An incognito mode allows the default mode to have more functionality, and matches their approach with Chrome. It's not a bad tradeoff.
There's no reason to only allow those two features to be used together. You could have them both turned off by default, and have three modes, one which turns on E2E and one which turns on incognito.
Also, the incognito decision should be made by each side independently. Just because I want to delete my traces doesn't mean my partner does.
It's not ephemeral messaging like Snapchat or something, although they are discussing it as a future feature.
>Incognito also offers message expiration. When you close incognito mode, your message is gone forever.
I assumed that was accurate. Did they misrepresent it somehow?
>All chats will be encrypted, but a special incognito mode will have an end-to-end encryption, and expiring chats that are permanently deleted once you leave them.
UX simplicity is, in fact, a reason.
If one side enabled this "use E2E encryption for everything" feature, then the other side would presumably no longer have access to any of the smart assistant features. And it would not be obvious why.
Additionally, it would be hard to explain why you'd ever want to enable such a feature which means nobody would do it. I suspect you want default E2E encryption for political reasons. Such things don't work unless it's on by default.
That's not what I'm suggesting. I want E2E to be separate from the "delete chats when I'm finished" feature.
Wanting an E2E chat that stays on my device when I'm done should be fine.
I'm fine with having E2E require a separate mode, but that shouldn't be bundled with the incognito feature of not remembering history.
Why can't it store E2E chats locally and never upload to google, or even encrypt with a passphrase like Chrome sync does?
Of course they won't be open about this, because they're making the world a better place <insertcuteemojihere>
Only if all other participants in that chat are fine with it. So you'd end up with an implementation that only allows saving to disk if all parties allow saving. That's a lot more complexity than simply a separate checkbox.
I still agree with you, there is value in allowing the features to be controlled separately.
In other words, it would be bad for Whisper to allow saving confidential conversations for two reasons:
- the user chooses to not save the conversation, but can't be sure if other partners save it regardless
- the user chooses to save the conversation, but can't be sure if the tool will really do so because of other partners' choices
Either of the options above will lead to more end-user questions (and necessary UI to prevent those) than simply combining E2E and persistence in one option.
However, I would like an option to make the Incognito mode the default (always-on), just like Firefox can make Private Mode the default.
If Google wants people to believe it cares about their privacy (which is probably the reason they're even doing this in the first place), then it should not just offer the feature to them in an obscure way, but it should make it easy for them to use it if that's what they want.
They don't, it's just more easibly marketable this way since it's a checkmark on someones Powerpoint slide.
> but it should make it easy for them to use it if that's what they want.
Google doesn't cater to users, since they aren't customers (services are free), but advertisers are.
As a sign of good faith, Google could also stop data-mining Hangouts now, since they have Allo for that, and make Hangouts end-to-end encrypted by default.
Providing separate options would make it easier to make mistakes.
* Sharing naked pics on a monitored work network? No - there is at least some chance that your company owns your device, so therefore you want it to disappear from that
* Sharing politically outlawed content? No - you can be compelled to give up your device.
Wanting it "just because" is fine, but simplifying the UI is a pretty valid counter argument too.
Or maybe you want to use an open WiFi hotspot without letting anyone get your data. (Https solves this, though.)
Or maybe you don't want Google to have your messages for targeting purposes.
Which brings us to point two: if that's your primary concern, then using Google may not be your best bet. If you are using Google messaging apps, it's likely because you value the additional convenience Google provides and privacy is a secondary concern.
Small clarification: WhatsApp actually does seem to have a backup feature, at least on my Android phone. I was prompted by the application to enable it just this morning.
Huh? I have backup of messages.
> no real search functionality
I can search on my phone.
> desktop client that requires the phone to be on, etc.
I want this: the messages should live on my phone.