> I only keep it around to deal with people that haven't switched to Signal or Telegram yet
Or dont. If it's important enough, they'll find a way to contact you.
Or dont. If it's important enough, they'll find a way to contact you.
I salute everyone here who is able to switch away from WhatsApp. I wish I could dump it as well, but I can't.
Why? I volunteer with a group where one of our main things is to have a small army of people out doing coordinated-but-physically-separated tasks. Everyone has a smartphone of some kind but they're of varying types and quality. We tried using group SMS but that was a disaster, as group-SMS is bad enough but group-SMS-with-30-people is one level below "just fax everybody."
WhatsApp, meanwhile, lets us make daily groups, have a QR code that volunteers can scan at check in to join the day's group, app versions that work on the shittiest Android phone all the way up to the brand newest iPhone. And as a bonus, since almost all of our volunteers have friends and family outside the US, pretty much everybody already has Whatsapp installed and knows how to use it.
The one time our Executive Director tried switching apps, I had to spend an hour talking him out of WeChat, of all things. Point being, we need individual action to pressure our friends and family groups along with regulatory action so that massive platforms can't abuse us like this.
Signal's new groups work much more akin to WhatsApp and maybe I can bring it back up again once the pandemic has fully subsided.
By default Telegram doesn't even do E2EE, you're 100% trusting them not to read your messages unless you start a secret chat. In what objective way could you consider Telegram to be technically more secure than WhatsApp?
Firstly mahnouel didn't write "more secure" but better.
Secondly: if backups are enabled WhatsApp at anyone of the group members then WhatsApp is automatically uploading unencrypted copies of the group chats to Google.
I'd say that brings WhatsApp security for groups down to Telegram level at least.
Thirdly: forcing others to use WhatsApp to be part of the group gives away their group affiliation to Facebook. This might or might not be a problem for you.
When I now meet these people IRL they seem often very happy for being able to break news to me. Not being in the loop added quality to my friendships and I'm also genuinely happy to meet somebody because "it's been ages". Have created the same rule with my partner some years ago and we do not text each other little updates during the day so that we can have "quality time" in the evening which we always look forward to. It felt weird at first because nobody else does this, but it helped us carving out "us time" in which there is always something interesting we can share (e.g. "delayed gratification"[1] is grossly underrated in our time)
Most friends have meanwhile switched to Signal so I'm now more in the loop than 2 years ago. Though I never bring it with me when I leave the house so making an appointment with me and cancelling on last minute will be a problem (one I actively want to have - as strange at it sounds). Also I bring respect to any IRL conversations by _not_ having the chance fiddling with my phone. (I don't demand the same courtesy from my peers but I like tho think as of leading by example). So my mobile is a landline that uses radio :-)