Comment by skinkestek | Hacker News Reader

Comment by skinkestek | Hacker News Reader

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> I feel like Signal is held to a ridiculously high bar when it comes to anything.

Maybe I can help:

I feel Signal is doing a lot right and if I need to send a message right now and be 99.999% sure nobody except the recipient can read it, Signal is my choice.

My criticism is mainly directed not at Signal, but at the people trying to promote Signal by trying to trash every other messaging technology.

The reason is that until Signal solves:

- backups

- stable API available for everyone (I don't think they have one)

- bots (I mean a bot API for creating bots)

- large groups

- a number of ux issues

- and allow armed forces and other groups that need it to run their own servers

... until then there will be room for other messaging solutions.

I'll take it a step further:

- if you would be happy to stuff it in a physical envelope

- or send it by email

- and you don't hold a grudge against Facebook or are willing to live with the thought of FB knowing who you talk to and when

then you can safely send it by any messaging service.

Fighting about which just keeps people using sms or email, both trivially interceptable by a number of parties.

TLDR:

1. Signal is fine, excellent AFAIK

2. there's room for other messaging services as well

3. one doesn't make Signal better by trying to trash other messaging solutions

> - and allow armed forces and other groups that need it to run their own servers

if you can afford to run your own servers, then you can afford to run a build server too and push your own releases with the server patched.

> then you can afford to run a build server too and push your own releases with the server patched.

I think you are looking in the right direction.

The cost for servers were never the reason why others aren't running their own Signal networks AFAIK.

I should have stated in my original post that there are a lot of features that Signal could add/improve on; my post was meant to be commentary about the implementation critiques levied against Signal.

Your only point I disagree with is backups: there is simply no way for a non-for-profit company that doesn't monetize user data to afford providing cloud backups.

P.S. "New" groups in Signal support up to 1,000 users, did you need something bigger?

> Your only point I disagree with is backups: there is simply no way for a non-for-profit company that doesn't monetize user data to afford providing cloud backups.

I would actually prefer local backups. I can always upload them to the cloud myself, and then I pay :-)

> P.S. "New" groups in Signal support up to 1,000 users, did you need something bigger?

OK, this might come off as moving the goal posts, so let me say why it is not intended to[1]: Signal is very usable for what it is intended for. 1000 is enough for my family in law and even my family.

I'm fairly certain I read at least one other messenger has a limit of 200 000 members in one group, moderation tools, channels with channel publishers, subscribers and comments.

And my point is not that it is better than Signal but that they are different!

If I need to send pass codes or something I can use Signal. If I need to receive broadcasts from one of the channels I follow I can use Telegram etc.

I have 32GB (or even 64GB?) of storage on my phone so I never had to choose :-)

[1]: That is, it is not moving my goal posts. My hope was never that Signal should replace everything else.

At least on Android, there is a local backup option although you need to manually pull it off the device.

I get what you're saying about chat/moderation tools. For some reason I limit my view of Signal to groups of people I actually know. I would personally never use it instead of something like Gitter or community-based chats. I fully agree various chat programs (mostly) each have their own niche.

I want none of this stuff in a messaging app, it's not a social media platform.

Agreed. If all you need is glorified SMS replacement, Signal is the way to go.

Indeed, and Signal has been marketed from day one as a drop in SMS replacement. Initially it even used SMS as the transport for encrypted messages. it was literally called "TextSecure". This is why I have always found the attacks on it using phone numbers to be amusing.

Fine, then you can go on using Signal.

I am happy with that.

My point wasn't about that but about those people who won't let the rest of us use one or more other messengers.

Agreed. In fact, as I also said here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25802021) I consider the lack of backups to be a huge security flaw that is conveniently left out in such promotions.

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