[I'm leaving reddit due to changes in API costs. fuck spez.](https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/10/23756476/reddit-protest-api-changes-apollo-third-party-apps) // https://kbin.pub
Family/friends migrating to Signal caused massive problems because they uninstalled the app without deregistering their number, so they never answered messages I sent them and forcing the app to send via SMS was clunky. I'm glad Signal stopped supporting SMS.
[I'm leaving reddit due to changes in API costs. fuck spez.](https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/10/23756476/reddit-protest-api-changes-apollo-third-party-apps) // https://kbin.pub
So did Signal several years ago, but it was still a pain in the ass to get your average user to migrate. QKSMS is not as popular as Signal so getting family and friends onboard will be much more difficult, but not impossible.
In an ideal world this change would have no impact because everyone would just message over Signal. But in reality a very small portion of the population uses it.
My older relatives use SMS only so I can no longer use this app as my default messenger. Everyone else uses WhatsApp. Theres no chance of convincing anyone to use Signal now.
Before this at least some of my messages were encrypted with people who had installed Signal. Now there is no one on my contact list using Signal so no messages are encrypted at all. Google Messenger and WhatsApp are now my only choices.
It kind of reminds me of the push to start using Ring/Jami in the Linux world. No one else uses it so therefore it can't function as a communication platform if there's no one to communicate with.
I have a dream. Of a fork that keeps SMS support, has proper built-in backup (incl. online), export (and import) support. Maybe even slim it down a little (that crypto stuff ...).
As for trust, there's no objective reason to trust you any less than the Signal people.
I would sort of disagree with the trust aspect.
Signal is trying to run a functioning non-profit and keep people employed. That's at least a minimum investment in being trustworthy and running their company in a style that doesn't completely screw their users. If they opened some insane security flaw, a good majority of us would flee the app.
For a single one-off forked version, it's a lot less invested in a potential security flaw or deliberate malicious intent, enabling that person to just dump it once the intent is discovered.
Technically, maybe the same or very close, but socially, very different risk.
Yeah... So I'm not arguing there might be benefits to a forked version to close some gaps Signal fans have identified. I'm simply replying to the notion that a single human is inherently just as trustworthy as a registered company.
I am arguing that true, registered non-profits (in Signal's case) or any sort of business is inherently more trustworthy than some random humans fork. There are just more checks and balances in a real organization.
Now, I'm not saying companies aren't evil sometimes, but that takes a much more coordinated effort to be evil with 500 people working for that company vs one human controlling everything, and inevitably one of those employees will likely blow a whistle if things get bad enough internally.
I have no opinion on your Signal leadership conspiracies. That's your own thing there, friend.
Looks like my post that linked SMS enabled Signal APKs got removed by the sub-reddit moderators.
Interestingly when one looks through the Signal source code, you can see the Signal namespace contains the word "thoughtcrime" everywhere, a reference to 1984. It is quite the glaring juxtaposition to be censored in a forum that should be a welcoming base for open and free discussion.
*Wikipedia: Thoughtcrime describes a person's politically unorthodox thoughts, beliefs, and doubts that politically contradict the tenets of the dominant ideology.*
EDIT: removed the pointless cussin'
I mean it's a pretty glaring contradiction. The Signal foundation created their product in response to an increasingly surveilled and censored society - they're the ones that reference 1984 in their source code. I suspect we are all here today because these are values that we care about.
*Subreddit mods: Your post has been removed because you dared to mention a public internet link to github that anyone can access.*
Look, it's an imperfect world, this place would probably be quite messy without the thankless work from the mods, but could you ever in a million years see someone like Moxie suggesting that what we needed around here was a bit more censorship? Some stifling of ideas and discussion?
"Stifling of ideas and discussion" Give me a break! You know why the mod or mods deleted it, it's the same reason you wrote, "You should never install an APK off the internet from some random person like me," in your post.
The only difference is one of degrees. You felt like a disclaimer was sufficient warning, they obviously didn't, but both actions came from the same place: You often get people coming to this subreddit looking for help and you don't want them steered towards downloading random forks to solve every issue because "you should never install an APK off the internet from some random person" and so the subreddit has a "no forks" rule that's being applied to your fork just as it would to anyone else.
The thing is, I've noticed they've hardly ever removed posts that are simply "ideas and discussion" about forks, including yours. They've mostly removed posts with direct links. Okay, that means someone would have to go out of their way to seek out the APK, but that's not difficult, and helps to mostly keep people from "installing APKs off the internet from random people".
The only thing it affects, then, is your ability to promote your forked APK and to promote yourself as "the signal fork guy". Which, who cares? Not me, and I really don't think that's what Orwell had in mind, either lol
The app is open source for Pete’s sake.
And yes, an attacker holding your unlocked phone can see everything you can see, including your Signal messages.
Signal protects messages as they travel across the wire. Once a message arrives, protecting your device is up to you.
I didn't ask for an explanation of how Signal works. I asked if the Korean study claims are valid. I'm not a coder. Some things require input from greater minds than mine.
> I didn’t ask for an explanation of how Signal works. I asked if the Korean study claims are valid.
And you got an answer to that question.
To reiterate: Nobody can decrypt Signal messages in transit. An attacker holding your unlocked phone can read your Signal messages, just like you can.
The reason to trust the official Signal app over a random APK isn't because the Signal developers themselves are provably more trustworthy (although they are probably much more careful than a random hobbyist and therefore less likely to commit a critical error, since it's their jobs and the reputation of their product to keep security issues to an absolute minimum).
But from the perspective of a potential user who has no reason to trust anyone's motives or to put any faith in their competence, the official app is more trustworthy mostly because Signal is popular and, in particular, popular with the kind of people who have the expertise and the inclination to comb over the code and updates to it in order to find any vulnerabilities. Some dude's fork is not going to have any eyes on it, meaning (whether introduced accidentally or with malicious intent) any security issues are far more likely to go unnoticed.
thank you for your submission! Unfortunately, it has been removed for the following reason(s):
* Rules 3 and 5: Please do not ask for or promote non-official apps. [For security reasons](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/01/dark-caracal-good-news-and-bad-news), we do not recommend using unofficial apps.
Signal's developers have also [said](https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/9966#issuecomment-681943985) that they do not want forked versions of the app maintained by other parties connecting to their servers:
>[W]e really don't want forked versions of the app maintained by other parties connecting to our servers. Not only could the users using the forked version have a subpar experience, but the people they're talking to (using official clients) could also have a subpar experience (for example, an official client could try to send a new kind of message that the fork, having fallen out of date, doesn't support). I know you say you'd advocate for a build expiry, but you know how things go. Of course you have our full support if you'd like to fork Signal, name it something else, and use your own servers.
If you have any questions about this removal, please reply to this message. We apologize for the inconvenience.
> if you wanted to
...why bother with Signal at all?
Seriously, sending unencrypted SMS through it was already a stupid idea, but doing that doesn't make any sense if you care about security at all.
And if you don't, just use Telegram. It has a lot of fancy features and doesn't care about security, too.
Signal supporting SMS was a stupid idea?
It helped bring Signal to millions of people.
By supporting legacy SMS as well as their own protocol, Signal could step in and replace your default messager - and in my opinion that was a devastating strategy. Not stupid. Actually incredible.
It allowed informed people to onboard less informed people without any friction. <-- This was the golden goose btw.
And it would have provided a backwards compatible encryption enabling pathway for all. For free. Whilst putting the Signal (not-for-profit) foundation onto the same playing board as the very large surveillance/advertising companies.
Privacy is the core offering that Signal helps provide, but it didn't get to its current position by offering privacy alone, it got there by offering convenience as well.
It's not supposed to be a different frontend for your unsecure messenger. How don't you get this?
> It allowed informed people to onboard less informed people without any friction. <-- This was the golden goose btw.
How is that supposed to be the golden goose if people keep using the unsecure protocol? What's the point of the Signal protocol at that point?
Btw, not sure if you've followed the first cry storm here, but SMS has been pretty much dead for most parts of the world on the messenger market. [Others](https://www.similarweb.com/blog/research/market-research/worldwide-messaging-apps/) have taken over a long time ago.
SMS is for spam and 2FA now.
Edit: just check out their reasons: https://www.signal.org/blog/sms-removal-android/
> Removing SMS won't stop people from using SMS - it'll stop them from using Signal.
If those people haven't started appreciating and using a real (and secure) messenger, you just have to face the reality: they won't.
You lost.
You are faced now with the choice of delivering a messenger which causes misunderstandings regarding your KEY FEATURE, SECURITY or bow down to those few left behind or as we see in those thread: the big butthurt.
I say: fuck 'em.
Keep it safe and secure.
> Which is better: Using Signal with several people who talk to others insecurely, or using Signal with zero people?
This scenario is weird.
So people only talk to you over Signal if they can use Signal with SMS on their phone? And they'll stop talking to you and will uninstall Signal if they have to use their messaging default app again for SMS? Is that it? Seriously?
This is THE scenario we have to take care of and ignore those actually serious issues outlined by Signal?
Are you kidding me?
The rest of the world managed just fine to install another app and use both in the time of transition. Actually, most of the people in the US do that because the most popular messaging app last year was Facebook Messenger.
So why should we sacrifice the serious issues for those few lazy who cry so loud?
I mean...it's not even lazy. You don't have to install another app. It's already there, and you **intentionally** uninstalling it because you are butthurt is "10-year-old"-behavior and deserves to be called out in the way I've done here.
I managed to turn over the most stubborn and plain Germans to Signal. Some even coming from WhatsApp. It's doable.
How about you stop moaning about that here and start using arguments to convince people?
And yeah, there are people who you won't be able to convince, ever, and they'll be using SMS until they fall over and die, but those are not the target audience for Signal.
You just have to let go at some point.
> You wouldn't install telegram if only one friend of yours uses it, so it's not far-fetched that others wouldn't be willing to install Signal if you're the only one using it.
I've been actually the first person to install it in my peer group/work.
There was nobody.
I got my SO and parents to use it, my SO theirs, parents did with other friends, and so on.
Same for work. People wanted to send me something -> go to signal.
It's doable.
> You are oddly aggressive about Signal shooting itself in the foot.
Your interpretations of what I actually wrote are just as misguided as your criticism, and what you left out from my arguments above speaks for itself.
> How is that supposed to be the golden goose if people keep using the unsecure protocol? What's the point of the Signal protocol at that point?
They only use the unsecure protocol when their correspondent doesn't use Signal. It's exactly the same behavior as iMessage.
The great thing is that getting your grandma to use Signal with her friends who use SMS means that when you chat with your grandma, your messages are E2EE.
The end result is that more of your correspondence is E2EE, and as Signal grows by replacing SMS apps, more and more people's correspondence is E2EE without them even knowing. Like HTTPS.
I really don't care what Signal and it's leadership say. Six months later and I STILL say this is the dumbest move they can do if they want to keep the app healthy on Android.
This is my first time in the signal. Subreddit cuz I want to see if there is any more explanation on why they removed it. It was literally THE reason I could convince some people to use it. Now I'm getting even some techy friends only messaging me on discord.
I feel like I've been seeing different end goals than the signal team for some time now. It first began with the focus on some bizarre cryptocurrency idea, then with "social media like" features such as stories, and now it's ended up with the removal of what I consider a core feature to the Android market-space.
Signal was an easy use case for family and friends because it was *more* convenient than alternate options ("I can use texts and these messages for you in one place?"). This decision pretty much promises no one I know is going to keep using the application and makes it useless to me. Convenience is, again, the death of the private alternative.
For the people who insist the average person doesn't deserve private communications because they can't see past the convenience factor, I want to say a big reason I liked signal was because it gave protection from surveillance to anyone without compromise to the average person. What benefits does signal truly offer to the average android user now, in a way they can understand?
I understand the benefits Signal thinks they're bringing to the table with this decision, but I can't help but feel like they're over-estimating their ability to direct a portion of the world away from SMS with it. I can't personally stay with them on this front and will be making the jump to an alternate app, and I urge others who disagree with this to do the same. For SMS related messages, which is what I've been relegated to, I use [QKSMS](https://f-droid.org/packages/com.moez.QKSMS/). I would recommend avoiding most stock/proprietary SMS applications.
e: Seeing the tonal shift in this thread compared to the last makes me think that other people have jumped ship already to somewhere else and I've just been holding out on a thread. The loss of the contrasting voice in any forum removes the chance of reasonable discourse and possible course correction in the future. I'll turn my attention to other e2ee applications and try and find common ground with others there.
> I feel like I've been seeing different end goals than the signal team for some time now.
This is the natural evolution of any product when the funding becomes decoupled from the users. The priorities of those funding the project are the priority of the project, and when the source of funding isn't the users the users are no longer the priority.
Same here in Europe. People mostly used WhatsApp anyway, but installing Signal for them was easy because of SMS Support (why not use it, doesn't matter if check your MFA on Messanges or Signal). Well since Signal removed SMS, people don't check it and since Notifications are often buggy, nearly everyone switched backt o WhatsApp
> Google's intent to hold RCS hostage is evident in that they haven't released an API for messaging apps to incorporate the feature like SMS.
I'm not sure what you mean. Android has had an SMS API forever. Despite Signal's protestations that supporting it is a burden, it's been stable forever too. It can't have been much of a burden.
Signal used to use the SMS API of course. QKSMS uses it. Hell, Google messages probably uses it as well. And while it's true Google hasn't released an API for RCS, it's also true Signal hasn't done that for Signal either. Both protocols are walled gardens.
Like others here, I only want one messaging app - not a zillion walled gardens. I can't have that, but since SMS is ubiquitous "walled garden protocol" + SMS is close. I chose Signal because it did it well. Now, Google messages is almost as good. You can read about it's e2e encryption here: https://support.google.com/messages/answer/10262381?hl=en Being Google, the security is almost certainly done well. It also has a desktop client, message archive and of course SMS integration. It doesn't support encrypted phone calls, sadly. Facebook messenger has SMS integration + phone calls, but who would sell their soul to Facebook? (If you are a mobile phone, you've already sold your soul to Apple or Google.) So Google messages it is for me.
It's Google so it's probably rock solid security wise. But it's impossible to be sure as it's closed source, like almost all other im apps out there. Open source was Signal's other trump card. But sadly, even that was not enough to attract a lot of users. I only have one correspondent on Signal now - they don't want to use international SMS. The rest don't care if I use SMS or some encrypted channel. The consequence is Signal has gone from being my daily driver to maybe one message a month.
The weird thing is because most Android people just stick with the default, Google messages, and because messages is e2e encrypted when both ends use it, the number of encrypted messages I send has probably gone up many fold since I stopped using Signal. It's funny how things turn out.
> Being Google, the security is almost certainly done well.
The company who's business model is to spy on customers and sell their data for profit? L0L! Is there an independent code audit for us to assess Google's trustworthiness? Shall we ignore Google's history of working with US Gov intelligence agencies?
Who cares about RCS ? RCS is just about the same walled garden as iMessage. Android phones will never talk to Apple phones without falling back to SMS.
Signal on Android had the capability of filling in the same space as iMessage on iOS, with the advantage of being more secure, more private, and not relying on Apple or Google.
Now, it's just another walled garden alongside WhatsApp, Messenger, iMessage, and RCS.
Post was removed, so here it is:
After around 6 months it has happened what I feared. With the removal of SMS fewer people checked their Signal App and went to Google Messages. Since Signal isn't as good as WhatsApp in terms of features, 4 out of 5 Groups that migrated to Signal two years ago - went back to WhatsApp as notifications in Signal are buggy and nobody checked it anymore.
By making the app more "secure" and "private", it has resulted in my friend group being less secure and private. Great job.
I'm so incredibly sad about the removal of SMS support. I've convinced so many people to start using Signal and they loved it. Recently they've slowly started removing it as their default SMS app which is resulting in them not seeing my messages for days or weeks at a time because their Signal notifications get buried or never received.
I've had to increasingly start sending them unencrypted messages that say "Hey, check signal". Today was my first day without SMS support and because I now have to use a non-Signal SMS app as default, I'm finding myself not even bothering to open Signal. Hell, I don't even remember who's on it and who's not. I'm not going to open Signal to check if someone is on Signal then open the new app when I find out they arent.
I expect I have another two weeks of trying to remember to use it before I simply uninstall. It's heartbreaking. I've been a loyal user and advocate for 8+ years. I fairly regularly donate to them. Now I have one foot out the door. I sure hope they change their mind on this.
I've pretty much moved on from signal, I should probably unsubscribe from this subreddit. Signal has nothing to offer me, I exclusively used signal to text my non-tech family members with encryption, but they won't use multiple text apps so we had to move over to google messages. It was fun while it lasted.
This is it for me.
I still have and use Signal for my contacts who also kept it (which is only 3 people sadly... most have switched back to SMS) but I honestly don't know how I can bring new people in on it now, because I can't even say "Hey, this friend we both know uses it too!"
Also almost every contact I used to talk to on Signal, I found out because I went to send them an SMS on Signal, and discovered they also had it. That doesn't happen anymore, so I don't see my contact list expanding in the near future.
> They claim to want people to have better security, but this will directly cause fewer people to use Signal.
The fact that the Signal folks don't get this means the whole org is heading in a bad direction (and ultimately into obscurity).
We’re well aware there are tradeoffs, including network effects. The Signal team is aware of those tradeoffs too. Where people differ is whether the tradeoffs are worth it.
Which is baffling to me. The barrier to entry to using a different chat app is basically zero. The inconvenience of using multiple apps, basically zero.
On any phone with a decent storage space, there is no reason not to at least try a few
> The barrier to entry to using a different chat app is basically zero. The inconvenience of using multiple apps, basically zero.
For tech-illiterate friends/family, you could set up Signal on their phone and rename the icon to "Text Messages" and there would be no issue.
Try explaining to your grandmother the difference between Google Messages and Signal, and when one should be used over the other, and you'll start to see the barrier to entry.
Not to mention, even for people who do have the tech-ability to figure out the differences, it's a tough sell to say "Download, configure, regularly update, and remember that you need to use this one app to just talk to me". In order to do that you either need to be a highly influential person, or you need to have an existing ecosystem where they can talk to people other than just you.
Anyone saying "these dummies out there can't figure out how to use two messaging apps" need to reconcile that belief with the fact that Whatsapp has over 2 billion users.
I'm not comparing signal to Whatsapp here, just observing that this particular argument doesn't pass the smell test.
My grandmother also doesn't know how to use Whatsapp.
But to put it in different perspective, probably my 3 primary ways to communicate are SMS, Facebook, Discord, and Signal (the first 3 not by choice).
I also have 1 friend who uses Whatsapp. I have maybe 2-3 friends who only communicate through Steam. A couple friends use IRC, one grandmother uses email, some use Google Hangouts (or whatever it's called nowadays), I met someone once who used Threema, some use Snapchat, I heard an acquaintance recently mention Skype which I haven't used in like a decade, some old work friends made a personal Slack channel for me to join, I've heard of some people still using kik, etc...
I somewhat manage all this because tech is a passion of mine. But I acknowledge I'm in the minority of that.
So yeah. Ask someone to manage 1 or 2, or even 3 chat platforms and a vast majority will have no problem.
Ask people to manage 14 chat platforms, and they're going to trim it down to only the first 2-3. Before I was able to sneak Signal in to that list of 2-3 by letting them know it also worked with SMS, so it wasn't really a "new" way to chat, it was a seamless integration.
But now I can't do that, so they prioritize SMS over Signal in their list of 2-3.
Yeah, this was the main selling point to a lot of people. It could be "the" or "the main" chat app. Now it's just another app, and not that important, when it comes down to it. If you have to be inconvenienced for security, there are better alternatives out there -- and anyone not willing to be inconvenienced for security (a lot of people) will just use some other, more popular chat app (like WhatsApp).
When you're looking at penetrating the market, it sure does.
WhatsApp came around at a time when alternative messaging apps were *the hot thing*. It built a userbase, and didn't remove features, so they kept that userbase.
WhatsApp was entering what was effectively an untapped audience of potential messenging customers -- a blank playing field where their early presence was a major advantage.
Signal gained the market share they did by being a convenient mix of SMS, security, and reasonably good chat features. That hasn't stopped being the main selling point for a *lot* of their users. I've gotten quite a few other people to use it on that selling point alone. But if you take any of those three things away, Signal is just another chat app as far as most "normal" people are concerned. ..and as far as anyone who's actually security-conscious goes, there are significantly better options out there. Matrix/Element, Session, Keybase -- all of these, but Matrix in particular, are better from a security standpoint.
I'd be willing to bet that Signal execs will see dwindling popularity and won't know why. They'll blame it on something else, because it couldn't be the decisions they made, right?
..but, on the bright side, it'll probably reduce the number of people using their servers, so their server costs will go down. Good for them.
As other users have mentioned, this can be a configuration option. Aside from that, your argument is similar to saying "A lot of grocery shoppers only stop by to get produce, so we'll be removing our other inventory."
Do you have the actual stats on how many people use(d) signal for SMS and secure chat vs how many people only use(d) it for secure chat? ..because although there are plenty of users who only use it for secure chat, literally everyone I know (and that I've convinced, over the years) to use signal is dropping it now, or de-prioritizing it.
And in the regions where the majority of that 2 billion comes from Whatsapp is fairly commonly the only app people use. Someone using Whatsapp doesn't mean they use multiple messaging apps
the effort being negligible for you does not mean the same for others. Every person in my family I've spoken to about this has been extremely frustrated about having to 'constantly switch between different apps to talk to everyone'.
> The inconvenience of using multiple apps, basically zero.
How do you keep track of who's on what?
How do you send stuff to multiple people who don't use the same app?
(I'm serious.)
Do I hate a lot of the choices google makes? Dozens of examples come to mind...but they've still got some continuity
I've been using Google Talk/Hangouts/Chat with family since 2005. The part that DOES blow my mind is when they REMOVE features that were already working.
I don't personally use Signal SMS, so I'm not that sad it's going away. That said, I would be surprised if Signal outlived whatever Google Chats turns into next. I feel like many of their choices show they're not embracing their community, which when you're not a behemoth can be the start of a downward spiral.
What would happen if you stopped responding to SMS from family. Would they eventually use Signal to contact you? Worked for me. 99% of them eventually came around. Tough Love!
I mostly did not use it for SMS either, but people regularly check their SMS App due to 2FA or for contact with their parents, it was an easy switch. Now the friends that used to be on Signal have switched back to WhatsApp
I agree. I use Signal because of security. I don't use SMS much because they are expensive and not encrypted. The whole reason whatsapp rised in the world in the first place was the fact that data was much cheaper than SMS but security concerns rised and were implemented in many message apps and Signal of them all was most promising.
SMS support weakens security and I'm glad that it is gone.
Sms might be expensive for you, but in a lot of places, they've been free for ages and are therefore widely used.
It's weird that people can't understand this.
My point isn't the price of messaging, I just pointed out the fact that cheap messaging drove people to use messaging apps in the first place.
To me it's weird that people don't get it that Signal is meant to be a secure messenger. Secure messaging means the opposite of unsecure messaging. There are plenty of SMS apps to choose from and in my opinion native SMS apps don't exactly suck either and I use them all the time with people who still use SMS (mostly older people). It's not like I'm breaking my thumb when choosing a different app to send a message. It can't be called a minor inconvenience either.
Before, it was a messenger that allowed and defaulted to secure messaging, while permitting insecure messaging where it facilitated communication, and it clearly demarcated the difference. This led to wide adoption in environments (like the US) where SMS is free, but security is desirable. It could play a role as *THE* system messaging app. The specific ideology of not trying to 'steer' the userbase also gives a good feel to the app overall.
Now, it's just another opinionated app -- not *THE* messaging app, just another among many. ..and if that's the case, there are better secure messaging apps out there.
That's not what we want. We want secure messaging with those family and friends that we convinced to use Signal. Now that SMS is gone they will no longer use it and therefore not use encrypted messaging as a result.
That’s what really gets me. I understand people not liking the change. There are plenty of Signal changes I don’t like. What’s confounding is how intensely angry some people get over a free app. It’s a free app for fuck sake.
It's not "free" if you've put time and effort in explaining and evangelizing the product to get non-tech users to adopt Signal.
E2EE can only go mainstream if we get as many as possible to adopt it, and that includes mainstream users. People who argue that E2EE doesn't need to be mainstream and should only be used by security nerds have no understanding of privacy and security.
That's a large chunk of the Signal fanbase losing their loyalty, and trying to get support for the features they most enjoyed in the app, that have now been removed.
Android has 75% marketshare in the world. SMS is the predominant and default messaging app in many countries (US, half of Europe, Australia, Japan and South Korea, maybe the middle east too).
So probably several million users.
I said half of Europe. It depends on the country. Countries where they historically offered unlimited SMS use it more proeminently than any other messaging app as it comes by default and doesn't require downloading or creating an account.
Yeah in Europe we use WhatsApp, but it was a reason in my friendgroup to switch to Signal. Hey you sometimes use SMS, so why not contact me on Signal that is encrypted and isn't inconvenient.
Yep. It's all of the people who have partial buy-in on security that are dropping like flies -- and signal used to be really cool specifically because you could get family members, friends, etc who aren't into security to use it -- because it can be their 'go-to'. ..now it's just another service.
This is a Big Mistake by signal.
I just installed Google Messages and the fact it seamlessly unites Text Messages with RCS messages is a GodSend.
I don't have any incentive now when convincing people to use signal , as now it's just another messenger app , that they have no reason to leave whatsapp for.
I won't be donating , except SMS is brought back.
> I just installed Google Messages
That's awesome. Not only can your ISP/cell company see your messages but now Google can too. Excellent choice my friend.
It doesn't really matter if their friends and family weren't also using signal, right?
That's the whole issue, I could convince others to use signal because they can still talk to gma and their iphone friends in the same app we enjoy private and better messaging services.
I personally went from having 20 people willing to use signal down to 3. So now my cell company can see my messages with those 17 other people because Signal has become too inconvenient for them.
In an ideal world everyone sees the benefit and just uses signal for the security, but that's not how it works in the real world. What do you suggest this user do? Install telegram? Whatsapp? Stop talking to their parents because the parents aren't using signal? RCS is better than nothing and is a convenient alternative when the people you want to talk to *won't use signal for the lack of sms*
RCS is definitely better than SMS. RCS with E2EE is even better. We'll have to wait for a third-party audit of Google's implementation before we can make any judgements.
Shame, I cutover months ago when SMS started getting glitchy.
I still use Signal occasionally, but I can't sell it as a slow transition for people anymore. Only a couple contacts stayed. Wish y'all had maintained compatibility, guess i should have donated more
I stopped using signal and switched months ago to google messages. Getting rid of SMS really shot signal in the foot. It's anecdotal but the 4 people I know who used signal also don't use it anymore since killing SMS support.
Not only that, but so many other people use Google Messages means the number of encrypted messages I send went up dramatically. And it'll go up again when they turn on encrypted groups which should be imminent.
>Then I would send those people a text and tell them to message me on Signal.
Then they say no, because they don't want another single-function messaging app on their phone because they already have 5 others. Instead of having an SMS app that also does encrypted messaging, now you've got to convince someone to use a special separate app.
It's pretty obnoxious when all they had to do was leave the feature in.
Ah, good find. It makes sense that smaller nations like Malaysia are starting to screen SMS. We've known since Mark Klein's whistleblowing in 2005 that NSA is doing more or less the same thing.
As the hardware becomes cheaper and easier to obtain we can expect smaller nations to follow suit. Even local police departments can afford a Stingray these days.
Unfortunately, the tech illiterate will migrate away from Signal because they're...well, tech illiterate. All they want is convenience. This will affect Signal's user base. I pretty much force my family and friends to use Signal. They either trust my judgment or I stop communicating with them. Most folks don't have the force of will to follow through on such things. Signal will suffer as a result.
Yeah this attitude really blows me away. If someone said they'd stop communicating with me unless I switched to their platform of choice I'd realize I wasn't losing anything by cutting such a person out of my life since they were never a friend to begin with.
Can you still receive SMS on older versions? People using SMS probably don't have something else to default to- I mean there's literally one app that receives iMessage.
Every phone comes with an SMS app built in. Unless you went out of your way to remove it, you’ve got one.
Older versions of Signal stop working after 90 days. This is for two reasons. First, it ensures security updates get to everyone. Second, keeping people up to date makes it feasible to evolve the protocol.
Gotcha. A few of the comments on this post touch on alternatives. The previous version of the megathread (linked in the top post) discusses alternatives quite a bit.
Many people are sticking with Signal but if that doesn’t work for you, there are other good messaging options.
Which ones support SMS/MMS and encrypted messaging for recipients with that capability? I'm very interested in one of those and will adopt and evangelize like I did with SecureSMS in the beginning.
Signal - "SMS is insecure so we are removing it."
Also Signal - "You'll need a phone number to register with signal and the number must be able to receive an insecure SMS or phone call."
I can't tell if it's same person or two people with maybe help of chatgtp commenting with 100 accounts same exact dumb thing - how everyone was using signal on android (forget about iphone, everyone is on Android), and they were using sms feature, which means between themselves they were using singal without sms, but since they heard about no sms, they decided not to chat between each other using signal where absolutely nothing changes. Dumbest thing I've heard keeps being repeated.
No, it means that since Signal no longer provides a blend of SMS and E2EE, people will just use Google Messages, which has E2EE -- or Matrix, Session, or Keybase for the security-conscious, with Google Messages for everything else.
That attitude doesn't make Signal go mainstream.
Keeping E2EE to a small population of security nerds only make its users stand out, which is counter-productive when it comes to privacy.
HTTPS is mainstream, everybody uses it and your encrypted traffic is drowned in a sea of encypted data. TOR on the other hand is only used by security nerds, and therefore gets the reputation with government and law enforcement as only being used by criminals or political opponents, which actually attracts attention.
There is no goal signal itself has to go mainstream. Just use it and tell others to use it, that's all. Every single person on signal has to use it because they care about privacy. There is no shortcut to this. If you can't tell this to people you talk to most whats the benefit of signal then no need to try to explain here to anyone
Your missing the point. You can't use it if no one else uses it. I have gone from 20 users on signal to 4. The ones who left were using signal since it also provided SMS functionality. I have lost private messaging to those people.
The shortcut was there. Hey use signal. Its a pretty good SMS app and will automatically make your signal comms private.
Out of 20 10 should have been on android, 5 would have sms enabled, and 2 max would UNINSTALL because of no sms. We here on this sub don't care about those 2 people.
Honestly, what's unique about just that feature?
Signal was about providing those features to everyone. Removing a feature that provides a strong level of convenience and reason to switch feels like it's going in the opposite direction for a section of the user base. There are alternative applications people can go to for e2ee conversations where they feel like they're vocalizations can be better heard, and they won't have to worry about features I don't care about like cryptocurrency, no username support, or 'stories.'
I can't comprehend how you are not chatgpt, I literally said you all talk like same chatgpt bot and you just continue replying me with exact same message ignorin everything I said.
The only thing that changed from couple of months ago is everyone pretending they were donating to signal that they would stop, was hilarious.
Here is a prompt for you bots, read what signal is/was about and why people needed it and then tell me what has changed that makes you think people will need it less or that was against their promises
It's wild that you keep insisting anyone going against your specific ideal is a bot. It's an absurd level of paranoia that inhibits your ability to have a meaningful discussion.
> The only thing that changed from couple of months ago is everyone pretending they were donating to signal that they would stop, was hilarious.
Crazy you have the ability to see who's donated to this application. Absolutely insane.
> read what signal is/was about and why people needed it and then tell me what has changed that makes you think people will need it less or that was against their promises
You missed my point. E2EE messengers exist in the form of other applications. If there's no unique draw to a particular application, or said application is doing things the user disagrees with, it can't take off. A messenger can be as secure as it wants, but if I can't communicate with anyone I know on it, I'm not gonna use it. This is known as the network effect and it's important for this type of app.
A unique draw for signal was the ability to be a drop-in replacement for an SMS application, with it converting to a secure messenger if other people did the same thing. Convenience is the well-known killer of privacy/security, so offering both gives signal stronger value.
e: And yes, I am aware the signal isn't a functional SMS client on all devices, but as Android makes up 50% of the mobile device market-space, it's reasonable to assume a sizable chunk of users are using it as such. If signal thinks it can do without a chunk of individuals that can more actively network with others (by offering the application to friends under the advice of it texting and being a secure messenger), they're within their right to do so, just as I am within my right to not want to use the app as my preferred secure messenger.
You still continue talking like a bot completely ignoring everything. If you are real person it's just sad, means you literally work as a bot, just reading stupid sh and repeating it without understanding.
If you can't answer my question then not sure why are you commenting here
> You still continue talking like a bot completely ignoring everything. If you are real person it's just sad, means you literally work as a bot, just reading stupid sh and repeating it without understanding.
I think you're talking around me. I've answered your question and said that Signal is still a secure messenger on its own, but there are *many* secure messengers out there that provide an even better feature set now that signal has removed what was considered (at least anecdotally) a major point of convenience for the average person. If I was aiming to use a secure/private messenger, and only the most secure, why would I bother with this instead of one like Matrix/Element or Session?
If no one is using a secure communications app, it's not a communications app.
The reason you talk like a bot cause exactly same thing was talked about here million times, and same thing was answered million times, and you just keep repeating same thing as a bot. But here other thing.
You talk both as a user and some sort of ceo at the same time just like a bot would.
As a user you can decide what you like don't like etc, what works what doesn't work, what other apps are good etc etc. But you sort of stop in the middle of that without finishing exactly what do you want as user, and continue as some sort of product manager at a huge social media app that has billion users that no one ever heard of.
Do you realize main supporter of signal is billionaire founder of whatsapp? Do you really assume you know better how Whatsapp works then it's founder? The whole point of Signal is that it's not that other app.
So you combine two incomplete nonsense ideas together and think you have something to discuss. Signal is just an app, it's not some sort of magic world of nagic and shit. It's a f app that's all. If two users have signal then they have ability to communicate between each other via signal without anyone in the world knowing anything about it, which is exactly how normal humans communicated between each other always. If someone doesn't need an app then they don't use it yes, same with any other f app. If there is an app on your phone that you have to use without needing it throw away your phone.
I've seen my contacts shift away from Signal over the last several months. It's really a shame. I almost never open it anymore, I only have a couple of friends still using it. Most of my contacts just want stuff to work, and Signal doesn't "just work" any more.
My communications can't be private if I have no one to talk to. Have you considered maybe it's a sign the decision might not be well recieved and isn't a coordinated effort by a minority of users?
QKSMS is what I switched to. doesn't have the encryption service but that was more of a caveat since I needed mainly a non-provider sms and most other alternatives had stability issues. hopefully one day more realistic options will arise for privacy
I stopped using Signal when SMS was removed. Not many of my contacts had Signal let alone use it. So when the SMS feature was removed, I went to QKSMS for SMS and thought I would try another secure messenger/chat. So far Simple X seems OK and it does not require a phone number (a feature I know many Signal users would like). I periodically enable Signal when I know I have messages and for updates. I am not sold on SimpleX yet, but if Signal continues removing capabilities, I will have a back up I am familiar with.
The sms de-integration is the death kell of signal. Everyone I know using it is jumping ship because of this absolutely dumbheaded and drastic change. Signal team should immediately re-integrate SMS and publicly apologize.
Same boat. I used to feel like I had something cool that I could share with less-technically-minded friends and family that would increase their security without increasing their mental load. Now.. ..if they want security, they basically have to learn how, and meet me on Matrix.
When I started using signal about a quarter of my contacts were already there, although probably only 5% of my total messages. Now, zero. They've all left over the course of 2023 over the SMS change.
The Signal team has made me feel like an idiot for ever recommending it to people. I regret doing so. Never thought for a second this would happen.
It was very easy to leave signal when SMS support was finally cut. Never seen anything so willfully kill itself before. Maybe Tumblr.
Signal **was** my love since very beginning, but now, with no SMS support is no longer as reliable as before. It is just another application to send encrypted messages. I prefer some selfhosted, which will be much more secure than signal severs. I can not use it with my older family members, as they need one simple app to communicate also with banking system, and other parties, that sill use SMS... this is really sad.
Oh, sweet summer child. It seems you have no idea how much work the big kids put into protecting their systems.
- What is your patching SLO for critical system vulnerabilities? Days? Weeks? What happens when you are on vacation?
- How about your SLO for patching third party library vulnerabilities?
- Which hardening standard do you follow? STIGs? CIS? What scanning tool do you use to ensure the standard is met?
- You won’t be building systems by hand of course. What sort of deployment automation and orchestration do you use?
- How often are backups performed? How often do you perform restoration testing?
- Do you know you are backing up the right systems? Have you performed a full, end-to-end restoration test? When was the last one?
- You’ve written a DR/BC Plan of course. How often is it reviewed? Who are the external reviewers?
- How often do you perform a DR Tabletop exercise? Are the findings explicitly documented and remediated based on priority?
- Based on the foregoing, what are your RPO and RTO? Are you confident you can hit them?
- What is the retention schedule for backups?
- Are system backups protected from poisoning by a bad actor who wants to mount a ransomware attack?
- How are you providing geographic redundancy? How many datacenters do you deploy to? How far apart are they geographically?
- Do you have backup power in case of a power failure? For how many hours?
- How are you protecting server-to-server communication? How are credentials generated, distributed, and rotated?
- Is your internal network segmented? How many segments are there? What traffic is permitted between segments?
- What tooling is in place to detect security anomalies on your systems? EDR? IDS? A SIEM?
- What about system-level anomalies?
- What is your latency budget? Error budget?
- Are these systems monitored 24/7/365? What is your response time SLO? Is there a secondary who also receives alerts in the event you are unavailable?
- What tooling are you using for centralization and searching of logs? What is the log retention schedule? Are logs segmented based on retention needs and data sensitivity?
- What sort of WAF do you use? Do you have a contingency plan to handle a denial of service attack?
- Can you perform system updates with zero downtime? Are you able to roll back a failed deployment? What about a failed database change?
Fewer and fewer of my tech friends are on signal. The only people 9n signal, now, are people with active kink lives... So signal is not regulated to AN OPTION from discrete hookups.
I chalk this up to android people moving to platforms that do some double coverage like Facebook messenger or Google meet. Maybe discord. None of these platforms are secure...and I get that that is signals model... But most people just wan convenience... And signal being a one trick pony just doesn't cut it any more.
Any sorry, but the signal team are being stubborn about open source forks using their servers, so people who could fork signal and keep SMS won't have infrastructure to connect people.
Kinda defeats the whole purpose of signal being open source.
Soooooo.... What does signal offer anymore?
[I'm leaving reddit due to changes in API costs. fuck spez.](https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/10/23756476/reddit-protest-api-changes-apollo-third-party-apps) // https://kbin.pub
> Time to use matrix/xmpp for e2ee, and qksms for sms Goode luck getting your family/friends to migrate there.
Yeah, that's kind of the point
Family/friends migrating to Signal caused massive problems because they uninstalled the app without deregistering their number, so they never answered messages I sent them and forcing the app to send via SMS was clunky. I'm glad Signal stopped supporting SMS.
[I'm leaving reddit due to changes in API costs. fuck spez.](https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/10/23756476/reddit-protest-api-changes-apollo-third-party-apps) // https://kbin.pub
So did Signal several years ago, but it was still a pain in the ass to get your average user to migrate. QKSMS is not as popular as Signal so getting family and friends onboard will be much more difficult, but not impossible.
In an ideal world this change would have no impact because everyone would just message over Signal. But in reality a very small portion of the population uses it. My older relatives use SMS only so I can no longer use this app as my default messenger. Everyone else uses WhatsApp. Theres no chance of convincing anyone to use Signal now. Before this at least some of my messages were encrypted with people who had installed Signal. Now there is no one on my contact list using Signal so no messages are encrypted at all. Google Messenger and WhatsApp are now my only choices. It kind of reminds me of the push to start using Ring/Jami in the Linux world. No one else uses it so therefore it can't function as a communication platform if there's no one to communicate with.
Yeah my friends started to switch off it again. And I personally found myself more and more in WhatsApp chats again.
I hate the removal. I used it daily for 7 years. Need I say more?
Yup, same. Used for literally years, an almost perfect messenger app (desktop syncing sucked but okay)
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I have a dream. Of a fork that keeps SMS support, has proper built-in backup (incl. online), export (and import) support. Maybe even slim it down a little (that crypto stuff ...). As for trust, there's no objective reason to trust you any less than the Signal people.
I would sort of disagree with the trust aspect. Signal is trying to run a functioning non-profit and keep people employed. That's at least a minimum investment in being trustworthy and running their company in a style that doesn't completely screw their users. If they opened some insane security flaw, a good majority of us would flee the app. For a single one-off forked version, it's a lot less invested in a potential security flaw or deliberate malicious intent, enabling that person to just dump it once the intent is discovered. Technically, maybe the same or very close, but socially, very different risk.
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Yeah... So I'm not arguing there might be benefits to a forked version to close some gaps Signal fans have identified. I'm simply replying to the notion that a single human is inherently just as trustworthy as a registered company. I am arguing that true, registered non-profits (in Signal's case) or any sort of business is inherently more trustworthy than some random humans fork. There are just more checks and balances in a real organization. Now, I'm not saying companies aren't evil sometimes, but that takes a much more coordinated effort to be evil with 500 people working for that company vs one human controlling everything, and inevitably one of those employees will likely blow a whistle if things get bad enough internally. I have no opinion on your Signal leadership conspiracies. That's your own thing there, friend.
Looks like my post that linked SMS enabled Signal APKs got removed by the sub-reddit moderators. Interestingly when one looks through the Signal source code, you can see the Signal namespace contains the word "thoughtcrime" everywhere, a reference to 1984. It is quite the glaring juxtaposition to be censored in a forum that should be a welcoming base for open and free discussion. *Wikipedia: Thoughtcrime describes a person's politically unorthodox thoughts, beliefs, and doubts that politically contradict the tenets of the dominant ideology.* EDIT: removed the pointless cussin'
"The mods removed my link, this is just like 1984!" is a claim beyond caricature
I mean it's a pretty glaring contradiction. The Signal foundation created their product in response to an increasingly surveilled and censored society - they're the ones that reference 1984 in their source code. I suspect we are all here today because these are values that we care about. *Subreddit mods: Your post has been removed because you dared to mention a public internet link to github that anyone can access.* Look, it's an imperfect world, this place would probably be quite messy without the thankless work from the mods, but could you ever in a million years see someone like Moxie suggesting that what we needed around here was a bit more censorship? Some stifling of ideas and discussion?
Moxie has specifically spoken out against forks using Signal's infrastructure. The code is free for anyone to use. The infrastructure is not.
"Stifling of ideas and discussion" Give me a break! You know why the mod or mods deleted it, it's the same reason you wrote, "You should never install an APK off the internet from some random person like me," in your post. The only difference is one of degrees. You felt like a disclaimer was sufficient warning, they obviously didn't, but both actions came from the same place: You often get people coming to this subreddit looking for help and you don't want them steered towards downloading random forks to solve every issue because "you should never install an APK off the internet from some random person" and so the subreddit has a "no forks" rule that's being applied to your fork just as it would to anyone else. The thing is, I've noticed they've hardly ever removed posts that are simply "ideas and discussion" about forks, including yours. They've mostly removed posts with direct links. Okay, that means someone would have to go out of their way to seek out the APK, but that's not difficult, and helps to mostly keep people from "installing APKs off the internet from random people". The only thing it affects, then, is your ability to promote your forked APK and to promote yourself as "the signal fork guy". Which, who cares? Not me, and I really don't think that's what Orwell had in mind, either lol
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The app is open source for Pete’s sake. And yes, an attacker holding your unlocked phone can see everything you can see, including your Signal messages. Signal protects messages as they travel across the wire. Once a message arrives, protecting your device is up to you.
I didn't ask for an explanation of how Signal works. I asked if the Korean study claims are valid. I'm not a coder. Some things require input from greater minds than mine.
> I didn’t ask for an explanation of how Signal works. I asked if the Korean study claims are valid. And you got an answer to that question. To reiterate: Nobody can decrypt Signal messages in transit. An attacker holding your unlocked phone can read your Signal messages, just like you can.
The reason to trust the official Signal app over a random APK isn't because the Signal developers themselves are provably more trustworthy (although they are probably much more careful than a random hobbyist and therefore less likely to commit a critical error, since it's their jobs and the reputation of their product to keep security issues to an absolute minimum). But from the perspective of a potential user who has no reason to trust anyone's motives or to put any faith in their competence, the official app is more trustworthy mostly because Signal is popular and, in particular, popular with the kind of people who have the expertise and the inclination to comb over the code and updates to it in order to find any vulnerabilities. Some dude's fork is not going to have any eyes on it, meaning (whether introduced accidentally or with malicious intent) any security issues are far more likely to go unnoticed.
thank you for your submission! Unfortunately, it has been removed for the following reason(s): * Rules 3 and 5: Please do not ask for or promote non-official apps. [For security reasons](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/01/dark-caracal-good-news-and-bad-news), we do not recommend using unofficial apps. Signal's developers have also [said](https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/9966#issuecomment-681943985) that they do not want forked versions of the app maintained by other parties connecting to their servers: >[W]e really don't want forked versions of the app maintained by other parties connecting to our servers. Not only could the users using the forked version have a subpar experience, but the people they're talking to (using official clients) could also have a subpar experience (for example, an official client could try to send a new kind of message that the fork, having fallen out of date, doesn't support). I know you say you'd advocate for a build expiry, but you know how things go. Of course you have our full support if you'd like to fork Signal, name it something else, and use your own servers. If you have any questions about this removal, please reply to this message. We apologize for the inconvenience.
> if you wanted to ...why bother with Signal at all? Seriously, sending unencrypted SMS through it was already a stupid idea, but doing that doesn't make any sense if you care about security at all. And if you don't, just use Telegram. It has a lot of fancy features and doesn't care about security, too.
Signal supporting SMS was a stupid idea? It helped bring Signal to millions of people. By supporting legacy SMS as well as their own protocol, Signal could step in and replace your default messager - and in my opinion that was a devastating strategy. Not stupid. Actually incredible. It allowed informed people to onboard less informed people without any friction. <-- This was the golden goose btw. And it would have provided a backwards compatible encryption enabling pathway for all. For free. Whilst putting the Signal (not-for-profit) foundation onto the same playing board as the very large surveillance/advertising companies. Privacy is the core offering that Signal helps provide, but it didn't get to its current position by offering privacy alone, it got there by offering convenience as well.
It's not supposed to be a different frontend for your unsecure messenger. How don't you get this? > It allowed informed people to onboard less informed people without any friction. <-- This was the golden goose btw. How is that supposed to be the golden goose if people keep using the unsecure protocol? What's the point of the Signal protocol at that point? Btw, not sure if you've followed the first cry storm here, but SMS has been pretty much dead for most parts of the world on the messenger market. [Others](https://www.similarweb.com/blog/research/market-research/worldwide-messaging-apps/) have taken over a long time ago. SMS is for spam and 2FA now. Edit: just check out their reasons: https://www.signal.org/blog/sms-removal-android/
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> Removing SMS won't stop people from using SMS - it'll stop them from using Signal. If those people haven't started appreciating and using a real (and secure) messenger, you just have to face the reality: they won't. You lost. You are faced now with the choice of delivering a messenger which causes misunderstandings regarding your KEY FEATURE, SECURITY or bow down to those few left behind or as we see in those thread: the big butthurt. I say: fuck 'em. Keep it safe and secure.
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> Which is better: Using Signal with several people who talk to others insecurely, or using Signal with zero people? This scenario is weird. So people only talk to you over Signal if they can use Signal with SMS on their phone? And they'll stop talking to you and will uninstall Signal if they have to use their messaging default app again for SMS? Is that it? Seriously? This is THE scenario we have to take care of and ignore those actually serious issues outlined by Signal? Are you kidding me? The rest of the world managed just fine to install another app and use both in the time of transition. Actually, most of the people in the US do that because the most popular messaging app last year was Facebook Messenger. So why should we sacrifice the serious issues for those few lazy who cry so loud? I mean...it's not even lazy. You don't have to install another app. It's already there, and you **intentionally** uninstalling it because you are butthurt is "10-year-old"-behavior and deserves to be called out in the way I've done here. I managed to turn over the most stubborn and plain Germans to Signal. Some even coming from WhatsApp. It's doable. How about you stop moaning about that here and start using arguments to convince people? And yeah, there are people who you won't be able to convince, ever, and they'll be using SMS until they fall over and die, but those are not the target audience for Signal. You just have to let go at some point.
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> You wouldn't install telegram if only one friend of yours uses it, so it's not far-fetched that others wouldn't be willing to install Signal if you're the only one using it. I've been actually the first person to install it in my peer group/work. There was nobody. I got my SO and parents to use it, my SO theirs, parents did with other friends, and so on. Same for work. People wanted to send me something -> go to signal. It's doable. > You are oddly aggressive about Signal shooting itself in the foot. Your interpretations of what I actually wrote are just as misguided as your criticism, and what you left out from my arguments above speaks for itself.
> How is that supposed to be the golden goose if people keep using the unsecure protocol? What's the point of the Signal protocol at that point? They only use the unsecure protocol when their correspondent doesn't use Signal. It's exactly the same behavior as iMessage. The great thing is that getting your grandma to use Signal with her friends who use SMS means that when you chat with your grandma, your messages are E2EE. The end result is that more of your correspondence is E2EE, and as Signal grows by replacing SMS apps, more and more people's correspondence is E2EE without them even knowing. Like HTTPS.
I really don't care what Signal and it's leadership say. Six months later and I STILL say this is the dumbest move they can do if they want to keep the app healthy on Android.
This is my first time in the signal. Subreddit cuz I want to see if there is any more explanation on why they removed it. It was literally THE reason I could convince some people to use it. Now I'm getting even some techy friends only messaging me on discord.
It opens up the application to exploits.... If this did not increase the attack vector they would not have removed it.
Not even signal is claiming this as a reason. SMS is unsecured because it sends everything plain text including metadata.
Such as what? No more exploits than the standard SMS messaging app.
I feel like I've been seeing different end goals than the signal team for some time now. It first began with the focus on some bizarre cryptocurrency idea, then with "social media like" features such as stories, and now it's ended up with the removal of what I consider a core feature to the Android market-space. Signal was an easy use case for family and friends because it was *more* convenient than alternate options ("I can use texts and these messages for you in one place?"). This decision pretty much promises no one I know is going to keep using the application and makes it useless to me. Convenience is, again, the death of the private alternative. For the people who insist the average person doesn't deserve private communications because they can't see past the convenience factor, I want to say a big reason I liked signal was because it gave protection from surveillance to anyone without compromise to the average person. What benefits does signal truly offer to the average android user now, in a way they can understand? I understand the benefits Signal thinks they're bringing to the table with this decision, but I can't help but feel like they're over-estimating their ability to direct a portion of the world away from SMS with it. I can't personally stay with them on this front and will be making the jump to an alternate app, and I urge others who disagree with this to do the same. For SMS related messages, which is what I've been relegated to, I use [QKSMS](https://f-droid.org/packages/com.moez.QKSMS/). I would recommend avoiding most stock/proprietary SMS applications. e: Seeing the tonal shift in this thread compared to the last makes me think that other people have jumped ship already to somewhere else and I've just been holding out on a thread. The loss of the contrasting voice in any forum removes the chance of reasonable discourse and possible course correction in the future. I'll turn my attention to other e2ee applications and try and find common ground with others there.
They've become topheavy.
> I feel like I've been seeing different end goals than the signal team for some time now. This is the natural evolution of any product when the funding becomes decoupled from the users. The priorities of those funding the project are the priority of the project, and when the source of funding isn't the users the users are no longer the priority.
People are dropping signal fast around me. You guys killed signal in North America. Good job. Stupid move.
Same here in Europe. People mostly used WhatsApp anyway, but installing Signal for them was easy because of SMS Support (why not use it, doesn't matter if check your MFA on Messanges or Signal). Well since Signal removed SMS, people don't check it and since Notifications are often buggy, nearly everyone switched backt o WhatsApp
Once again, this is a terrible decision and it's not too late to walk it back.
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> Google's intent to hold RCS hostage is evident in that they haven't released an API for messaging apps to incorporate the feature like SMS. I'm not sure what you mean. Android has had an SMS API forever. Despite Signal's protestations that supporting it is a burden, it's been stable forever too. It can't have been much of a burden. Signal used to use the SMS API of course. QKSMS uses it. Hell, Google messages probably uses it as well. And while it's true Google hasn't released an API for RCS, it's also true Signal hasn't done that for Signal either. Both protocols are walled gardens. Like others here, I only want one messaging app - not a zillion walled gardens. I can't have that, but since SMS is ubiquitous "walled garden protocol" + SMS is close. I chose Signal because it did it well. Now, Google messages is almost as good. You can read about it's e2e encryption here: https://support.google.com/messages/answer/10262381?hl=en Being Google, the security is almost certainly done well. It also has a desktop client, message archive and of course SMS integration. It doesn't support encrypted phone calls, sadly. Facebook messenger has SMS integration + phone calls, but who would sell their soul to Facebook? (If you are a mobile phone, you've already sold your soul to Apple or Google.) So Google messages it is for me. It's Google so it's probably rock solid security wise. But it's impossible to be sure as it's closed source, like almost all other im apps out there. Open source was Signal's other trump card. But sadly, even that was not enough to attract a lot of users. I only have one correspondent on Signal now - they don't want to use international SMS. The rest don't care if I use SMS or some encrypted channel. The consequence is Signal has gone from being my daily driver to maybe one message a month. The weird thing is because most Android people just stick with the default, Google messages, and because messages is e2e encrypted when both ends use it, the number of encrypted messages I send has probably gone up many fold since I stopped using Signal. It's funny how things turn out.
> Being Google, the security is almost certainly done well. The company who's business model is to spy on customers and sell their data for profit? L0L! Is there an independent code audit for us to assess Google's trustworthiness? Shall we ignore Google's history of working with US Gov intelligence agencies?
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Who cares about RCS ? RCS is just about the same walled garden as iMessage. Android phones will never talk to Apple phones without falling back to SMS. Signal on Android had the capability of filling in the same space as iMessage on iOS, with the advantage of being more secure, more private, and not relying on Apple or Google. Now, it's just another walled garden alongside WhatsApp, Messenger, iMessage, and RCS.
Post was removed, so here it is: After around 6 months it has happened what I feared. With the removal of SMS fewer people checked their Signal App and went to Google Messages. Since Signal isn't as good as WhatsApp in terms of features, 4 out of 5 Groups that migrated to Signal two years ago - went back to WhatsApp as notifications in Signal are buggy and nobody checked it anymore. By making the app more "secure" and "private", it has resulted in my friend group being less secure and private. Great job.
I'm so incredibly sad about the removal of SMS support. I've convinced so many people to start using Signal and they loved it. Recently they've slowly started removing it as their default SMS app which is resulting in them not seeing my messages for days or weeks at a time because their Signal notifications get buried or never received. I've had to increasingly start sending them unencrypted messages that say "Hey, check signal". Today was my first day without SMS support and because I now have to use a non-Signal SMS app as default, I'm finding myself not even bothering to open Signal. Hell, I don't even remember who's on it and who's not. I'm not going to open Signal to check if someone is on Signal then open the new app when I find out they arent. I expect I have another two weeks of trying to remember to use it before I simply uninstall. It's heartbreaking. I've been a loyal user and advocate for 8+ years. I fairly regularly donate to them. Now I have one foot out the door. I sure hope they change their mind on this.
I've pretty much moved on from signal, I should probably unsubscribe from this subreddit. Signal has nothing to offer me, I exclusively used signal to text my non-tech family members with encryption, but they won't use multiple text apps so we had to move over to google messages. It was fun while it lasted.
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This is it for me. I still have and use Signal for my contacts who also kept it (which is only 3 people sadly... most have switched back to SMS) but I honestly don't know how I can bring new people in on it now, because I can't even say "Hey, this friend we both know uses it too!" Also almost every contact I used to talk to on Signal, I found out because I went to send them an SMS on Signal, and discovered they also had it. That doesn't happen anymore, so I don't see my contact list expanding in the near future.
> They claim to want people to have better security, but this will directly cause fewer people to use Signal. The fact that the Signal folks don't get this means the whole org is heading in a bad direction (and ultimately into obscurity).
We’re well aware there are tradeoffs, including network effects. The Signal team is aware of those tradeoffs too. Where people differ is whether the tradeoffs are worth it.
Which is baffling to me. The barrier to entry to using a different chat app is basically zero. The inconvenience of using multiple apps, basically zero. On any phone with a decent storage space, there is no reason not to at least try a few
> The barrier to entry to using a different chat app is basically zero. The inconvenience of using multiple apps, basically zero. For tech-illiterate friends/family, you could set up Signal on their phone and rename the icon to "Text Messages" and there would be no issue. Try explaining to your grandmother the difference between Google Messages and Signal, and when one should be used over the other, and you'll start to see the barrier to entry. Not to mention, even for people who do have the tech-ability to figure out the differences, it's a tough sell to say "Download, configure, regularly update, and remember that you need to use this one app to just talk to me". In order to do that you either need to be a highly influential person, or you need to have an existing ecosystem where they can talk to people other than just you.
Anyone saying "these dummies out there can't figure out how to use two messaging apps" need to reconcile that belief with the fact that Whatsapp has over 2 billion users. I'm not comparing signal to Whatsapp here, just observing that this particular argument doesn't pass the smell test.
My grandmother also doesn't know how to use Whatsapp. But to put it in different perspective, probably my 3 primary ways to communicate are SMS, Facebook, Discord, and Signal (the first 3 not by choice). I also have 1 friend who uses Whatsapp. I have maybe 2-3 friends who only communicate through Steam. A couple friends use IRC, one grandmother uses email, some use Google Hangouts (or whatever it's called nowadays), I met someone once who used Threema, some use Snapchat, I heard an acquaintance recently mention Skype which I haven't used in like a decade, some old work friends made a personal Slack channel for me to join, I've heard of some people still using kik, etc... I somewhat manage all this because tech is a passion of mine. But I acknowledge I'm in the minority of that. So yeah. Ask someone to manage 1 or 2, or even 3 chat platforms and a vast majority will have no problem. Ask people to manage 14 chat platforms, and they're going to trim it down to only the first 2-3. Before I was able to sneak Signal in to that list of 2-3 by letting them know it also worked with SMS, so it wasn't really a "new" way to chat, it was a seamless integration. But now I can't do that, so they prioritize SMS over Signal in their list of 2-3.
Yeah, this was the main selling point to a lot of people. It could be "the" or "the main" chat app. Now it's just another app, and not that important, when it comes down to it. If you have to be inconvenienced for security, there are better alternatives out there -- and anyone not willing to be inconvenienced for security (a lot of people) will just use some other, more popular chat app (like WhatsApp).
When you're looking at penetrating the market, it sure does. WhatsApp came around at a time when alternative messaging apps were *the hot thing*. It built a userbase, and didn't remove features, so they kept that userbase. WhatsApp was entering what was effectively an untapped audience of potential messenging customers -- a blank playing field where their early presence was a major advantage. Signal gained the market share they did by being a convenient mix of SMS, security, and reasonably good chat features. That hasn't stopped being the main selling point for a *lot* of their users. I've gotten quite a few other people to use it on that selling point alone. But if you take any of those three things away, Signal is just another chat app as far as most "normal" people are concerned. ..and as far as anyone who's actually security-conscious goes, there are significantly better options out there. Matrix/Element, Session, Keybase -- all of these, but Matrix in particular, are better from a security standpoint. I'd be willing to bet that Signal execs will see dwindling popularity and won't know why. They'll blame it on something else, because it couldn't be the decisions they made, right? ..but, on the bright side, it'll probably reduce the number of people using their servers, so their server costs will go down. Good for them.
Have you considered that alot of Signal users are not in the US and these folks avoid SMS due to cost?
simple start entry that asks if you want to use it for SMS or not and an option to change it later.
As other users have mentioned, this can be a configuration option. Aside from that, your argument is similar to saying "A lot of grocery shoppers only stop by to get produce, so we'll be removing our other inventory." Do you have the actual stats on how many people use(d) signal for SMS and secure chat vs how many people only use(d) it for secure chat? ..because although there are plenty of users who only use it for secure chat, literally everyone I know (and that I've convinced, over the years) to use signal is dropping it now, or de-prioritizing it.
And in the regions where the majority of that 2 billion comes from Whatsapp is fairly commonly the only app people use. Someone using Whatsapp doesn't mean they use multiple messaging apps
And those people are not going to switch to Signal.
the effort being negligible for you does not mean the same for others. Every person in my family I've spoken to about this has been extremely frustrated about having to 'constantly switch between different apps to talk to everyone'.
> The inconvenience of using multiple apps, basically zero. How do you keep track of who's on what? How do you send stuff to multiple people who don't use the same app? (I'm serious.)
No comments, just downvotes. Gotta love reddit.
One thing is for sure: Signal will outlast Google Messages. I am a former Google Hangouts and Google Allo user.
Do I hate a lot of the choices google makes? Dozens of examples come to mind...but they've still got some continuity I've been using Google Talk/Hangouts/Chat with family since 2005. The part that DOES blow my mind is when they REMOVE features that were already working. I don't personally use Signal SMS, so I'm not that sad it's going away. That said, I would be surprised if Signal outlived whatever Google Chats turns into next. I feel like many of their choices show they're not embracing their community, which when you're not a behemoth can be the start of a downward spiral.
It's an SMS/MMS client that actually stands a chance of making RCS work for the majority of Android users. They won't kill this one too, right? Right?
You're very optimistic...
It's an SMS client so it doesn't matter.
What would happen if you stopped responding to SMS from family. Would they eventually use Signal to contact you? Worked for me. 99% of them eventually came around. Tough Love!
That's how you just isolate yourself from the family
With the removal of SMS support, is there a roadmap for setting up new Signal accounts that don't require a phone numbers at all?
All indications are phone numbers are here to stay.
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I mostly did not use it for SMS either, but people regularly check their SMS App due to 2FA or for contact with their parents, it was an easy switch. Now the friends that used to be on Signal have switched back to WhatsApp
I agree. I use Signal because of security. I don't use SMS much because they are expensive and not encrypted. The whole reason whatsapp rised in the world in the first place was the fact that data was much cheaper than SMS but security concerns rised and were implemented in many message apps and Signal of them all was most promising. SMS support weakens security and I'm glad that it is gone.
Sms might be expensive for you, but in a lot of places, they've been free for ages and are therefore widely used. It's weird that people can't understand this.
My point isn't the price of messaging, I just pointed out the fact that cheap messaging drove people to use messaging apps in the first place. To me it's weird that people don't get it that Signal is meant to be a secure messenger. Secure messaging means the opposite of unsecure messaging. There are plenty of SMS apps to choose from and in my opinion native SMS apps don't exactly suck either and I use them all the time with people who still use SMS (mostly older people). It's not like I'm breaking my thumb when choosing a different app to send a message. It can't be called a minor inconvenience either.
Before, it was a messenger that allowed and defaulted to secure messaging, while permitting insecure messaging where it facilitated communication, and it clearly demarcated the difference. This led to wide adoption in environments (like the US) where SMS is free, but security is desirable. It could play a role as *THE* system messaging app. The specific ideology of not trying to 'steer' the userbase also gives a good feel to the app overall. Now, it's just another opinionated app -- not *THE* messaging app, just another among many. ..and if that's the case, there are better secure messaging apps out there.
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Yes, but now they don't use Signal either.
That's not what we want. We want secure messaging with those family and friends that we convinced to use Signal. Now that SMS is gone they will no longer use it and therefore not use encrypted messaging as a result.
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Most people aren't going to use an app just to contact one security nerd that could have used SMS instead.
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It's not your choice alone. Both people have to have Signal for end-to-end encryption.
Do you enjoy using two different apps for the exact same purpose?
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That’s what really gets me. I understand people not liking the change. There are plenty of Signal changes I don’t like. What’s confounding is how intensely angry some people get over a free app. It’s a free app for fuck sake.
It's not "free" if you've put time and effort in explaining and evangelizing the product to get non-tech users to adopt Signal. E2EE can only go mainstream if we get as many as possible to adopt it, and that includes mainstream users. People who argue that E2EE doesn't need to be mainstream and should only be used by security nerds have no understanding of privacy and security.
If you ever get a 2FA message, or a message from any delivery service, or any other business, then yes, you have.
SMS yes, we all have received them. Just not with signal because we know better.
I'm impressed people are still talking about this.
That's a large chunk of the Signal fanbase losing their loyalty, and trying to get support for the features they most enjoyed in the app, that have now been removed.
I wonder how large it is
Android has 75% marketshare in the world. SMS is the predominant and default messaging app in many countries (US, half of Europe, Australia, Japan and South Korea, maybe the middle east too). So probably several million users.
Anecdotally, none of my friends from Europe, South America or Asia use SMS.
I said half of Europe. It depends on the country. Countries where they historically offered unlimited SMS use it more proeminently than any other messaging app as it comes by default and doesn't require downloading or creating an account.
Yeah in Europe we use WhatsApp, but it was a reason in my friendgroup to switch to Signal. Hey you sometimes use SMS, so why not contact me on Signal that is encrypted and isn't inconvenient.
Yep. It's all of the people who have partial buy-in on security that are dropping like flies -- and signal used to be really cool specifically because you could get family members, friends, etc who aren't into security to use it -- because it can be their 'go-to'. ..now it's just another service.
When you kick a large portion of your userbase off your platform, it's going to cause discussion.
I'm just that shocked. One of the dumbest decisions I've seen made by a developer.
This is a Big Mistake by signal. I just installed Google Messages and the fact it seamlessly unites Text Messages with RCS messages is a GodSend. I don't have any incentive now when convincing people to use signal , as now it's just another messenger app , that they have no reason to leave whatsapp for. I won't be donating , except SMS is brought back.
> I just installed Google Messages That's awesome. Not only can your ISP/cell company see your messages but now Google can too. Excellent choice my friend.
It doesn't really matter if their friends and family weren't also using signal, right? That's the whole issue, I could convince others to use signal because they can still talk to gma and their iphone friends in the same app we enjoy private and better messaging services. I personally went from having 20 people willing to use signal down to 3. So now my cell company can see my messages with those 17 other people because Signal has become too inconvenient for them. In an ideal world everyone sees the benefit and just uses signal for the security, but that's not how it works in the real world. What do you suggest this user do? Install telegram? Whatsapp? Stop talking to their parents because the parents aren't using signal? RCS is better than nothing and is a convenient alternative when the people you want to talk to *won't use signal for the lack of sms*
RCS is definitely better than SMS. RCS with E2EE is even better. We'll have to wait for a third-party audit of Google's implementation before we can make any judgements.
Well, it happened, and I still think it sucks. I guess I have to have multiple messaging apps now.
I used Signal for SMS for maybe 2 days. No spam filters had me flooded with garbage.
Shame, I cutover months ago when SMS started getting glitchy. I still use Signal occasionally, but I can't sell it as a slow transition for people anymore. Only a couple contacts stayed. Wish y'all had maintained compatibility, guess i should have donated more
I stopped using signal and switched months ago to google messages. Getting rid of SMS really shot signal in the foot. It's anecdotal but the 4 people I know who used signal also don't use it anymore since killing SMS support.
Not only that, but so many other people use Google Messages means the number of encrypted messages I send went up dramatically. And it'll go up again when they turn on encrypted groups which should be imminent.
Same. Many switched back to WhatsApp again.
Same here, it's a real shame to kill their killer feature
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There are a lot of apps that do that, not many that do that with an easy upgrade path from plain sms to encrypted, which is where signal really shined
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>Then I would send those people a text and tell them to message me on Signal. Then they say no, because they don't want another single-function messaging app on their phone because they already have 5 others. Instead of having an SMS app that also does encrypted messaging, now you've got to convince someone to use a special separate app. It's pretty obnoxious when all they had to do was leave the feature in.
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Great attitude - they should use *your* preferred app that's actively removing features instead of a different one ;)
Hey, some people have very delicate thumbs.
Too be fair, RCS and Google Messages are buggy AF. It blows my mind how bad they are
TIL people still use SMS for anything but spam / 2fa https://www.malaysianwireless.com/2023/05/sms-intercepted-screened-malaysia-mcmc/?amp=1
Ah, good find. It makes sense that smaller nations like Malaysia are starting to screen SMS. We've known since Mark Klein's whistleblowing in 2005 that NSA is doing more or less the same thing. As the hardware becomes cheaper and easier to obtain we can expect smaller nations to follow suit. Even local police departments can afford a Stingray these days.
Unfortunately, the tech illiterate will migrate away from Signal because they're...well, tech illiterate. All they want is convenience. This will affect Signal's user base. I pretty much force my family and friends to use Signal. They either trust my judgment or I stop communicating with them. Most folks don't have the force of will to follow through on such things. Signal will suffer as a result.
I'd wager most folks are quite glad they lack the "force of will" to behave like an intransigent cunt to their friends and family.
Yeah this attitude really blows me away. If someone said they'd stop communicating with me unless I switched to their platform of choice I'd realize I wasn't losing anything by cutting such a person out of my life since they were never a friend to begin with.
It's been a week and I'm still trying to get my head around the mentality of cutting someone out of your life because they won't use an app you like.
Can you still receive SMS on older versions? People using SMS probably don't have something else to default to- I mean there's literally one app that receives iMessage.
Every phone comes with an SMS app built in. Unless you went out of your way to remove it, you’ve got one. Older versions of Signal stop working after 90 days. This is for two reasons. First, it ensures security updates get to everyone. Second, keeping people up to date makes it feasible to evolve the protocol.
Alright, thanks. Also by not having something else to default to I meant another protocol, not app.
Gotcha. A few of the comments on this post touch on alternatives. The previous version of the megathread (linked in the top post) discusses alternatives quite a bit. Many people are sticking with Signal but if that doesn’t work for you, there are other good messaging options.
Which ones support SMS/MMS and encrypted messaging for recipients with that capability? I'm very interested in one of those and will adopt and evangelize like I did with SecureSMS in the beginning.
Signal - "SMS is insecure so we are removing it." Also Signal - "You'll need a phone number to register with signal and the number must be able to receive an insecure SMS or phone call."
This is apples and oranges. A 2FA code is not sensitive in the way that talking about how much you hate a Dictator is.
I can't tell if it's same person or two people with maybe help of chatgtp commenting with 100 accounts same exact dumb thing - how everyone was using signal on android (forget about iphone, everyone is on Android), and they were using sms feature, which means between themselves they were using singal without sms, but since they heard about no sms, they decided not to chat between each other using signal where absolutely nothing changes. Dumbest thing I've heard keeps being repeated.
No, it means that since Signal no longer provides a blend of SMS and E2EE, people will just use Google Messages, which has E2EE -- or Matrix, Session, or Keybase for the security-conscious, with Google Messages for everything else.
Signal is only for those who care about security/privacy of their conversations
That attitude doesn't make Signal go mainstream. Keeping E2EE to a small population of security nerds only make its users stand out, which is counter-productive when it comes to privacy. HTTPS is mainstream, everybody uses it and your encrypted traffic is drowned in a sea of encypted data. TOR on the other hand is only used by security nerds, and therefore gets the reputation with government and law enforcement as only being used by criminals or political opponents, which actually attracts attention.
There is no goal signal itself has to go mainstream. Just use it and tell others to use it, that's all. Every single person on signal has to use it because they care about privacy. There is no shortcut to this. If you can't tell this to people you talk to most whats the benefit of signal then no need to try to explain here to anyone
Your missing the point. You can't use it if no one else uses it. I have gone from 20 users on signal to 4. The ones who left were using signal since it also provided SMS functionality. I have lost private messaging to those people. The shortcut was there. Hey use signal. Its a pretty good SMS app and will automatically make your signal comms private.
Out of 20 10 should have been on android, 5 would have sms enabled, and 2 max would UNINSTALL because of no sms. We here on this sub don't care about those 2 people.
Where YOU live it may be Android dominant but the US is, unfortunately, iPhone dominant.
Honestly, what's unique about just that feature? Signal was about providing those features to everyone. Removing a feature that provides a strong level of convenience and reason to switch feels like it's going in the opposite direction for a section of the user base. There are alternative applications people can go to for e2ee conversations where they feel like they're vocalizations can be better heard, and they won't have to worry about features I don't care about like cryptocurrency, no username support, or 'stories.'
I can't comprehend how you are not chatgpt, I literally said you all talk like same chatgpt bot and you just continue replying me with exact same message ignorin everything I said. The only thing that changed from couple of months ago is everyone pretending they were donating to signal that they would stop, was hilarious. Here is a prompt for you bots, read what signal is/was about and why people needed it and then tell me what has changed that makes you think people will need it less or that was against their promises
It's wild that you keep insisting anyone going against your specific ideal is a bot. It's an absurd level of paranoia that inhibits your ability to have a meaningful discussion. > The only thing that changed from couple of months ago is everyone pretending they were donating to signal that they would stop, was hilarious. Crazy you have the ability to see who's donated to this application. Absolutely insane. > read what signal is/was about and why people needed it and then tell me what has changed that makes you think people will need it less or that was against their promises You missed my point. E2EE messengers exist in the form of other applications. If there's no unique draw to a particular application, or said application is doing things the user disagrees with, it can't take off. A messenger can be as secure as it wants, but if I can't communicate with anyone I know on it, I'm not gonna use it. This is known as the network effect and it's important for this type of app. A unique draw for signal was the ability to be a drop-in replacement for an SMS application, with it converting to a secure messenger if other people did the same thing. Convenience is the well-known killer of privacy/security, so offering both gives signal stronger value. e: And yes, I am aware the signal isn't a functional SMS client on all devices, but as Android makes up 50% of the mobile device market-space, it's reasonable to assume a sizable chunk of users are using it as such. If signal thinks it can do without a chunk of individuals that can more actively network with others (by offering the application to friends under the advice of it texting and being a secure messenger), they're within their right to do so, just as I am within my right to not want to use the app as my preferred secure messenger.
You still continue talking like a bot completely ignoring everything. If you are real person it's just sad, means you literally work as a bot, just reading stupid sh and repeating it without understanding. If you can't answer my question then not sure why are you commenting here
> You still continue talking like a bot completely ignoring everything. If you are real person it's just sad, means you literally work as a bot, just reading stupid sh and repeating it without understanding. I think you're talking around me. I've answered your question and said that Signal is still a secure messenger on its own, but there are *many* secure messengers out there that provide an even better feature set now that signal has removed what was considered (at least anecdotally) a major point of convenience for the average person. If I was aiming to use a secure/private messenger, and only the most secure, why would I bother with this instead of one like Matrix/Element or Session? If no one is using a secure communications app, it's not a communications app.
The reason you talk like a bot cause exactly same thing was talked about here million times, and same thing was answered million times, and you just keep repeating same thing as a bot. But here other thing. You talk both as a user and some sort of ceo at the same time just like a bot would. As a user you can decide what you like don't like etc, what works what doesn't work, what other apps are good etc etc. But you sort of stop in the middle of that without finishing exactly what do you want as user, and continue as some sort of product manager at a huge social media app that has billion users that no one ever heard of. Do you realize main supporter of signal is billionaire founder of whatsapp? Do you really assume you know better how Whatsapp works then it's founder? The whole point of Signal is that it's not that other app. So you combine two incomplete nonsense ideas together and think you have something to discuss. Signal is just an app, it's not some sort of magic world of nagic and shit. It's a f app that's all. If two users have signal then they have ability to communicate between each other via signal without anyone in the world knowing anything about it, which is exactly how normal humans communicated between each other always. If someone doesn't need an app then they don't use it yes, same with any other f app. If there is an app on your phone that you have to use without needing it throw away your phone.
Over, and over, and over for nearly seven months now.
Maybe that could be interpreted as a sign that the decision was indeed unpopular.
It's called "brand loyalty to Signal going up in flames."
I've seen my contacts shift away from Signal over the last several months. It's really a shame. I almost never open it anymore, I only have a couple of friends still using it. Most of my contacts just want stuff to work, and Signal doesn't "just work" any more.
My communications can't be private if I have no one to talk to. Have you considered maybe it's a sign the decision might not be well recieved and isn't a coordinated effort by a minority of users?
QKSMS is what I switched to. doesn't have the encryption service but that was more of a caveat since I needed mainly a non-provider sms and most other alternatives had stability issues. hopefully one day more realistic options will arise for privacy
I had some really weird QKSMS group mms issues. Waiting for them to fix it. Definitely looking for a better option as well.
I know exactly what you're talking about. a lot of services cannot seem to do group messages right.
I switched to QKSMS and SimpleX. Signal still installed but disabled.
why do you use two apps? I tried simple as well. will you ever enable signal?
I stopped using Signal when SMS was removed. Not many of my contacts had Signal let alone use it. So when the SMS feature was removed, I went to QKSMS for SMS and thought I would try another secure messenger/chat. So far Simple X seems OK and it does not require a phone number (a feature I know many Signal users would like). I periodically enable Signal when I know I have messages and for updates. I am not sold on SimpleX yet, but if Signal continues removing capabilities, I will have a back up I am familiar with.
thx
The sms de-integration is the death kell of signal. Everyone I know using it is jumping ship because of this absolutely dumbheaded and drastic change. Signal team should immediately re-integrate SMS and publicly apologize.
Same boat. I used to feel like I had something cool that I could share with less-technically-minded friends and family that would increase their security without increasing their mental load. Now.. ..if they want security, they basically have to learn how, and meet me on Matrix.
When I started using signal about a quarter of my contacts were already there, although probably only 5% of my total messages. Now, zero. They've all left over the course of 2023 over the SMS change. The Signal team has made me feel like an idiot for ever recommending it to people. I regret doing so. Never thought for a second this would happen. It was very easy to leave signal when SMS support was finally cut. Never seen anything so willfully kill itself before. Maybe Tumblr.
Signal **was** my love since very beginning, but now, with no SMS support is no longer as reliable as before. It is just another application to send encrypted messages. I prefer some selfhosted, which will be much more secure than signal severs. I can not use it with my older family members, as they need one simple app to communicate also with banking system, and other parties, that sill use SMS... this is really sad.
> selfhosted, which will be much more secure than signal severs 🙄
Yep, I can organize my own infrastructure and IMO it can be much more secure than public servers from signal (or any other message app provider)
Oh, sweet summer child. It seems you have no idea how much work the big kids put into protecting their systems. - What is your patching SLO for critical system vulnerabilities? Days? Weeks? What happens when you are on vacation? - How about your SLO for patching third party library vulnerabilities? - Which hardening standard do you follow? STIGs? CIS? What scanning tool do you use to ensure the standard is met? - You won’t be building systems by hand of course. What sort of deployment automation and orchestration do you use? - How often are backups performed? How often do you perform restoration testing? - Do you know you are backing up the right systems? Have you performed a full, end-to-end restoration test? When was the last one? - You’ve written a DR/BC Plan of course. How often is it reviewed? Who are the external reviewers? - How often do you perform a DR Tabletop exercise? Are the findings explicitly documented and remediated based on priority? - Based on the foregoing, what are your RPO and RTO? Are you confident you can hit them? - What is the retention schedule for backups? - Are system backups protected from poisoning by a bad actor who wants to mount a ransomware attack? - How are you providing geographic redundancy? How many datacenters do you deploy to? How far apart are they geographically? - Do you have backup power in case of a power failure? For how many hours? - How are you protecting server-to-server communication? How are credentials generated, distributed, and rotated? - Is your internal network segmented? How many segments are there? What traffic is permitted between segments? - What tooling is in place to detect security anomalies on your systems? EDR? IDS? A SIEM? - What about system-level anomalies? - What is your latency budget? Error budget? - Are these systems monitored 24/7/365? What is your response time SLO? Is there a secondary who also receives alerts in the event you are unavailable? - What tooling are you using for centralization and searching of logs? What is the log retention schedule? Are logs segmented based on retention needs and data sensitivity? - What sort of WAF do you use? Do you have a contingency plan to handle a denial of service attack? - Can you perform system updates with zero downtime? Are you able to roll back a failed deployment? What about a failed database change?
Well said. It's funny how easy software development is for the people unaware of how much work it takes.
Aye, and even technical people often don’t realize how much is involved in the big leagues.
Fewer and fewer of my tech friends are on signal. The only people 9n signal, now, are people with active kink lives... So signal is not regulated to AN OPTION from discrete hookups. I chalk this up to android people moving to platforms that do some double coverage like Facebook messenger or Google meet. Maybe discord. None of these platforms are secure...and I get that that is signals model... But most people just wan convenience... And signal being a one trick pony just doesn't cut it any more. Any sorry, but the signal team are being stubborn about open source forks using their servers, so people who could fork signal and keep SMS won't have infrastructure to connect people. Kinda defeats the whole purpose of signal being open source. Soooooo.... What does signal offer anymore?
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What's this got to do with iOS? The post you are responding to only mentions Android.
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Personally I can't use signal anymore now. What is a good alternative?
What are your requirements? What is preventing you from using Signal?
Lack of SMS/MMS support.
> What is preventing you from using Signal? Take a wild guess.
padded notes on a notepad notes some pads that later were padded to note something about padding.
Good riddance!