Are normal people still using Signal?
After Signal got rid of SMS supported, everyone I knew just got rid of Signal. I had on-boarded all my friends and family. But now, it's just me and a few techie friends who still use it.
After Signal got rid of SMS supported, everyone I knew just got rid of Signal. I had on-boarded all my friends and family. But now, it's just me and a few techie friends who still use it.
If it gets to the point of migrating all your media (not just the last N days) as well, it'd be to the point that I'd start asking everyone I know to use it without reservations.
Then Signal jumped the shark, with the server-side data forced PIN fiasco - the app had a full page, non-dismissable popup on start which you could only get rid of by agreeing to use and supplying a PIN for server-side data, which meant I could not use Signal. After a month of not being able to use, it went away, but at that point I no longer trusted Signal.
I'm also troubled by the year long period where the published source code wasn't updated.
I think in general people use WA, but all the people I talk to have Signal as well. I'll be moving on once I put the time in to find a replacement.
I know in Switzerland, only Signal is used by State employees - teachers writing to parents and so on.
Interestingly I’ve seen more random people sign up for it it(I get an alert if their phone number is already in my contacts) in the last month than any month ever.
It looks the same, feels the same and does the same. Notifications appear in exactly the same place, regardless of the messenger.
I don't understand why people are so passionate about not using the supposedly more private service next to the trivially less private one.
I also don't think adding messengers is such a big deal in non-technical circles, given the need is there. They just install it and its done.
An example: One of my younger generation family chat groups moved from Facebook Messenger to Signal because Messenger started blocking links to some streaming services in 2018. - No blocked links since.
Some of us do, yes.
But maybe we're not normal and we don't know it..
Ironically, its my tech-savvy friend group that are on discord while my family is on Signal.
I think all my friends would be on Signal if it had a "server/channel" UI like discord.
I would say it is pretty popular, at least in my social circle.
But it seems that Signal failed grasp the importance of SMS, instead of fixing the ongoing issues, they let it rot before discontinuing it completely. Yes, SMS is bad for privacy, but they are not in a position to change that, they don't have the critical mass that Whatsapp has.
They thought they could take advantage of the boost they got with the Whatsapp/Facebook controversy and Elon Musk "use Signal" tweet to make people change their ways, probably not realizing that privacy is not that strong an argument for people outside of their bubble and that they have to offer "something else", and good SMS integration is "something else". And yes, having users that have "nothing to hide" is important for a privacy-focused app, because otherwise, the simple fact that someone is using that app can make him a target (see: EncroChat).
This is a problem for iMessage, but people don't have the same security expectations for that. The WhatsApp model, of everything going over the app and being secure, is better approach. I would argue that WhatsApp was more secure than Signal with SMS, the focus on security outweighed by danger of sending message in the clear.
But Signal already made some compromises for convenience over privacy, such as the use of phone numbers and contact discovery. It can be a pretty insidious problem because it becomes possible to check if the owner of a phone number is a Signal user. Imagine you had an abusive relationship, you broke up, you blocked the other's number, and you go on with your life. You have each others in your contact lists, on your side, that's for blocking purposes. A few months later, you install Signal, the other did too, Signal then puts you in contact with the person you really don't want to get in contact with...
Sure, Signal does it securely, but it doesn't solve the problem. It is possible to prevent it now by choosing the right options, but the problem is not obvious at all and you are very likely to fall for it if you are in this situation.
The conflict between discovery and privacy is one that Signal acknowledges, but their default choice is not "maximum security", it is a compromise. SMS support is also a compromise, but I believe that it is actually a lesser compromise, because the UI makes it very obvious that your message won't be secure if you send a SMS.
WhatsApp doesn't need to make the SMS compromise because they already have a well-established network, Signal doesn't have the luxury.
If Signal was uncompromising on privacy, being undiscoverable by phone number would be the default. In fact, they wouldn't ask for a phone number at all. These are reasonable compromises, but compromises nonetheless.
The big argument for getting non-geek friends and family members to get Signal is "take this app, nothing will change for you, you can still SMS the way you did before, but you will have better privacy". Early versions of Signal could also import SMS, so it really was transparent. Well, mostly, there was still some issues they could have addressed, but didn't.
You can't use that argument anymore, the most likely reaction you will get is "I already have too many apps, I don't want another one, it is too complicated". Or you may install them Signal, and they proceed to send you another SMS, because that's what they always do, and it works, and they still have their SMS app. Or they already have WhatsApp, and so do you, and they are perfectly happy with it.
Really, for me SMS was the little thing Signal had that could help its adoption by the public at large.
The most compelling bit here for me is RCS. Lots of devices will auto upgrade an SMS chat to RCS if they think that both ends support it.
Signal cannot support RCS (there's no API) so you'd end up with a situation where someone uses signal to send an SMS, the recipient device then replies over RCS and signal never gets the reply. Not great for usability.