Hacker News Reader

Comment by l1ghthouse | Hacker News Reader

That explains all the new Telegram contacts :P

It makes me sad those aren't new Signal users :(

I know Telegram is less secure and Secret Chats are an opt-in. Security-wise Signal would be better... but:

Signal experience isn't that good. Alien from the platform they run on. For example, no system recommendations to send this person a message or share something with them through signal.. Telegram is more a platform native and integrated into the system.

Also there is the issue of messages arriving late (not minutes but hours late, sometimes days late)

I can share to Signal or contacts-via-Signal, and have been for years... I think this is a you problem.

Signal is honestly fantastic as a SMS-replacement app. It sends Signal messages to contacts with Signal and normal SMS to contacts without (Telegram might do the same thing, being able to set it as your default SMS app, I'm not sure).

In Brazil this is a GREAT reason to NOT use it.

In fact phone operators for a while tried to ban whatsapp here, SMS prices in Brazil are just nuts (it is normal for an SMS cost fifty cents or so, sometimes even more, a full SMS conversation can cost you several days worth of food).

Everyone here just uses whatsapp, because of how ridiculous SMS prices are.

It must be a market difference. Here in north america, SMS is the "default" way you message new contacts, and the majority of chats I have with people are over SMS. SMS is free and unlimited on virtually every phone plan available.

Yeah I see the statement a lot on international forums like HN and Reddit of "SMS is still a thing? No one uses it!" But it's highly cultural. I only use WhatApp for two friends in Europe. Most of my friends here in the US use Facebook Messenger for our group chats. My iPhone-using friends use iMessage, but if I'm communicating with an Android-using friend, it's just plain SMS. I prefer more robust platforms but I also send hundreds of plain SMS messages each month. It's just easier than trying to figure out if they're on WhatsApp, Messenger, Signal, Discord, Telegraph, Hello/Allo/Duo/etc... everyone has SMS and everyone has a phone number so it's the lowest friction way to communicate.

That's what I love about these forums, is getting the cultural experiences of other people and finding out they're not always the same as your experiences. Very eye-opening.

People still use SMS? At least in Colombia no one ever writes an SMS. For the same reasons.

I don't see why it would be a reason not to use it. Just don't set it as your default SMS app.

Maybe not clear enough normal sharing works yes.. but recommendations of persons to share with in the system share sheets are not working.

https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/iphone_...

On android, I see signal right next to all of the other messaging apps when sharing a photo or some other type of supported file.

Maybe not clear enough normal sharing works yes.. but recommendations of persons to share with in the system share sheets are not working.

https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/iphone_...

Exactly. Signal appears in Android's share feature. I have a friend group on it where we send each other funny images and I never had any problems sharing to the group from Chrome or apps.

Signal needs to up its game. The experience is very far from being as polished as Telegram.

I wish Telegram secret conversations carried over to multiple devices. This is a thing I don't have to worry about with Signal or WhatsApp.

How iMessage does it: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/security/sec70e68c949/...

WhatsApp secret conversations don't carry either over multiple devices if you don't activate sync with google drive (which kind of defeats the purpose of encryption anyway).

that tells you a little something about how their encryption keys work :)

Yup. I used Signal for several years but moved away from it. It just was not a great product.

Is Signal's desktop experience still an electron app?

Yep, it's still terrible, and still refuses to load non-encrypted messages for you.

I just got onto Telegram this week and was pleasantly surprised to see completely native apps across iOS, iPadOS and a full featured native Mac OS X app.

I wish Signal didn't require a phone number, otherwise everything else about it is nice. I don't want to be required to have a phone number, let alone provide it to them.

I'll switch to signal when they have reproducible builds on iOS.

Oh, don't worry the Windows client is still crap as well. A few months ago I couldn't even launch from the Start menu and install was hanging until I found some obscure reference to deleting registry keys, a process which I haven't had to do for years.

Back in the old days I was in the registry daily.

A quick check didn't lead me to a single reproducible iOS app. What are you currently using?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com