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Comment by utf_8x | Hacker News Reader

I'd recommend Signal[0] as an alternative. It's fully Open-Source (including the backend) and their crypto is public and independently verified[1][2][3]...

[0] https://signal.org/en/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software)#Encryption_p...

[2] https://threatpost.com/signal-audit-reveals-protocol-cryptog...

[3] https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/1013.pdf [PDF]

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Signal is great and I believe it does have better crypto. But the UI is severely lacking along with feature set.

Telegram feels like it's adding something new every few months, though the documentation over the features is poor since it's mostly through announcements. It's also a lot more customizable. I ultimately settled on Telegram because it was a good balance of feature-rich and crypto (when you use it)

That being said, it was hard enough to get a small group of friends to transition to Telegram. Signal would be much harder due to not having so many niceties.

I wish both to continue competing against each other, though. It's great to have choices that aren't owned by the big corporations.

I agree, the UI is very lacking and the UX could be better but there are VERY frequent updates and new features seem to be added regularly...

I never found signal lacking in any way, except that occasionally push notifications don’t get through. When people say signal is lacking in features, what do they mean? Simplicity is appealing too

They (at least it's me) are possibly meaning the excellent multi-device use. I can easilly use Telegram on like 10 different devices, all chats are in sync.

This also means that it's much easier to spy on someone on Telegram: just create a fake device with telegram, then login the user into it using a phone with fake identity. Easy-peasy for a (Russian) government.

I am not sure what do you mean by spying. How does "create a fake device with telegram" work?

It seems hard to add a rogue device to an existing user's account without them knowing. The 5-digit login code is sent by SMS only when there is no other devices logged into Telegram in the account. In all other cases the user will be notified by seeing the confirmation code message on their Telegram app.

One can add a password as an authentication factor for their Telegram account also. Just in case the login code is intercepted.

Any time someone logs into your account you immediately get a notification on all devices with the IP address the attempt originated from.

Yeah, e2ee importance for chat is grossly overrepresented. Vast majority of users would happily trade security and privacy for convenience.

One thing that's frustrating re: Signal is the client being a bloated entity (on desktop). In comparison, Telegram runs laps around it, and is a true native experience in many cases. It's a joy to use, whereas Signal - while amazing, and probably better in terms of privacy aspects - feels foreign and unwelcome.

Does signal still have a problem of dropping messages? I tried to use it as a replacement for Android Messages a while ago but roughly 10-25% of all messages were not received any given day.

Not to my knowledge... I use Signal every day and haven't noticed any message loss lately.

Thanks! I'll have to try it out again after the holiday madness calms down.

I experience this quite a lot, at least in group chats (I mainly use Signal for group chats). Some of the participants receive my message, others not. When I check the message details it says "message not sent" or "not delivered" (not sure which one) for some group members while it does not display any errors other members. As far as i noticed, no error means the message was delivered but even when it showed an error it could be that people actually got my message.

This error seems to happen a lot more often, when i send messages via Signal Desktop.

Yes, it does. At least for me.

Until they drop real phone number requirement signal cannot be considered secure.

No. The maintainer of software prohibits alternative clients. It's open source in name only. And when he decides to add ads to Signal, you can't avoid them.

https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...

Ah yes the average user care about privacy and encryption. UX is for us nerds.

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