Not inherently.

People do share music there though, both free and non-free even though it’s technically not allowed to share the latter.

Well first of all I’d ask:

What does privacy mean to you and have you done an accurate threat analysis?

People will have different ideas about privacy and have different needs from it. It’s not a universal thing nor is it static.

Oh, yuck, that is awful!

I completely agree that there should be a way to add more devices on an account.

Thank you 🙂

Oh that makes sense. I use Linux and it’s really frustrating trying to get all programs etc to all look or work in the same ways sometimes. Especially the small number of closed source ones I use like Steam.

Oh yeah, I completely agree and wish Signal wouldn’t do that. I’ve noticed it for images too, I’m pretty sure.

Thank you for explaining.

Whilst I can’t speak about the ages or genders of who it’s designed by, it’s probable that you’re at least somewhat correct. Compared to other actually secure apps I have to disagree but compared to all apps out there including ones that aren’t secure, I agree it probably isn’t as fun as them.

Yeah, the stories would be better up the top, as you say.

For stickers that are sent to you in Signal on Desktop and ipad OS at least, I can just click/press on a sticker and there’s a big Install button there, will test on Android in a bit, if you want to add new ones that haven’t been sent to you, I agree it’s a bit of a faff but you have to go here: https://signalstickers.org and you can install from there.

I do agree that not having to go to a separate website if a sticker hasn’t been sent to me and I haven’t got it installed already would be nice, I really think they are missing a major feature there.

I’m not sure why material you is important, would you mind explaining a bit more about that?

Yeah, a list of links would be very much helpful, most of the messengers I use are missing that and I wish they’d add that feature.

By “No filename preservation for audio files.” do you mean when you download it then it gets changed from its original name or something else?

Disagree to a degree at least compared to others on the recommended list, it at least has some features beyond just privacy. However, yeah, it could design them better and have more features that make the UX better.

Oh, that’s interesting, thanks for letting me know.

What about it sucks for you?

Matrix, for which Element is but one client, leaks a lot of metadata and is not at all simple to set up correctly. Would be my guess.

I use it myself but it can be a real pain and very confusing to newcomers and more experienced users alike.

Plus no one client can do everything yet, not even Element.

Calling on it isn’t finished yet and those operating their own servers have to install their own TURN servers which seems either too much of a daunting task, or too expensive considering no matrix server I use has one afaik.

Sounds like the closest to what you want is Signal.

I agree with avoiding Telegram and Whatsapp.

Session looks like its on its way out which I consider a good thing, it never seemed like a particularly stable project and involves some crypto trash and only ‘ultra secure’ people actually use it, no one I’d want to talk to. Not sure about its desktop client.

Signal imo is great, most people I’d want to talk to are on it, it has great features and no longer requires a phone number to talk to others ( though yeah, I know you have to in order to create an account). It also has great multi device support and they do fix things even if we have to keep at it until they do. It also has a great desktop client, even if they have to fix some security with it.

SimpleX could be good with more fun features like stickers etc, group calls and a better view on the ipad, at the moment it’s that ridiculous iphone on ipad view which they haven’t fixed for 2 years and counting. At the moment there’s nothing particularly interesting or useful about it apart from no usernames and that it functions as a basic secure messenger. Not sure about its desktop client.

Threema is very business orientated, you can tell that based on the few features it actually does have, it’s alright for calling and messaging but it has no proper multi-device using only one username support, you can make a new username for each device but that kind of defeats the purpose for me. I do enjoy that it allows you to explain each picture via text directly underneath it though. Its desktop client has no calling and is no longer on flatpak from what I can tell, locking those of us who don’t use a deb or rpm based system out of its latest client updates, sadly and it requires the device it connected to, to be on, connected at all times and have Threema open as the only app on the screen, which is ridiculous imo.

Chameleon linux

Oh, okay. Thanks for explaining!

Either I missed that or didn’t pick up on it.

[sarcasm] Wow, Whatsapp owned by Facebook (the privacy violators) isn’t secure? Colour me surprised [/sarcasm]

Shame she didn’t get away with it. Another case for abolishing borders and letting people work and stay places if they want/need to. Also for the US to stop having such an effect on other countries, directly or indirectly.

Neither, they are both very much made for tech obsessives with no real advantages and thus won’t ever have anyone but those people on them.

Until they have nice features like stickers and have nicer UIs, their usage will likely be limited to just those that think they are more private without having many people on.

I do not personally think that using messengers with so few people on or the proliferation of such niche messengers is a good thing and there really isn’t anything like ‘ultimate’ privacy/security anyway.

I personally think sticking to fairly mainstream messengers is better unless you have accurately done threat modelling for yourself and found you need something more secure, though in most cases these niche messengers won’t necessarily be that as they lack the funding and technical knowhow (or just make claims without necessarily being able to back them up), just selling the dream.

Plus a lot of them are frustrating to use due to, as has already been pointed out in this thread, them having such drawbacks like needing to both be online usually or are not feature complete on all platforms if they are even on those platforms at all.

I also do not think that operating over alternative networks like TOR necessarily is more private or secure than just having very good encryption and other well thought out and tested security features even over the ‘clearnet’.

At the end of the day I still very much think it is best to stick to messengers most people have probably heard of, though I would still recommend open source ones, I don’t think that we need more messengers that claim to be better than the last, just a few really good ones that have shown under various conditions to work well, stand up to surveillance or cops etc and are a joy to use.