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Comment by jlelse | Hacker News Reader

I recently blogged about it [1] and think Delta Chat is the messenger we should migrate to.

Email is decentralized (at least when not everybody is using Gmail) and isn't a silo like WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram and Threema. Because what happens when Signal goes bad? Everyone has to move again...

[1]: https://jlelse.blog/posts/email-messenger-delta-chat

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I also don't like that Signal relies on phone numbers or a QR code from a phone to log in. Phone numbers are traceable to identities. They really should have used usernames or e-mail addresses.

Also, Signal's desktop app shouldn't require a stupid phone app to enable it. I have a big powerful setup on my desk and you're asking me to go around my house looking for a silly 6" device to give it permission to log in? That's backwards. It should be the other way around if anything.

And leaking a mail (with real names) is much better?

Yes. Phone numbers are linked to a physical device (a SIM card or similar) or a contract (with a provider). An email does not need to contain a real name, and I'd say it's much easier for me to get a email with a temporary identity than it is to get a phone number for the same.

Not only that, but many countries have regulation that requires providing some form of government ID to obtain a phone number, even a virtual one.

E-mail doesn't have to have real names, isn't regulated by the government, and the same ID can be used across the world.

It takes 5 minutes to set up a new email account just for this app if you want to do so...

Yes, because you can choose if you want your name in your address.

My only gripe with delta chat is that the metadata most email stores keep per email message is measured in kilobytes (sometimes tens of them). View-source is very enlightening. For email messages which are often 1K-200K themselves with attachments, and somtimes > 10MB, I guess it's acceptable.

For one line "How about lunch today?" messages, it just hurts my engineer bones to use Delta-Chat on a regular email server.

Yes, i'd guess a simple message might start at around 1kB and in a chat application you probably never exceed 2kB. Considering the massive amount of data i can store on even the cheapest smart phone, the available bandwidth even under bad conditions, i'd say, that's a totally acceptable size. It could be less for sure, but it's not bad.

And it's plain text, so storage is not even a problem, it's easily compressed!

Now, don't let me compare 1kB data download to visiting a website and all the crapload i download for the simplest webpage nowadays...

I agree, in the grand scheme of everything internet/web, it’s not even a rounding error. And yet, the 2000% overhead is viscerally bothering me.

I’m not even saying “there must be a better way” - it is quite possible that there isn’t given the politics involved and the incumbents. Delta is usable, today, with everyone; no need for buy in from your addressees.

But, it still hurts.

Yep. Actually, i've used it now with some friends and it works very well. Part of them is only using email, 2 are using the apps.

Two quirks: 1. Of course your mail provider needs to have IMAP enabled (some corporate outlook/exchange installations do not). 2. It could be a problem if you mail provider has a limit on maximum mails per day. I've not experienced that problem, but still..

They are working on it https://delta.chat/en/2020-03-11-reduced-message-size

> think Delta Chat is the messenger we should migrate to.

Not really.

WhatsApp and Signal allow you to place audio and video calls, Delta Chat (by design) can't. And that's critical for folks who have families and friends in other countries.

It has a feature for video calls.

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