp was just called out as worse than Facebook messenger. Both are owned by the same company but one of them is technically much more secure. (Yes, FB has the keys to the kingdom and can technically do whatever they want, but it’s much easier to snoop on messenger than WA.)
There are some features that are better on other messaging providers compared to WhatsApp or signal, it's just that sometimes you need to choose what you value more.
Shiny stickers and broader user market vs privacy.
Almost constant uptime due to being owned by a multi million/billion dollar company vs a group that mainly runs on donations.
I'm starting to suspect fb has people here to downvote critique. Or the vast majority have drank the Kool aid.
I really hope it's the former, instead of the latter.
Whatsapp is a non starter for me because the company that owns and operates it is not trust worthy. Very profitable, and probably making some of the people here great returns on their investments...but it's not trust worthy, nor ethical.
Beyond that, there are free XMPP servers, and you can even run you own. Clients like Conversations, blabber.im are all wonderful. I've been using it with friends and my wife for years without issues, albeit I have my own server.
Matrix is the best alternative. I have been onboarding one friend/family member at a time. And it's slow ride but the advantage is they don't have to sign up to anything else ever again.
In a thread about a Signal outage with a request for an alternative "casual messaging" app - I really don't think open source video video meetings is a relevant answer...
No forward secrecy. No future secrecy. No deniability. No metadata protection. PGP for secure communication needs to die. We've had better architecture for the past 17 years when OTR was introduced.
It's also not supported for majority of desktop clients, so if you want to continue the "secret chat" you had on mobile on laptop when you get to work/school/whatnot, guess what, you're shit out of luck and need to whip out your phone every time you want to reply. It's so bad you'll just give up and use non-E2EE 1:1 chats because at least they're cross-platform. So one could argue Telegram has no _functional_ E2EE at all.
WhatsApp is arguably more secure than many of the alternatives. Just look at the repo for Signal. For privacy it probably isn't, when you're in the US, that is.
Metadata-wise, yes. For protecting content, it's still pretty good. Also, WA seems to add features pretty close to Signal, which could indicate WA supports Signal in testing some of the features Signal provides consultation wrt secure implementation. WA probably doesn't want to fully take the wheel and fuck around with the Signal protocol. They've of course made some changes such as the group management system, and the levels of safety number warnings (no-warnings/non-blocking warnings as opposed to Signal's non-blocking/blocking warnings).
But WA has been working on interesting proof of concepts for wider deployment such as the client-side encrypted backups. Those are actually fantastic when properly implemented. There's of course shitty aspects with WA about those like the 64-bit passwords, but, if that's a feature Signal thanks to possible collaboration can properly deploy later, I'm all for it.
There's a difference between Signal being categorically better for pretty much everything when compared to WA, but, WA isn't the worst option, even when considering its owned by FB.
For what it is worth, creating an account on the matrix home instance using app.element.io or the matrix android app (haven't tried ios, but I assume it is the same) takes literally 3 clicks. Click register, select the matrix home server, type in your desired username, password, and recovery email (no phone # required or even requested) and click register.
The one part I see people struggle with is transferring keys across devices which is slightly convoluted (your keys are not stored on the matrix home server--for obvious reasons) but there are wizards to help you install your keys to a new device and for most use cases with phones completely unnecessary since you will always be using the same device.
Really? I haven't found it an issue to get friends or family to sign up for Element. In fact it's even better because you don't need to use your mobile number for that.
Haven't used Element but that sure doesn't sound better. Signal works as a drop-in replacement for the default SMS app on Android, I'm not gonna tell my mom to stop using my phone number and message `tfehring` from Element instead (if it's even that simple), especially since she'd still need an SMS app for everyone else.
I've found this specific issue doesn't matter for 30% of mobile users, because they're using the phone purely in a reactive state (usually to popups, or the notification area!).
"Meddling" with Russian elections is a pretty strong statement, they just followed what Apple and Google did, and there was lots of discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28655937
Telegram is not E2E encrypted by default, so the other comment makes sense.
Nope. WA uses server-side group management, with Signal its purely on user-side. The message is revealed to be a group message on client-side. In theory, since the group messages are a burst of packets of the same size, the server can distinguish between messages to groups,and drop them if it wants to, but that would be interference of communication which, IIUC, is a felony.
I want to try Briar on the Tailscale network, but couldn't figure out how to change the listening interface so far. Probably requires building Briar manually.
Sorry, no. Although Telegrams has encryption it's by default Client-Server, you have to explicitly start a secret chat with individual people. Additionally group chats are not encrypted except between client and server.
I'm not sure of a good alternative as simple as Signal
By default it's not e2ee, but this makes the distributed app model sooo much more user friendly. All your history is instantly available on the web client for example. Try that with Signal. The web client works if your phone is out of battery. Try that with WhatsApp.
But I don't want my entire history to be available on a website? Who would even want that, what's the use case? Who looks at their months or years old messages?
If my message is over two weeks old, I'd prefer it not to be on anyone's server. I can keep a local backup if I wish to do so.
Then you're not a person who values their message history. That's OK, you do you but there's many users out there, myself included who deeply value a searchable index of their chats from all time. I use it as a Memex or outboard brain I can tag and search. It's been in invaluable to digging up old quotes, pics, links, ebooks, etc. I wanted to re-surface either to share to someone else than the original recipient or for my own reference. Because you can search by broad types, it's doubly easy to find that archived data.
The problem isn't the message log itself, it's the fact you pay for the privilege of having the cloud backup of conversation history, by giving that history to Telegram as a company.
It doesn't have to be this way, as WA's planned feature of client-side encrypted cloud backups[1] shows, disproving Durov's implied claim that Telegram must have access to messages to provide such feature.
And Win/Linux desktop chats are groups are not E2EE even if you want, so it's not just about it not being default, it's about the complete lack of E2EE for those.
"but this makes the distributed app model sooo much more user friendly."
It does not. It forces you to either drop E2EE, or whip out your phone hundreds of times a day.
"All your history is instantly available on the web client for example."
You obviously can't because a) it's a security risk as per above and b) you don't need to as you can have native Signal client on your phone and your laptop and your desktop. Try having just one E2EE chat with Telegram across all three devices. You can't, even if you want to.
"The web client works if your phone is out of battery. Try that with WhatsApp."
Yeah, WA's system is shit, but at least they're working on a native desktop client (that also works on tablets), and that too, will feature E2EE for everything. Can't say that for Telegram.
