Why do not more people choose a matrix server and use a decentralized way of communication instead of committing themselves to this or that app/company?
Because most people they know use WhatsApp/Facebook/Instagram.
I found a server in the list I posted that was hosted by people in my area and funded by donations. I got in touch with them and they even implemented some bridges with that server. Now I am using it with a WhatsApp bridge, feels pretty seamless.
Not sure when you tried it or with which app but you can use it just like an instant messenger. It can do more like discord but this can easily very ignored.
I have heard that once it was a pain to use as a client but since I started using it half a year ago it felt pretty smooth.
Why are you taking such a confrontational approach?
Original commenter and you give no information on what makes Signal better. Signal is outside of the topic scope anyway, but would be a fair extension of it. Instead you use an insulting tone and completely dismiss their approach.
And this shit gets more up than downvotes. Makes it clear this platform has group-think toxicity issues too, moreso than promoting fair and good-intention discussion.
OP tone is mainly confusion with an open question. They disclose their belief/understanding which they acknowledge either contradicts or puts into question the evident state of things they see.
I don't see how that's confrontational similar to the commenter dismissing their whole approach as a definite statement without points you could argue. It's a closed dismissal and in an insulting tone.
What makes you think they are similar? Or to what degree?
I don't know about you, but the tone of the original question come across very dismissively to me. OP isn't asking what they missed, why WhatsApp might be as good as Telegram. They've flat out declared the winner and are asking why nobody else is agreeing with them.
I can see your point, and agree with it for the most part. But they're still posting on Asklemmy implying it is a question or interest of reason. It also doesn't dismiss a person directly/specifically, nor is the tone insulting.
I'm not sure the file limitations are much of a factor when 100mb covers most files that would need to be sent through a messaging service. There are plenty of dedicated services for sharing larger files.
I mentioned it because it was an annoying limitation for me. 100mb is not a lot for media and zip files nowadays. And I don't know any good free services that will work more conveniently than simply sending with Telegram, suggestions welcome.
https://toffeeshare.com/ is what I usually use for big files. But both sender and receiver need to be online for the whole transfer. It doesn't store anything you send on their servers, but that's a feature for me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As long as your messages are end-to-end encrypted, I don't know why you would care about that. It's proven that they do not collect any metadata that could harm your privacy and most of their stuff is open source. The signal protocol is a pretty solid protocol supporting E2EE. There are not even cloud backup options, so your messages can never be read from someone other than you and the receiver, unlike something like iMessage that has cloud backup option that backups your messages stored locally on your device probably in plain text to iCloud.
I've been using Signal for a long time now, it was great until they ended SMS text support, then they started trying to turn Signal into a social media thing, I just want end to end encryption without having to worry about somebody like Zuckerberg having access to my texts.
I agree that signal is superior in terms of privacy but a lot of people don't care about that. And most people using WhatsApp DEFINITELY don't care about that.
In the short period of using it I had so much BS come through by scammers/spammers - both as DMs and group messages. I've rarely had that with WhatsApp.
In my eyes WhatsApp is far better than Telegram. And Signal is far greater than WhatsApp. The only thing I wish Signal had was inbuilt GIFs; it's not that much of an issue on mobile but it's a pain on desktop.
And even when E2E encryption is enabled, they use some weird homegrown encryption protocol. WhatsApp is at least based on Signal's protocol, which has been tested many times by independent experts and confirmed to be secure.
Telegram is awful with spam. I'm constantly getting sent links to Telegram groups for Russian porn models who all pretend to be underage and spamming their Boosty links. I feel like it's probably part of some scam to bait people into buying something illegal and then blackmail them later. I don't keep it installed anymore because I don't need that sort of incriminating shit on my devices.
I'd delete my account, but I have a couple people who only use Telegram, but I'm getting close to cutting them off over it unless they switch to something else. I've reported this to Telegram numerous times, but these accounts keep popping up and keep managing to reach me.
I've had way more scam calls, groups and texts on whatsapp than on Telegram.
So I definitely don't understand why anyone would like whatsapp.
With Telegram you can easily limit any communication requests to only come from your list of contacts while that is impossible with WA. The only way you can get out of getting scam calls is by turning on "mute unknown calls" and "limit groups to contacts" but the calls will still pop up and you will still get chat requests so you will have to block and delete each one of them manually.
Instead of just limiting all communication to your contacts like on telegram.
Isn't it the same in Telegram? Interestingly, in Telegram it looks like everyone can send you a voice message unless you pay Telegram money to unlock the ability to restrict it.
How? I've been a heavy telegram user for more than 8 years now. Not a single time I have unwillingly been added to a group I had no interest in or been messaged with any scam message.
I know of privacy settings that limit these, but I have none of them turned on, because I have some people that might add me to important groups.
There's no 'love' for Meta, most people don't think in those terms. It's just that their platforms are in heavy use in many countries and you tend to use the method most common to people in your circle.
My older friends and family use Messenger and SMS, my similarly aged peers use WhatsApp, and my work colleagues use Signal. So I correspond across all these. I know the benefits and pitfalls of each but I can't influence the established communication choices of others. The only people i know who use Telegram are racist nutjobs.
People don't choose, people use whatever most people around them use. Whatsapp and telegram are both centralized, and shouldn't be trusted because, by the nature of it, they can (and eventually will) turn user-hostile.
Messengers come and go, if we really want to make some progress in this area, we should embrace federated and p2p protocols as the logical evolution. Anything else is just wasting time and user privacy.
I'd rather push for XMPP personally, the matrix protocol has been a dumpster fire in an "almost ready, trust me bro" state for as long as it has existed, and failed to justify its own weight and complexity. But that's mostly irrelevant since they are open protocols and can somewhat bridge with one another.
I'm selfhosting a Matrix server and have all my Chats from other apps also bridged to there. For just text chat I don't feel like Matrix is missing anything, the thing preventing me from getting my not so technically minded friends on it is the missing support for good group voice chat.
It XMPP better for group VC? Is the option available to bridge Messenger like Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord, iMessage to XMPP?
I’m selfhosting a Matrix server and have all my Chats from other apps also bridged to there.
Same here, but with XMPP in place of Matrix. For historical context, XMPP was invented about 25 years ago on the premise that people were already tired of having their instant messaging scattered over multiple protocols (rather than Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord, iMessage now, it was Yahoo, MSN, AIM, ICQ, … then), so bridging is very much front and center in the XMPP world. Over time, people also realized that bridging sucks in general (you either dumb down your client to the lowest common denominator which sucks for yourself, or your client isolates itself from the source protocol enough that it sucks for everyone else).
To add insult to injury, most modern protocols also forbid, by their ToS, the use of alternative clients (which very much includes bridges), and to the best of my knowledge WhatsApp, Signal and Discord will eventually suspend your account on this basis.
Matrix is still trying to carve a niche for itself in this space, and is failing IMO (judging by the quality/security of the bridges they have come-up with, and the recent libera.chat fiasco). I'd say that the situation in this regard in XMPP is only marginally better due to the fact that XMPP had a decade headstart to fail and try over, and I would not recommend using bridges on either of them if that can be avoided.
It XMPP better for group VC?
I'd say "it depends". Fun fact, Matrix uses jitsi-meet under the hood (which is XMPP + a media transcoding/multicasting component that doubles as a relay), and jitsi-meet is my recommendation for this use-case: as long as the central server has good bandwidth, you can really scale up your VC to many attendees. On top of that, XMPP has support for peer-to-peer group VC, with the benefit that hosting is simpler, it doesn't require any central component/relay (but the bandwidth cost is incurred on all participants and you won't go beyond a handful of attendees that way).
To add insult to injury, most modern protocols also forbid, by their ToS, the use of alternative clients (which very much includes bridges), and to the best of my knowledge WhatsApp, Signal and Discord will eventually suspend your account on this basis.
Good thing that I'm in the EU and the big chat platforms will be forced to open up their API to third-party clients soon with the DMA.
But from my point of view bridging with matrix works well and I have all my chats in one place. And for me that is the only reason I'm sticking with matrix as only one other person I know is using matrix directly. While it would be ideal to get everyone on one decentralized chat platform that is also rather unrealistic... so I'm doing my part using Matrix and getting friends on it when it makes sense but not actively trying to get people on there that don't have a good reason to use it. And using XMPP mostly sounds like it is just around longer but not that much better, so switching now dosen't seem to make sense.
Yep, if you are on either, you are fighting the good fight, so keep it up :)
I will! It is a really nice setup for me.
And if you self-host, you’ll find it dramatically easier to do on XMPP (that’s how I ended-up here, after giving up on Matrix’s shenanigans).
Interesting, but I got past that hurdle... and I made it extra hard for myself as I didn't use the ansible playbook but instead created my own docker setup (own as in writing a docker-compose.yml myself, not as in creating the containers from scratch). But this way I understand the system and could fix problems that I had myself rather nicely.
You should definitely give XMPP a chance, but not feel bad about ending-up with whichever feels better: they are mostly fine, and largely preferable to the non-standard/non-federated alternatives.
XMPP is orders of magnitude lighter weight so that might factor in if you have associated costs to running in the cloud.
If you want to get started the easy way, go with ejabberd, it has sane defaults and lots of convenience (e.g. it embarks a stun/turn server to facilitate calling through NAT, acts as a ACME client to renew certificates automagically, …).
On Android, Cheogram is a good client to recommend for power-users, Quicksy/Conversations for those who want to use their phone number for contacts auto-discovery. Desktop has Dino/Gajim, (i)OS(X) has SiskinIM, BeagleIM.
Regarding the libera.chat drama, you can read more here: https://libera.chat/news/temporarily-disabling-the-matrix-bridge
IMO that tells a lot about the people behind Matrix and their overall attitude (I had the same "trust us", "it's gonna be soon, I swear!", "that was bad luck but it's gonna be fine!" vibes when interacting with the Matrix team members in the early days).
I would look at what you want to use it for and see if you can do that better with XMPP or Matrix. The factor that is keeping me on Matrix is that I have all diffrent chats with people on different platforms in one client that is cross platform. Here is the list of available bridges in Matrix to get other chats into it: https://matrix.org/ecosystem/bridges/
But keep in mind that is is against ToS for most apps, so there is a small risk of getting banned from other platforms. I can only tell you that I've been using it with WhatsApp, iMessage, Discord and Signal for half a year and am not banned anywhere. That is with running my own Matrix Server and bridges on a rented VPS.
For information about what XMPP can do you'll have to do research on your own as I don't know anything about it besides that google kinda "killed it".
The factor that is keeping me on Matrix is that I have all diffrent chats with people on different platforms in one client that is cross platform.
yeah, as I wrote above, that's no different in XMPP (but probably much more secure and better maintained: till recently most of the bridging in matrix-world was leveraged by libpurple, which has an horrendous security track-record).
If you are getting into bridging in XMPP, I recommend giving slidge a try: https://sr.ht/~nicoco/slidge/
And yet it has hundred folds more users than Matrix :) XMPP is ubiquitous (it props up google cloud/nintendo switch push notifications, if your online game has a chat system with million users that's it, WhatsApp is using it, you have billions of IoT devices running it, …) so just like Linux it can't really be "killed" at this point as a critical piece of software infrastructure. On the user-facing side, things are alive and kicking with great and well-maintained clients (which is more than can be said about matrix, being a single-source implementation held together by a single company constantly fighting financing issues).
This is the best answer, IMHO. Also, network effects means that everyone's already on WhatsApp, so it's only natural that people use it more than Telegram
Telegram's official components are open source, with the exception of the server which is closed-sourced and proprietary.
Telegram was launched in 2013 by the brothers Nikolai and Pavel Durov. Previously, the pair founded the Russian social network VK, which they left in 2014, saying it had been taken over by the government. Pavel Durov sold his remaining stake in VK and left Russia after resisting government pressure.
Telegram is registered as a company in the British Virgin Islands and as an LLC in Dubai. It does not disclose where it rents offices or which legal entities it uses to rent them, citing the need to "shelter the team from unnecessary influence" and protect users from governmental data requests. After Pavel Durov left Russia in 2014, he was said to be moving from country to country with a small group of computer programmers consisting of 15 core members. While a former employee of VK claimed that Telegram had employees in Saint Petersburg, Pavel Durov said that the Telegram team made Berlin, Germany, its headquarters in 2014, but failed to obtain German residence permits for everyone on the team and moved to other jurisdictions in early 2015. Since 2017, the company has been based in Dubai.
the guy who created it was born in russia... but pissed off russian authorities and i don't think he can set foot in russia anymore without being arrested
Well if that’s your angle, then the main reason for choosing WhatsApp over telegram is the first-mover advantage. WhatsApp came out years before telegram and is a very popular app in many markets.
I’d argue that not many people care about sending 2gb files either. In my experience, more people care about privacy when prompted than about sending 2gb files.
b) telegram is not end-to-end encrypted by default. And not end-to-end encrypted at all for group chats. That's kind of a dealbreaker. Telegram is one of the last messaging apps I'd recommend.
In my country whatsapp messenger can and will be seen by the government if there is a request. Have heard it many times.
I don't think any messenger or anything you write is actually secure or actually private. We just came to terms with that.
Why do people choose Telegram over Signal?
Signal encrypts everything by default, unlike Telegram which only "encrypts" messages in a (iirc) secure or secret chat.
Fortunately, EU is forcing all major gatekeepers' messaging apps to be able to communicate with other messaging apps. I, finally, will be able to break free from WhatsApp and use Signal. Uninstalling WhatsApp and requesting for a deletion of my account; a dream come true soon.
Why use Signal over XMPP and Matrix? Signal is centralized and wants you to stay in check, using their crappy client, giving away your phone number, and all your presence, social graph and other privacy sensitive information to a single actor (which can't be yourself, because you can't self host signal) and that has nothing to back it up other than "trust me bro, I'm gonna do no harm, but also I control all your communications under my own terms and conditions and there's nothing you can do about it".
Matrix was found leaking metadata, it's not like Matrix is bad or anything. But it just doesn't get the attention it needs.
For WhatsApp users that do want better privacy and security, Signal is a solid choice.
XMPP, by default with no configuration doesn't really have encryption and also, it has issues with metadata leakage as well.
For the average joe, Signal is a simple app that has privacy and security out of the box.
Sure, it would be awesome if Matrix was widely adopted, but it isn't.
What Matrix metadata leakage are you talking about? Regarding XMPP, I am not aware of anything like it, and I suspect that this leakage you are talking about is just standard client-server signaling, where in federated protocols like Matrix and XMPP you can chose whom to trust (or self-host) whereas in all other cases your metadata isn't just centralized and consolidated, you have no recourse and knowledge about what's being done with it.
On the side of XMPP, OMEMO (which is XMPP's take on double ratchet encryption à la Signal) is standard across the board of all maintained clients, so you wouldn't be less secure there than on e.g. Signal or Telegram, so your take on XMPP's security isn't factual.
When talking about messaging apps, you've to use the one that's easiest to use even for the most noob tech person.
Signal uses phone number, because that's how people generally communicate. It's easy to use, setup. No privacy nightmares compared to WhatsApp, or security nightmares compared to Telegram (where E2EE is not even on by default). It's open source, regularly audited and can be used on any device (no more proprietary green bubble nonsense). There's still a market for Threema and Matrix, etc. It just never will be mainstream.
My whole point was that between Signal and WhatsApp, none is intrinsically better than the other in this regard. Both are centralized and collect the same amount of privacy-sensitive data about you (your online presence and patterns, your IP, your network graph, the routing of your messages and their nature…), because they need that to function. Whether they log it (irrespective of what they advertise) is one thing nobody but themselves can verify and where opensource plays no role.
Matrix/XMPP are only better because you can self-host if you trust no one, or choose whom to trust, or change whom to trust along the way without incurring a total loss of your contacts, histories, assets, …
IMO, the sales pitch for XMPP/Matrix shouldn't be "we are better/more secure/more privacy focused by design" (and it's pretty clear that the tech-illiterate majority doesn't care anyway), it should be "with us, you will no longer have to jump ship every 5 years in avg. because facebook/google/amazon/some oligarch/… broke their promise/used their absolute power over your account to their discretion".
XMPP arguably has some of of the strongest crypto functionality there is, it's just too dependent on the app to feel safe, since all of the vulnerabilities in these ecosystems are basically down to the client implementation.
Absolutely, and an argument can be made about captive ecosystems controlling both clients and servers. They also represent a single point of failure, so there's no magic bullet. In practice it's also not that different than keeping up with your browser's/OS'/phone's updates and XMPP has that for itself that it has (unlike Matrix) a vibrant community of clients and servers supported by diverse parties (commercial and not).
Because one is an app and the others are a technology standard. I can install Signal on my phone and use it to talk to people securely.
Where do I go to get XMPP or Matrix? Can I trust app makers to have correctly implemented the protocols? When it comes to security I tend to trust larger entities versus the garage startup.
If you live in the EU, somewhere around in 2024, you will be able to use something like Signal to communicate with others that are on WhatsApp.
So you don't have to use WhatsApp at all to communicate with other WhatsApp users.
WhatsApp became the defacto messaging app in south America over a decade ago. Sms was really expensive so people opted for WhatsApp which was cheaper over data and you void send pics at a time where no carriers allowed mms. Now almost all carriers have unlimited WhatsApp as part of data plans. Switching to telegram is pretty much imposible
The biggest one for most people would be large files since you can't really do that on WhatsApp. WhatsApp images and video also get deleted after some time where as telegram don't
It's a really simple matter of practicality. I can either use whatsapp and talk to people or I can install telegram and send messages into the void, because no one fucking uses it.
The perceived usefulness of a network, platform, or communication protocol increases with its relative adoption. That's known as "network effect", and network effect is at strongest for anything regarding direct communication - such as messaging platforms.
In other words: WhatsApp is used by lots of people, and this discourages people to migrate over better alternatives, like Signal (my choice) or Telegram (OP's).
Messaging apps are tricky, you can't just pick what's the "best" because it's primary function is to message people, so the best app is what can do that.
If nobody you want to message uses telegram, or signal, or matrix, than they aren't very good messaging apps FOR YOU.
You have to start using the app, then start convincing everyone else to use it, and that's quite a hurdle, when most people you know use the "good enough" Whatsapp, or even just SMS, or iMessage.
Half of the people I regularly talk to are on WhatsApp. I don't like it but that's reality, it's hard to get them to migrate because this means that people THEY talk to would have to do the same. Also a good chunk of them use rakuten Viber. Now why do they use THAT? It's bloated, ad-ridden, and buggy. Almost nobody I know is on telegram. In fact most are still using Facebook messenger.
As many have pointed out, it isn't really our choice, since we have to get along and use what most people around us use.
The only solution I see is if the government mandates every messenger to use a common protocol allowing all to co-operate.
Though only for people in the EU.
Proud to be one of them. I can now ditch WhatsApp and use Signal.
Next month, gatekeepers with instant messaging apps will be forced to comply and find a solution to this till March 2024.
I know a handful of people on WhatsApp, a handful more on Signal, and a single person on Telegram who is a bit strange and thinks the world is a simulation (he's a hoot). So, basically I don't use Telegram at all because the only person I know on there isn't someone I'd want to communicate with anyway.
Yes, everyone I know outside the US uses it. If I understand correctly years ago in a lot of countries SMS was either very costly or unavailable, while WhatsApp was free.
Also, WhatsApp allowed people to send pictures and stuff. Effectively, it has replaced SMS, MMS, and MSN Messenger. There was a brief period where people would still communicate via Facebook chat on PC, but once smarphones became prevalent WhatsApp won the battle (except in the US, which is something I've never been able to understand)
People don't care what's superior, they care about if their friends are already on the app. And whatsapp built up that critical mass first, so it's the default.
Sure, on paper. Convince some non-nerds to give it a try. I haven't managed to. Therefore, telegram.
But the question asked wasn't "what's a good messenger" it was "WHY THE FUCK DOES ANYONE USE WHATSAPP????????" and I've been wondering that myself for the past... uh... ever?
Riddle me this - Some people's argument against using telegram is that it is not as secure as WhatsApp(which on face value is true because WhatsApp is E2E encrypted while telegram is not E2E encrypted). Other people claim that only hackers and terrorists use telegram and that is why they don't use telegram. My question is why are people like hackers and terrorists using telegram in the first place if it has worse security while having no upsides for these kinds of individuals.
Why would I use russian whatsapp owned by russian Zuckerberg living in Dubai?
If anything Signal would be the superior alternative.
But as stated by other ppl before me, I use whatsapp because at least where I live almost everyone uses it and Telegram is for conspiracy theories and Nazi or russian propaganda.
In my circles, it became popular during the pandemic and a number 1 source of misinformation, with an unnerving amount of obvious links to Russian propaganda- covid related, yes.
So after seeing the extreme antivaxxers join the telegram train, and seeing how gullible acquaintances got "tips" from their telegram groups, I just couldn't take the app seriously. I understand logically maybe the app itself is better than WhatsApp, I understand this may be just my personal experience and that there was just as much trash on WhatsApp. But having my sane contacts using WhatsApp already and my family on Signal, I never saw the need to switch.
The popularity of WhatsApp is /why/ WhatsApp is popular. That's just kind of how it works with messaging apps. The only reason anyone has WhatsApp is because someone they wanted or needed to talk to was using WhatsApp.
Do you live in Russia? Who can really use that information to damage you somehow, the USA or Russia? If you live in the US or in a country subservient to their government is better to being spied by Russia on that case.
I've made this exact argument many times. As a US citizen Russia and China have no power over me so it's better for me to have my info there than at home. A person's own government may use their info as a means of direct control while a foreign government can't do that.
If anyone is going to spy on me I prefer that it is not America.
America bombed and invaded 2 countried that are our neighbours. We are still feeling and living the effects of the wars American thugs waged in the Middle East.
Because whatsapp was huge way before telegram came around and most people dont want to switch. A message platform is only useful if most people you know use it as well.
Personally? Because telegram feels dodgier than WhatsApp. At least I can trust WhatsApp enough around security. If I really want to upgrade my privacy or freedom, I would have chosen either Matrix, Signal or Session.
At least I can trust WhatsApp enough around security.
Funny how Mark Zuckerberg himself was found out using Signal over his own messaging app. Raises some suspicions, doesn't it?
If I really want to upgrade my privacy or freedom, I would have chosen either Matrix, Signal or Session.
It's not like you had any privacy with a messaging app that is owned by Meta to begin with for you to be able to upgrade it in the first place.
When not even the owner of WhatsApp uses WhatsApp, I find it unreasonable why anyone else would want to use WhatsApp. Like, its owner doesn't use it for a reason that is bad enough to make him use Signal over his own messaging app which apparently "respects" privacy.
Sure as hell does.
E2EE isn't the only factor you should take into the matter if you care about your privacy. Who knows, maybe WhatsApp stores plain text in the drive. Maybe they send the private keys of the WhatsApp user to Meta. You don't know since everything related to WhatsApp is closed-source.
What about the metadata WhatsApp collects? Metadata is a much more valuable thing than you might think it is.
Signal proved to collect as little metadata as possible with the response they gave to this subpoena.
On top of that, Signal is FOSS. If you had the choice to use one, choosing WhatsApp over Signal would be retarded.
Plus you might as well use the messaging app from the original creators of the Signal protocol that WhatsApp came to implement.
And also, if using both of them didn't matter, care to give an explanation about why even Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of WhatsApp, decided to use Signal instead?
Why do not more people choose a matrix server and use a decentralized way of communication instead of committing themselves to this or that app/company?
Because most people they know use WhatsApp/Facebook/Instagram.
If I were clever enough to host my own matrix server I would in a heartbeat. Bridges to WhatsApp, insta, fb, etc. are game changers.
I found a server in the list I posted that was hosted by people in my area and funded by donations. I got in touch with them and they even implemented some bridges with that server. Now I am using it with a WhatsApp bridge, feels pretty seamless.
I'm not sure but I'm going to take a look. Thanks
Lol I've tried matrix before. It's really bad. And it's more of a IRC/discord alternative than instant messaging apps.
Not sure when you tried it or with which app but you can use it just like an instant messenger. It can do more like discord but this can easily very ignored.
I have heard that once it was a pain to use as a client but since I started using it half a year ago it felt pretty smooth.
I think you mean Signal.
Currently using signal but have been intrigued by some of the no phone number alternatives like SimpleX
Nope! Telegram because you know what they say in cryptography circles: always roll your own! Oh wait…
I mean telegram
Makes a post about messaging superiority by advocating for inferior app. Lol. Gotta read the room better buddy.
Why are you taking such a confrontational approach?
Original commenter and you give no information on what makes Signal better. Signal is outside of the topic scope anyway, but would be a fair extension of it. Instead you use an insulting tone and completely dismiss their approach.
And this shit gets more up than downvotes. Makes it clear this platform has group-think toxicity issues too, moreso than promoting fair and good-intention discussion.
It's probably no more or less confrontational than OP's question
The tone makes a huge difference.
OP tone is mainly confusion with an open question. They disclose their belief/understanding which they acknowledge either contradicts or puts into question the evident state of things they see.
I don't see how that's confrontational similar to the commenter dismissing their whole approach as a definite statement without points you could argue. It's a closed dismissal and in an insulting tone.
What makes you think they are similar? Or to what degree?
I don't know about you, but the tone of the original question come across very dismissively to me. OP isn't asking what they missed, why WhatsApp might be as good as Telegram. They've flat out declared the winner and are asking why nobody else is agreeing with them.
Seriously?
vs
We're not even in the same ballpark in terms of tone.
I can see your point, and agree with it for the most part. But they're still posting on Asklemmy implying it is a question or interest of reason. It also doesn't dismiss a person directly/specifically, nor is the tone insulting.
In regards to Whatsapp. If I were talking about signal vs telegram then this comment would be relevant but I'm not am i
Pretty much one of the last messaging platforms I'd try to use.
Wooosh
Bring that back over to reddit.
Brotha it wasn't a joke
It was a joke, but you appear not to have gotten it. Hence the wooosh sound.
Why does anyone choose Telegram or WhatsApp over Signal which is encrypted and audited? (Probably features I don’t care about, but they do)
Telegram let's you send 2gb files, and stores them forever. Signal has a 100mb limit.
It also used to be easier to set up on multiple devices at the same time, but I believe that Whatsapp and Signal have improved that by now too.
I'm not sure the file limitations are much of a factor when 100mb covers most files that would need to be sent through a messaging service. There are plenty of dedicated services for sharing larger files.
I mentioned it because it was an annoying limitation for me. 100mb is not a lot for media and zip files nowadays. And I don't know any good free services that will work more conveniently than simply sending with Telegram, suggestions welcome.
Why would you text someone a zip? I always send any files like that over email, I recommend ProtonMail for security but what do I know
https://toffeeshare.com/ is what I usually use for big files. But both sender and receiver need to be online for the whole transfer. It doesn't store anything you send on their servers, but that's a feature for me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Piracy tho. I can go to my telegram, search a movie title and click play and it just works.
If the file size is under 2GB I guess, which is ehhh
4GB if the sender was premium, which they will be.
I don't care if its 720p if it just works.
Tbh I'll want it to be decent 1080p
It often is.
That’s the point tho, it negates the need for dedicated services for sharing larger files
Why not use an encrypted service to send files though?
It's encrypted, just not E2E encrypted
A lot of the time the files i'm sending are game clips or parts of Youtube videos. i want good quality above privacy
Signal is based in the US. Better to use something that is not based in the.US.
As long as your messages are end-to-end encrypted, I don't know why you would care about that. It's proven that they do not collect any metadata that could harm your privacy and most of their stuff is open source. The signal protocol is a pretty solid protocol supporting E2EE. There are not even cloud backup options, so your messages can never be read from someone other than you and the receiver, unlike something like iMessage that has cloud backup option that backups your messages stored locally on your device probably in plain text to iCloud.
It takes just one FISA court order to compromise Signal.
I've been using Signal for a long time now, it was great until they ended SMS text support, then they started trying to turn Signal into a social media thing, I just want end to end encryption without having to worry about somebody like Zuckerberg having access to my texts.
Right?
Was going to post this :3
does signal have multi device synchronization? on telegram you can start to write a message on one device and continue on another.
one of the feature i use most on telegram is saved messages to send stuff between phone and pc.
this is pretty much the only thing that is keeping me on telegram.
I agree that signal is superior in terms of privacy but a lot of people don't care about that. And most people using WhatsApp DEFINITELY don't care about that.
This undermines your whole original post.
I never said you shouldn't care though??
WhatsApp uses the same encryption schema as signal.
I don't understand the love for Telegram.
In the short period of using it I had so much BS come through by scammers/spammers - both as DMs and group messages. I've rarely had that with WhatsApp.
In my eyes WhatsApp is far better than Telegram. And Signal is far greater than WhatsApp. The only thing I wish Signal had was inbuilt GIFs; it's not that much of an issue on mobile but it's a pain on desktop.
Telegram is more user friendly than Whatsapp, it's clients are open source and has a decent desktop app.
It's way better than Zuck's trash.
No E2EE by default though
And even when E2E encryption is enabled, they use some weird homegrown encryption protocol. WhatsApp is at least based on Signal's protocol, which has been tested many times by independent experts and confirmed to be secure.
Telegram is awful with spam. I'm constantly getting sent links to Telegram groups for Russian porn models who all pretend to be underage and spamming their Boosty links. I feel like it's probably part of some scam to bait people into buying something illegal and then blackmail them later. I don't keep it installed anymore because I don't need that sort of incriminating shit on my devices.
I'd delete my account, but I have a couple people who only use Telegram, but I'm getting close to cutting them off over it unless they switch to something else. I've reported this to Telegram numerous times, but these accounts keep popping up and keep managing to reach me.
Just change your privacy settings then.
It's either something about your phone number or your username. I've never had a problem on there
I've had way more scam calls, groups and texts on whatsapp than on Telegram.
So I definitely don't understand why anyone would like whatsapp.
With Telegram you can easily limit any communication requests to only come from your list of contacts while that is impossible with WA. The only way you can get out of getting scam calls is by turning on "mute unknown calls" and "limit groups to contacts" but the calls will still pop up and you will still get chat requests so you will have to block and delete each one of them manually.
Instead of just limiting all communication to your contacts like on telegram.
I believe the same settings are also in WhatsApp.
No in whatsapp you can't limit requests to only your contacts. It's only with groups. I've checked and googled.
Isn't it the same in Telegram? Interestingly, in Telegram it looks like everyone can send you a voice message unless you pay Telegram money to unlock the ability to restrict it.
In telegram you can restrict people from calling you completely. WA doesn't have that function.
And yes it sucks that VMs on telegram is behind a paywall but at least the restriction exists unlike WA.
Interestingly they don't appear to advertise it at all as a perk on the premium purchasing page.
How? I've been a heavy telegram user for more than 8 years now. Not a single time I have unwillingly been added to a group I had no interest in or been messaged with any scam message.
I know of privacy settings that limit these, but I have none of them turned on, because I have some people that might add me to important groups.
I get you, but I don't get the love for Facebook/meta/whatsapp
There's no 'love' for Meta, most people don't think in those terms. It's just that their platforms are in heavy use in many countries and you tend to use the method most common to people in your circle.
My older friends and family use Messenger and SMS, my similarly aged peers use WhatsApp, and my work colleagues use Signal. So I correspond across all these. I know the benefits and pitfalls of each but I can't influence the established communication choices of others. The only people i know who use Telegram are racist nutjobs.
Same but android development communities for me, on telegram
That's interesting I never had that experience with telegram. It's been cust as "clean" as Whatsapp for me
why did you enable DMs from random accounts?
Easily turned off.
I didn't enable anything. One would assume the default settings should offer a good level of protection to the users.
Interestingly I haven't had a single spammer/scammer annoy me on Signal. I'm not sure if there are any of these settings in Signal?
People don't choose, people use whatever most people around them use. Whatsapp and telegram are both centralized, and shouldn't be trusted because, by the nature of it, they can (and eventually will) turn user-hostile.
Messengers come and go, if we really want to make some progress in this area, we should embrace federated and p2p protocols as the logical evolution. Anything else is just wasting time and user privacy.
Matrix protocol messengers amiright?
I'd rather push for XMPP personally, the matrix protocol has been
a dumpster firein an "almost ready, trust me bro" state for as long as it has existed, and failed to justify its own weight and complexity. But that's mostly irrelevant since they are open protocols and can somewhat bridge with one another.I'm selfhosting a Matrix server and have all my Chats from other apps also bridged to there. For just text chat I don't feel like Matrix is missing anything, the thing preventing me from getting my not so technically minded friends on it is the missing support for good group voice chat.
It XMPP better for group VC? Is the option available to bridge Messenger like Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord, iMessage to XMPP?
Same here, but with XMPP in place of Matrix. For historical context, XMPP was invented about 25 years ago on the premise that people were already tired of having their instant messaging scattered over multiple protocols (rather than Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord, iMessage now, it was Yahoo, MSN, AIM, ICQ, … then), so bridging is very much front and center in the XMPP world. Over time, people also realized that bridging sucks in general (you either dumb down your client to the lowest common denominator which sucks for yourself, or your client isolates itself from the source protocol enough that it sucks for everyone else).
To add insult to injury, most modern protocols also forbid, by their ToS, the use of alternative clients (which very much includes bridges), and to the best of my knowledge WhatsApp, Signal and Discord will eventually suspend your account on this basis.
Matrix is still trying to carve a niche for itself in this space, and is failing IMO (judging by the quality/security of the bridges they have come-up with, and the recent libera.chat fiasco). I'd say that the situation in this regard in XMPP is only marginally better due to the fact that XMPP had a decade headstart to fail and try over, and I would not recommend using bridges on either of them if that can be avoided.
I'd say "it depends". Fun fact, Matrix uses jitsi-meet under the hood (which is XMPP + a media transcoding/multicasting component that doubles as a relay), and jitsi-meet is my recommendation for this use-case: as long as the central server has good bandwidth, you can really scale up your VC to many attendees. On top of that, XMPP has support for peer-to-peer group VC, with the benefit that hosting is simpler, it doesn't require any central component/relay (but the bandwidth cost is incurred on all participants and you won't go beyond a handful of attendees that way).
Good thing that I'm in the EU and the big chat platforms will be forced to open up their API to third-party clients soon with the DMA.
But from my point of view bridging with matrix works well and I have all my chats in one place. And for me that is the only reason I'm sticking with matrix as only one other person I know is using matrix directly. While it would be ideal to get everyone on one decentralized chat platform that is also rather unrealistic... so I'm doing my part using Matrix and getting friends on it when it makes sense but not actively trying to get people on there that don't have a good reason to use it. And using XMPP mostly sounds like it is just around longer but not that much better, so switching now dosen't seem to make sense.
Yep, if you are on either, you are fighting the good fight, so keep it up :)
And if you self-host, you'll find it dramatically easier to do on XMPP (that's how I ended-up here, after giving up on Matrix's shenanigans).
I will! It is a really nice setup for me.
Interesting, but I got past that hurdle... and I made it extra hard for myself as I didn't use the ansible playbook but instead created my own docker setup (own as in writing a docker-compose.yml myself, not as in creating the containers from scratch). But this way I understand the system and could fix problems that I had myself rather nicely.
You should definitely give XMPP a chance, but not feel bad about ending-up with whichever feels better: they are mostly fine, and largely preferable to the non-standard/non-federated alternatives.
XMPP is orders of magnitude lighter weight so that might factor in if you have associated costs to running in the cloud.
If you want to get started the easy way, go with ejabberd, it has sane defaults and lots of convenience (e.g. it embarks a stun/turn server to facilitate calling through NAT, acts as a ACME client to renew certificates automagically, …).
On Android, Cheogram is a good client to recommend for power-users, Quicksy/Conversations for those who want to use their phone number for contacts auto-discovery. Desktop has Dino/Gajim, (i)OS(X) has SiskinIM, BeagleIM.
Regarding the libera.chat drama, you can read more here: https://libera.chat/news/temporarily-disabling-the-matrix-bridge
IMO that tells a lot about the people behind Matrix and their overall attitude (I had the same "trust us", "it's gonna be soon, I swear!", "that was bad luck but it's gonna be fine!" vibes when interacting with the Matrix team members in the early days).
And to add to @[email protected]'s info about setting up XMPP here is a ansible playbook that you could use to deploy matrix: https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy
I would look at what you want to use it for and see if you can do that better with XMPP or Matrix. The factor that is keeping me on Matrix is that I have all diffrent chats with people on different platforms in one client that is cross platform. Here is the list of available bridges in Matrix to get other chats into it: https://matrix.org/ecosystem/bridges/
But keep in mind that is is against ToS for most apps, so there is a small risk of getting banned from other platforms. I can only tell you that I've been using it with WhatsApp, iMessage, Discord and Signal for half a year and am not banned anywhere. That is with running my own Matrix Server and bridges on a rented VPS.
For information about what XMPP can do you'll have to do research on your own as I don't know anything about it besides that google kinda "killed it".
yeah, as I wrote above, that's no different in XMPP (but probably much more secure and better maintained: till recently most of the bridging in matrix-world was leveraged by libpurple, which has an horrendous security track-record).
If you are getting into bridging in XMPP, I recommend giving slidge a try: https://sr.ht/~nicoco/slidge/
https://slidge.im/core/user/low_profile.html#keeping-a-low-profile
And yet it has hundred folds more users than Matrix :) XMPP is ubiquitous (it props up google cloud/nintendo switch push notifications, if your online game has a chat system with million users that's it, WhatsApp is using it, you have billions of IoT devices running it, …) so just like Linux it can't really be "killed" at this point as a critical piece of software infrastructure. On the user-facing side, things are alive and kicking with great and well-maintained clients (which is more than can be said about matrix, being a single-source implementation held together by a single company constantly fighting financing issues).
If most people used Telegram, Meta would have bought it instead of WhatsApp.
This is the best answer, IMHO. Also, network effects means that everyone's already on WhatsApp, so it's only natural that people use it more than Telegram
WhatsApp gives me:
1,2,3 - closed source app that has not been audited but you chose to believe that is backdoor free, ok then
4 - half true, whatsapp business is full of automated responses, not too many human beings there
Telegram's official components are open source, with the exception of the server which is closed-sourced and proprietary.
Telegram was launched in 2013 by the brothers Nikolai and Pavel Durov. Previously, the pair founded the Russian social network VK, which they left in 2014, saying it had been taken over by the government. Pavel Durov sold his remaining stake in VK and left Russia after resisting government pressure.
Telegram is registered as a company in the British Virgin Islands and as an LLC in Dubai. It does not disclose where it rents offices or which legal entities it uses to rent them, citing the need to "shelter the team from unnecessary influence" and protect users from governmental data requests. After Pavel Durov left Russia in 2014, he was said to be moving from country to country with a small group of computer programmers consisting of 15 core members. While a former employee of VK claimed that Telegram had employees in Saint Petersburg, Pavel Durov said that the Telegram team made Berlin, Germany, its headquarters in 2014, but failed to obtain German residence permits for everyone on the team and moved to other jurisdictions in early 2015. Since 2017, the company has been based in Dubai.
Smart, put your headquarters somewhere that takes freedom of speech seriously, just like…. wait, where did you say they were headquartered again?
Session is another good alternative that doesn't require a phone number
Yeah, I'm with you. Plus no end to end encryption. Go ahead and let Russia see all your messages.
Telegram was banned in Russia.
Stop spreading misinformation troll.
the guy who created it was born in russia... but pissed off russian authorities and i don't think he can set foot in russia anymore without being arrested
Most people don't care about privacy anyways so in this case I'd argue features are more important for the average user, which telegram has.
Well if that’s your angle, then the main reason for choosing WhatsApp over telegram is the first-mover advantage. WhatsApp came out years before telegram and is a very popular app in many markets.
I’d argue that not many people care about sending 2gb files either. In my experience, more people care about privacy when prompted than about sending 2gb files.
Fair enough
a) because it's what everyone I know uses
b) telegram is not end-to-end encrypted by default. And not end-to-end encrypted at all for group chats. That's kind of a dealbreaker. Telegram is one of the last messaging apps I'd recommend.
In my country whatsapp messenger can and will be seen by the government if there is a request. Have heard it many times. I don't think any messenger or anything you write is actually secure or actually private. We just came to terms with that.
It's also closed source and doesn't really specify the specifics of its crypto implementation or really even the underlying technology.
Edit - I was apparently mistaken or my information is outdated. MTProto is indeed open source, though I swear that hasn't always been the case.
It's open source.
It is open source, & they are also a non-profit organization.
Here's the source code
https://telegram.org/apps
https://core.telegram.org/mtproto
I didn't choose. Literally every single person with a smartphone in my country uses whatsapp so that's what I use too.
Why do people choose Telegram over Signal? Signal encrypts everything by default, unlike Telegram which only "encrypts" messages in a (iirc) secure or secret chat. Fortunately, EU is forcing all major gatekeepers' messaging apps to be able to communicate with other messaging apps. I, finally, will be able to break free from WhatsApp and use Signal. Uninstalling WhatsApp and requesting for a deletion of my account; a dream come true soon.
Why use Signal over XMPP and Matrix? Signal is centralized and wants you to stay in check, using their crappy client, giving away your phone number, and all your presence, social graph and other privacy sensitive information to a single actor (which can't be yourself, because you can't self host signal) and that has nothing to back it up other than "trust me bro, I'm gonna do no harm, but also I control all your communications under my own terms and conditions and there's nothing you can do about it".
Matrix was found leaking metadata, it's not like Matrix is bad or anything. But it just doesn't get the attention it needs. For WhatsApp users that do want better privacy and security, Signal is a solid choice. XMPP, by default with no configuration doesn't really have encryption and also, it has issues with metadata leakage as well.
For the average joe, Signal is a simple app that has privacy and security out of the box. Sure, it would be awesome if Matrix was widely adopted, but it isn't.
What Matrix metadata leakage are you talking about? Regarding XMPP, I am not aware of anything like it, and I suspect that this leakage you are talking about is just standard client-server signaling, where in federated protocols like Matrix and XMPP you can chose whom to trust (or self-host) whereas in all other cases your metadata isn't just centralized and consolidated, you have no recourse and knowledge about what's being done with it.
On the side of XMPP, OMEMO (which is XMPP's take on double ratchet encryption à la Signal) is standard across the board of all maintained clients, so you wouldn't be less secure there than on e.g. Signal or Telegram, so your take on XMPP's security isn't factual.
Huh, some things might have changed then. My memory is from around 2021-2022, so things might have changed.
When talking about messaging apps, you've to use the one that's easiest to use even for the most noob tech person.
Signal uses phone number, because that's how people generally communicate. It's easy to use, setup. No privacy nightmares compared to WhatsApp, or security nightmares compared to Telegram (where E2EE is not even on by default). It's open source, regularly audited and can be used on any device (no more proprietary green bubble nonsense). There's still a market for Threema and Matrix, etc. It just never will be mainstream.
My whole point was that between Signal and WhatsApp, none is intrinsically better than the other in this regard. Both are centralized and collect the same amount of privacy-sensitive data about you (your online presence and patterns, your IP, your network graph, the routing of your messages and their nature…), because they need that to function. Whether they log it (irrespective of what they advertise) is one thing nobody but themselves can verify and where opensource plays no role.
Matrix/XMPP are only better because you can self-host if you trust no one, or choose whom to trust, or change whom to trust along the way without incurring a total loss of your contacts, histories, assets, …
IMO, the sales pitch for XMPP/Matrix shouldn't be "we are better/more secure/more privacy focused by design" (and it's pretty clear that the tech-illiterate majority doesn't care anyway), it should be "with us, you will no longer have to jump ship every 5 years in avg. because facebook/google/amazon/some oligarch/… broke their promise/used their absolute power over your account to their discretion".
Signal is an installable App from an app store.. Where's your matrix and xmpp? That's why they use it over element/etc
Matrix and XMPP have plenty of apps installable from those stores as well, not sure what your argument is about?
Their names are not matrix or xmpp... It's not as easy as saying "Install Signal" is my point.
that's not even true, if you search "matrix", element is your first result, if you type XMPP, you get "Conversations", exactly as you would expect.
Which is a €4 app. Also, Signal is 4th in the results.
Yep, that's more or less how much WhatsApp was costing you before you became the product. That didn't prevent it getting millions of users.
XMPP arguably has some of of the strongest crypto functionality there is, it's just too dependent on the app to feel safe, since all of the vulnerabilities in these ecosystems are basically down to the client implementation.
Absolutely, and an argument can be made about captive ecosystems controlling both clients and servers. They also represent a single point of failure, so there's no magic bullet. In practice it's also not that different than keeping up with your browser's/OS'/phone's updates and XMPP has that for itself that it has (unlike Matrix) a vibrant community of clients and servers supported by diverse parties (commercial and not).
Because one is an app and the others are a technology standard. I can install Signal on my phone and use it to talk to people securely.
Where do I go to get XMPP or Matrix? Can I trust app makers to have correctly implemented the protocols? When it comes to security I tend to trust larger entities versus the garage startup.
While that's a fair point, element.io is the defacto matrix implementation and effectively the group that started matrix.
9 People don't care about encryption but care about custom stickers, convinient search, everything fancy that's not privacy
We don't choose which app we use. Our friends, family, and colleagues do.
I could live with Signal's functionality, but there barely anybody there.
If you live in the EU, somewhere around in 2024, you will be able to use something like Signal to communicate with others that are on WhatsApp. So you don't have to use WhatsApp at all to communicate with other WhatsApp users.
Wait, what? I do live in the EU. I'll look this up tomorrow.
Read this: https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/about-dma_en
I've been looking for a messaging client that includes multiple services for ever. It's still a dream of mine
Have a look at Beeper. It's promising.
Wait I'm stupid I looked it up and I had the confirmation email in my inbox the entire fucking time 😭😭😭
I have beeper now lol
Yeah I signed up for the wait list a while ago but no news
No it isn't. They have to make it happen in 2024
What's your source?
Here you go:
https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/index_en
And here:
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20211209STO19124/eu-digital-markets-act-and-digital-services-act-explained
I use email with GnuPG. Everything else is woefully insecure. BTW, I have no friends.
👀
WhatsApp became the defacto messaging app in south America over a decade ago. Sms was really expensive so people opted for WhatsApp which was cheaper over data and you void send pics at a time where no carriers allowed mms. Now almost all carriers have unlimited WhatsApp as part of data plans. Switching to telegram is pretty much imposible
WhatsApp was there first and it was useful in countries where you paid for each individual SMS.
and here you can send Whatsapp messages even if you don't have GBs left
Here?
Latam
It sends text to people. Even pictures or videos if needed. What more features would I need?
I don't know anyone that uses telegram. Whatsapp is just the standard, though many people have switched to Signal.
The biggest one for most people would be large files since you can't really do that on WhatsApp. WhatsApp images and video also get deleted after some time where as telegram don't
That's a feature that can be turned off.
Not for me, I've just checked back over 2+ years
Oh that's weird
so you use InternetExplorer? Because it shows webpages, right?
It actually won't show many modern webpages properly anymore.
right? and whatsapp wont show modern people anymore. even in the US the adoption rate is in decline.
https://99firms.com/blog/whatsapp-statistics/ (see 18.)
lmao what
Well, there you have your answer.
and you think that is an argument for what? the least digital country in the EU. so you are with me on that one. LOL.
It's a really simple matter of practicality. I can either use whatsapp and talk to people or I can install telegram and send messages into the void, because no one fucking uses it.
no. it isnt and you cant.
none of the next generation likes it. so stick with myspace as much as you want.
The perceived usefulness of a network, platform, or communication protocol increases with its relative adoption. That's known as "network effect", and network effect is at strongest for anything regarding direct communication - such as messaging platforms.
In other words: WhatsApp is used by lots of people, and this discourages people to migrate over better alternatives, like Signal (my choice) or Telegram (OP's).
I just roll with all 3 🤷
Telegram is worse than WhatsApp in terms of security. It doesn’t even use audited encryption by default.
Whatsapp is a closed source app. You can't audit it.
Still better than Whatsapp. Whatsapp doesn't even have an open client.
Messaging apps are tricky, you can't just pick what's the "best" because it's primary function is to message people, so the best app is what can do that.
If nobody you want to message uses telegram, or signal, or matrix, than they aren't very good messaging apps FOR YOU.
You have to start using the app, then start convincing everyone else to use it, and that's quite a hurdle, when most people you know use the "good enough" Whatsapp, or even just SMS, or iMessage.
Because it what the people, I need to contact with, use.
Half of the people I regularly talk to are on WhatsApp. I don't like it but that's reality, it's hard to get them to migrate because this means that people THEY talk to would have to do the same. Also a good chunk of them use rakuten Viber. Now why do they use THAT? It's bloated, ad-ridden, and buggy. Almost nobody I know is on telegram. In fact most are still using Facebook messenger.
Wow, I completely forgot about Viber that's amazing
As many have pointed out, it isn't really our choice, since we have to get along and use what most people around us use.
The only solution I see is if the government mandates every messenger to use a common protocol allowing all to co-operate.
The EU is actually doing this
Basically what you want: https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/about-dma_en
Though only for people in the EU. Proud to be one of them. I can now ditch WhatsApp and use Signal. Next month, gatekeepers with instant messaging apps will be forced to comply and find a solution to this till March 2024.
A step in the right direction.
Telegram has no end-to-end encryption for normal messages
Simply because everyone is using WhatsApp. And people want to use something that will let them be able to reach almost all their contacts.
Yet I do prefer & use Threema.
I know a handful of people on WhatsApp, a handful more on Signal, and a single person on Telegram who is a bit strange and thinks the world is a simulation (he's a hoot). So, basically I don't use Telegram at all because the only person I know on there isn't someone I'd want to communicate with anyway.
Most people don't care that it's owned by Meta. They just want to be on the platform everyone else is on.
What I'm asking is why is everyone on that platform already when they have better alternatives
Because whatsapp came first.
Yes, everyone I know outside the US uses it. If I understand correctly years ago in a lot of countries SMS was either very costly or unavailable, while WhatsApp was free.
Also, WhatsApp allowed people to send pictures and stuff. Effectively, it has replaced SMS, MMS, and MSN Messenger. There was a brief period where people would still communicate via Facebook chat on PC, but once smarphones became prevalent WhatsApp won the battle (except in the US, which is something I've never been able to understand)
Yeah I think I was paying €0.09 throughout a lot of the 2000s. I switched to WhatsApp in 2010 I think, when I got an iPhone.
Was WhatsApp ever on those late 2000s Nokia s Symbian phones?
People don't care what's superior, they care about if their friends are already on the app. And whatsapp built up that critical mass first, so it's the default.
Sure, on paper. Convince some non-nerds to give it a try. I haven't managed to. Therefore, telegram.
But the question asked wasn't "what's a good messenger" it was "WHY THE FUCK DOES ANYONE USE WHATSAPP????????" and I've been wondering that myself for the past... uh... ever?
Riddle me this - Some people's argument against using telegram is that it is not as secure as WhatsApp(which on face value is true because WhatsApp is E2E encrypted while telegram is not E2E encrypted). Other people claim that only hackers and terrorists use telegram and that is why they don't use telegram. My question is why are people like hackers and terrorists using telegram in the first place if it has worse security while having no upsides for these kinds of individuals.
Telegram is not E2E encrypted per default, I think it offers the feature if you start secret chat ?
Thank you. Forget to type that out when I was writing the comment.
while I have used telegram in the past, the association of it being used heavily by cookers and q idiots really just put a bad taste in my mouth
I use them all, but whatsapp prevails all, because Whatsapp was there first.
What's more important is that we know whatsapp is not the only device, and can be easily replaced.
People don’t care what’s better. Most people won’t try anything new if the existing stuff is not severely broken.
Why would I use russian whatsapp owned by russian Zuckerberg living in Dubai?
If anything Signal would be the superior alternative.
But as stated by other ppl before me, I use whatsapp because at least where I live almost everyone uses it and Telegram is for conspiracy theories and Nazi or russian propaganda.
In my circles, it became popular during the pandemic and a number 1 source of misinformation, with an unnerving amount of obvious links to Russian propaganda- covid related, yes.
So after seeing the extreme antivaxxers join the telegram train, and seeing how gullible acquaintances got "tips" from their telegram groups, I just couldn't take the app seriously. I understand logically maybe the app itself is better than WhatsApp, I understand this may be just my personal experience and that there was just as much trash on WhatsApp. But having my sane contacts using WhatsApp already and my family on Signal, I never saw the need to switch.
I'd love for something like WeChat to be a thing outside of china
(without the blatant violations of privacy lol)
Every person that i have ever talked to in my country use whatsapp and none use telegram
Here in Costa Rica people are used to using WhatsApp. Even after the terms controversy they kept on using it
Wow that's so lucky. I'd love that to be my case lol but it's all Whatsapp and Instagram
Personally I prefer signal, and that's the problem isn't it.
Cause people are too lazy to download a better app.
Telegram is my fav messenger too (yes I know Signal is great too)
False, lots of ways to have private communications
It's "false" that it's my favorite?
How do you use telegram to download stuff?
Even the military uses WhatsApp
Which military? Increasingly militaries seem to be using matrix (Element)
When it comes to person to person messaging, everyone uses what everyone else uses.
I have been using whatsapp for a long time. No onle has tried to scam me. Only received some spam or promotional materials.
Telegram is full of spammers. More than whatsapp. I
Number 1 is what my question is about
Whatsapp also has scammers
It's just as easy as Whatsapp if you don't want/need to look into more features.
The popularity of WhatsApp is /why/ WhatsApp is popular. That's just kind of how it works with messaging apps. The only reason anyone has WhatsApp is because someone they wanted or needed to talk to was using WhatsApp.
I don't know that anyone I know uses either.
Because I'd rather be spied on by the USA than Russia.
Not being spied on is not an option if you want to stay in contact with people.
Do you live in Russia? Who can really use that information to damage you somehow, the USA or Russia? If you live in the US or in a country subservient to their government is better to being spied by Russia on that case.
I've made this exact argument many times. As a US citizen Russia and China have no power over me so it's better for me to have my info there than at home. A person's own government may use their info as a means of direct control while a foreign government can't do that.
Fair lol
If anyone is going to spy on me I prefer that it is not America.
America bombed and invaded 2 countried that are our neighbours. We are still feeling and living the effects of the wars American thugs waged in the Middle East.
I prefer signal, all my tech friends do too. Everyone else I need telegram and even discord.
Because whatsapp was huge way before telegram came around and most people dont want to switch. A message platform is only useful if most people you know use it as well.
Because everyone else uses Whatsapp. I don't like it either but I need it for work so I use it. It is what it is.
I refuse to touch additional Meta products until I feel good about even ONE of the existing offerings. ZERO hits so far.
Because latin americans are way too brainwashed to use it. (source: i can't get any of my friends or family to use telegram)
Most of the 3rd world countries use WhatsApp.
And all of Europe basically
Not all but I was in Sweden for some time and didn't notice people using whatsapp
What did they use?
Personally? Because telegram feels dodgier than WhatsApp. At least I can trust WhatsApp enough around security. If I really want to upgrade my privacy or freedom, I would have chosen either Matrix, Signal or Session.
Funny how Mark Zuckerberg himself was found out using Signal over his own messaging app. Raises some suspicions, doesn't it?
It's not like you had any privacy with a messaging app that is owned by Meta to begin with for you to be able to upgrade it in the first place. When not even the owner of WhatsApp uses WhatsApp, I find it unreasonable why anyone else would want to use WhatsApp. Like, its owner doesn't use it for a reason that is bad enough to make him use Signal over his own messaging app which apparently "respects" privacy.
True, Mark Zuckerberg is using Signal, according to phone number leaked in Facebook hack
Not much difference because both signal and WhatsApp use the same protocol and encryption.
Sure as hell does. E2EE isn't the only factor you should take into the matter if you care about your privacy. Who knows, maybe WhatsApp stores plain text in the drive. Maybe they send the private keys of the WhatsApp user to Meta. You don't know since everything related to WhatsApp is closed-source. What about the metadata WhatsApp collects? Metadata is a much more valuable thing than you might think it is. Signal proved to collect as little metadata as possible with the response they gave to this subpoena. On top of that, Signal is FOSS. If you had the choice to use one, choosing WhatsApp over Signal would be retarded. Plus you might as well use the messaging app from the original creators of the Signal protocol that WhatsApp came to implement.
And also, if using both of them didn't matter, care to give an explanation about why even Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of WhatsApp, decided to use Signal instead?
Because he has a lot of nerdy friends that use signal? Same reason anyone else would choose one messenger over another i'd guess.
Yeah I get that. It also is dodgier lol. Some of the type of people that use telegram are hella suspicious
Telegram is only ever in the new because it's being used by terrorists and criminals. I don't understand why anyone normal would use it.
Because it's Zuckerberg free and has some actually good features like custom stickers.
no criminal ever used whatsapp...?
Because it's better than Whatsapp.
The quality and superiority of those apps can be ranked without even going into technical/privacy details.
Telegram
WhatsApp
Signal
every emoji looks much better in signal, except the screaming one, there WhatsApp does it best.
... and the ones from Telegram are just ugly throughout.
Using an emoji lineup to pick what service is superior is the most pantshittingly stupid reasoning i have ever seen. Jesus fucking christ.
Consider going back to reddit, I'm sure they miss your profound insights and friendly nature over there 🙄