this post was submitted on 01 May 2024
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The Signal messenger and protocol.
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It's a shame that Signal has discontinued its support for normal SMS, hadn't implemented RCS, is spending too much effort on "stickers" and now keeps prodding you to donate money. Then there's the broken notification with iOS users who just don't find out that you messaged them until they launch the app.
As a direct result my use of Signal has pretty much ceased.
I can't blame them for asking for money, it's a free app but it isn't free to run.
That said the notifications are royally annoying. My partner has an android, but calls almost never come through and messages are hit and miss.
Asking for money is one thing. Asking for money after removing functionality that I depended on is quite a different thing.
To be clear, I voiced my concerns in writing and was ignored.
This comment reads kind of weird, as if you feel personally snubbed that they "ignored" your concerns when in reality the app developers just had different ideas about what direction the app would go in.
Like, that's totally fine! At the end of the day if you were only interested in a replacement SMS app then Signal just wasn't for you. As someone whose primary interest is the security and privacy guaranteed by Signal not only encrypting messages but also message metadata (something Google's RCS explicitly does NOT do) I'm perfectly satisfied with how it functions.
That said, I don't care about stickers or the weird crypto integration, but it satisfies my other needs and includes a desktop client to boot, so I have nothing to complain about.
I really wish Signal still had SMS support because the network effect was a lot more powerful, and it was easier to "sell" to my friends, back when it was that way.
I wrote it to preempt comments about complaining without telling anyone about my concerns.
I completely understand your view and agree that Signal went in a different direction than I wanted or needed.
I didn't use it as a primary SMS replacement, rather that was the "hook" to get a bigger customer base amongst my contacts whilst sneaking encryption capabilities in by the back door.
I mentioned RCS because a messaging app that integrates with the common platform of SMS and RCS would bring end-to-end encryption capabilities to even more people. I could imagine integration with other messaging protocols too.
The original UI for Signal made it very clear if something was encrypted or not. Right until someone decided to introduce custom colour for each chat, essentially killing the clearest indication of security level.
A smarter person would have changed colour depending on level of privacy for example.
The crypto donation was just weird and put me off ever even considering making one.