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Comment by 0xADEADBEE | Hacker News Reader

Long-time Signal user but I'm on the verge of moving I think. There are several UX shortcomings but the new PIN nag is a bridge too far. What are my options for alternatives? I imagine Telegram is the next best bet but very open to suggestions.

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Keybase has end-to-end encryption and you can connect to people without publishing the fact. But unfortunately, it was recently purchased by Zoom and probably won't be headed in a good direction in the future.

Of course, Keybase's main idea is to have a verifiable public identity which might not be what you want.

Threema. Don’t provide your phone number when signing up, and don’t permit it to access your address book. Set a recovery password. It’s not free, but a one small fee per app is worth getting my privacy back.

Oh and it’s hosted outside the jurisdiction of 5-eyes!

Settings -> privacy -> Pin Reminders

You can disable them there.

I tried that but that just makes you set a PIN which I don't want to do! I appreciate the help though, thank you.

I like Threema. You don't have to provide a phone number to create an ID with them. You can create a backup of your private key in a completely offline way but there is also an online backup for convenience.

Telegram is great for public things like huge groups or newsletters. But no encryption by default is a no go for me.

In terms of security and privacy, WhatsApp and Wire are the next ones in the list after Signal.

I have been using an app provided by my company (finance) called SecurLine It's weird how simple it is, and I don't have to provide my phone number like on Signal

Wire, not phone number based and they are working on distributing their backend and making it FOSS. Client is already FOSSand they've been audited a few times iirc.

oof the pin nag is brutal, i hear that. as someone who doesn't back up or transfer their message is completely unnecessary to me to even have it.

Same. How hard is it to make it optional?

well it took them like 2 years to add an option to drop the "invite this contact" nag so I reckon pretty difficult /s

Matrix: https://matrix.org/

If UX is the concern then Matrix/Riot may not fare very well.

I've been using the RiotX beta app for android last few weeks and yes it is definitely in beta, some parts just won't work. But basic chatting, joining rooms and communicating with their "fediverse" works just fine and looks very modern.

Same. The UI is just atrocious. It’s fundamentally a better product but just doesn’t come through as a whole. Evidently they learned nothing from Gimp/Photoshop.

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