Signal could be the easiest one to get friends and family to switch to. No account to set up but it does have annoying captchas on signup, no passwords, works on many devices.
For most secure I would say Briar. No phone number required and all traffic runs through Tor. Designed to keep protesters safe from police surveillance. Android only.
If all your important contacts have it, then yes Signal is preferred. But this is rarely the case.
Usually it's almost unrealistic to contact with strangers these days without relying on WhatsApp in
most countries, so it's a good option to keep it in a separate Shelter profile registered on a prepaid sim.
Signal is legit.
Whatever. No account as in no username, password, and email. Have you ever used Signal?
I'm done with you.
I think WA, but not in terms of privacy
kebab_definite
No, in the meantime SimpleX has the newest tech.
And better algorithms as other post-quantum-secure messengers like Signal or Apple's iMessage.
No phone number or e-mail or ID or user name required!
You can invite every person with a separate link, use a separate name for each contact, if you wish!
No contact will know about the others, if you don't want that.
Real privacy and if needed, also real anonymity.
I have to have whatsapp because of work and daughter's school and it's the most power hungry app I have.
For personal matters I use matrix/element, which works quite good. If auto deleting of messages would be there, would be even better.
I tried session longer time ago, but it was not possible to have multiple clients for the same account back then.
I had signal and trouble was that because some people had my phone number, they kept contacting me, like hey old pal how are you... I did not want to block them but at the same time i was not in mood to chat with them and kill time.
kebab_definite Is Signal still holding the crown?
It always dspends on your needs and threat model. German Pen Tester Mike Kuketz is maintaining a very good comparison list to make an informed decision: https://www.messenger-matrix.de/messenger-matrix-en.html
A very important factor are your peer groups. The best messenger is the one that everyone can agree to use, otherwise it's just your happy place but nobody else is there. That's the main power of Signal: It's the most decent messenger among the widely adopted ones, but feature and privacy wise there are better ones (simply look at Signals lackluster security of the desktop app and their snobbish reaction about being exposed).
andrej567 Signal is still not cell phone number - free
[deleted] True but you can use Signal without giving out your number.
A very important note. What if your threat model involves a stalker or toxic ex-partner with access to your phone number? What about countries in the middle east where women can't get a cellular number without permission of their husband? Why must Signal expose you to all your Signal using peers if they already know your number?
It's a very elitist Silicon Valley way of thinking from the developers that they market themselves as privacy first messenger but don't think outside their own privileged box. Their main goal is adoption rate numbers, not privacy. It's still the easiest privacy messenger to convince people to use, but it's far from perfect both feature and people wise.
andrej567 I had signal and trouble was that because some people had my phone number, they kept contacting me, like hey old pal how are you... I did not want to block them but at the same time i was not in mood to chat with them and kill time.
You should be able to use Signal and avoid this issue by setting "who can find me by phone number" to "nobody". Check phone number settings in Signal and set both of them to nobody. To the old pals this should look as if you weren't on Signal at all.
For the rest I agree with @N1b, that a good messenger is safe and privacy respecting and makes your peer groups available. In this sense, Signal might indeed be the best compromise. I still don't like that a phone number is mandatory to set up an account.
I also tried out Threema, which is nice if you have someone to message. I also like the idea, that it is a paid app and thus makes more clear, where the money comes from.
SimpleX looks promising and innovative, but I don't know anyone using it.
23Sha-ger so it's a good option to keep it in a separate Shelter profile registered on a prepaid sim.
As far as WA is concerned, this will hardly allow you to use it on a regular basis and stay anonymous, even with a VPN.
andrej567 I tried session longer time ago, but it was not possible to have multiple clients for the same account back then.
In the meantime, Session has Multi-Device functionality and it works good.
Unfortunately, most people don't give a damn about confidential communication, they hold their smartphone like a piece of bread with honey, call via loudspeaker and speak very loudly so that everyone can hear everything.
I have only one contact, who tests Session messenger with me since a long time.
We have often very long voice-calls via Session (or sometimes via Threema or SimpleX).
Works great.
But as mentioned above, SimpleX now is technically on the highest standard.
But who cares?
– Okay, Jack Dorsey has recognised its value and made an investment…
Eagle_Owl Session looks good but as someone above noted, you need people to communicate with. Grandmas are now able to use Element, to switch them to session at age 85, no-go. Except the family, i am pushed to have whatsapp. I thought about bridging whatsapp to element but
a/ I did not have time to investigate, and
b/ i need also whatsapp voice calls (work)...
SimpleX Chat eliminates most Signal attack vectors https://github.com/simplex-chat/simplex-chat#roadmap
I use telegram, whatsapp, and signal. I would say signal is good, because, yes, you have to register with a phone number, but you can set it, so know one sees it. You can now create usernames, and give those to people instead of your phone number. You can also create expiring links for say there is someone in a group you want to contact you, without giving them your number. The cool thing about expiring links is that once they expire, No one, including signal can trace them back to a number just in case some asks. Same is true for usernames if you happen to change it. There is no limit to how many times or the frequency of username changes.
I think everyone is missing the most important point though. Whatever messenger you use, it's only as safe as the OS you have it installed on. If someone has full control of you OS, then all bets are off. No messenger is safe.
Let's not forget Molly, the hardened version of Signal which is currently the private and secure messaging service recommended by the GrapheneOS project account.
I use Molly-FOSS (Signal) for all my contacts. It requires a phone number, which is problematic. I also need to fill out a captcha constantly, for using a VPN and likely an alternative client.
This captcha is done via hCaptcha.
SimpleX is great, it is my second messenger of choice. I have a chat with close ones as backup when Signal locks me out for arbitrary reasons.
Signal has access to my contacts, but I will switch to contact scopes soon.
Whatsapp also in a shelter profile. There I have a separate instance of MullvadVPN with a VPN in Germany, I have 3 contacts or so saved. There is a new app on F-Droid to open a chat in Whatsapp without saving a contact or requiring contact permission.
Whatsapp, just like signal, need to be worked around to share photos, as both dont care about least privilege. You need to use the share portal.
SimpleX meanwhile works great for calls, has the best background notification implementation that saves battery life but just works. It uses native Android photo picker and similar things.
It may be confusing to new users, but it is not that hard to use.
They have a Flatpak desktop client now, but it also uses Electron (just as Signals crap app) and works locally via a random opened port (last time I checked) so I need to manually allow a port in my firewall every app start. I think on Windows apps can do that themselves, cant do that on Fedora.
So the desktop client is not usable. Phone+Tablet is also questionable. Molly works great here.
In the past I have had Wire, Session, and Wickr, in addition to Signal and Molly, and I tried SimpleX recently. I only ever had one or two people who wanted to use Session, similar with Wire, no-one ever wanted to use Wickr (especially after its privacy fail), and SimpleX is still a bit new for people. Michael Bazzell notes (correctly, as I see it) that each new messenger that we ask people to use burns some of our privacy capital. Do it too often, and they stop listening.
These days, I use Signal and Molly (two SIMs) and have gotten rid of the others, except where negotiated on an ad hoc basis with certain contacts.
