this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2025
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Privacy

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Signal is the No. 1 downloaded app in the Netherlands. But why? (techcrunch.com)
submitted 1 day ago by Sunshine to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

Why? Matrix sucks as an instant messenger app, it's better as a Slack/Discord alternative.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

It only sucks because you keep using Element. Its the worst client out there, if you account for "doneness"

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago

And what would be the best? Element is certainly the most popular.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

Only because I'm not aware of other decentralised Signal alternatives. That's on me.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

SimpleX is pretty rad.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 minutes ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Indeed, but funded by VC which makes me uneasy about its future.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Huh, I missed that. From the announcement:

Also, funding the work to transition the protocols to non-profit governance model would not have been possible without the donations we received from the users.

Our pledge to our users is that SimpleX protocols are and will remain open, and in public domain, so anybody can build the future implementations of the clients and the servers. We are building SimpleX platform based on the same principles as email and web, but much more private and secure.

If they stay true to that, they're probably planning on building for-profit apps on top, while keeping the foundation free.

That sounds reasonable to me. Hopefully that happens.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 21 minutes ago

Fair. I'll still be on watch, since venture capitalists are scum. Hopefully donations will eventually become stable enough for a revenue stream for them.