I like the idea, but don't know of a good method to get my contacts to use Signal as well without making myself look extreme in my views. Any suggestions for this? For example, do you know of any short and crisp messages that get the point across, without getting into a never ending discussion of privacy and its value?
My advice: Except Telegram, none of the others (Signal or Wire) are ready as a replacement for WhatsApp in UX or speed as of this moment. But Telegram has end-to-end encryption only for device specific, one-to-one chats (called "Secret chat"). Normal chats are only encrypted during transport and are stored as plain text on the servers and on the devices to support quick searching and multi-device/multi-platform sync.
Secondly, Signal does not have multi-device support and multi-device sync. Coming from Telegram, where I can catch up on messages on multiple devices and choose to switch to a computer keyboard to respond with longer messages, as opposed to a small touchscreen keyboard, I very much prefer having the ability to use different systems. Signal's desktop "app" is just with Chrome and AFAIK, it needs to be authenticated every time (with Telegram, I authenticate my desktop app once and it works fine across restarts). It's still tied to one device (the phone).
Wire allows users to signup or find other people using phone number or email address. Even Telegram depends on a phone number as the sole identifier for a user.
Overall, none of the current set of messaging apps or platforms are extremely appealing to me. All of them have some drawbacks. My dream platform would be a "decentralized and federated" system like email without having to be in individual walled gardens.
One checkmark: delivered to server, two checkmarks: delivered to recipient. Works for me.
> Secondly, Signal does not have multi-device support and multi-device sync. > Coming from Telegram
Telegram has, to my knowledge, either end-to-end encryption or multi-device sync.