what are the disadvantages of SIGNAL?

lovefromisrael

for one, they don't have a support forum anymore..

wuseman

lovefromisrael for one, they don't have a support forum anymore..

They don't?

https://community.signalusers.org/

burningpaper27

lovefromisrael

I found this post a few months ago about Signal by GrapheneOS' official account in Mastodon.

https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/111479421460933960

In Chromium, WebRTC and media handling is sandboxed as part of the site isolated renderer sandbox. In Signal, neither is sandboxed, despite it using Chromium's WebRTC implementation. In fact, it's unusual to be using WebRTC outside that sandbox since it's normally used in browsers.
Signal's development doesn't currently seem to have much interest in sandboxing, exploit mitigations, reducing attack surface, replacing the memory unsafe dependencies with memory safe ones, etc. They should!

Probably9857

Compared to what? Everything has tradeoffs.

It seems like you are just asking people to complain about Signal.

Rizzler

Probably9857

It seems like you are just asking people to complain about Signal.

How? If someone asks me whats a disadvange of GOS compared to Stock then i'd say that some apps are moving to Play Integrity. Its okay to know the good and the bad.

[deleted]

One of the disadvantages of Signal is that many tend to stick to less private platforms and are simply unwilling to use it. It would be my messenger of choice but unfortunately I can't live like a hermit so I use Whatsapp. Thank you Zuck.

lovefromisrael

i know most users are on whatsapp.
but what else are the disadvantages cmopared to let's say.. whatapp?

Probably9857

lovefromisrael but what else are the disadvantages cmopared to let's say.. whatapp?

Other than what @[deleted] mentioned regarding the user base, which is obviously a major consideration, I don't think there are really any disadvantages. At least from a security/privacy perspective, I think Signal is just objectively better than Whatsapp.

The biggest issue with Whatsapp is that it's not open source. So even though they claim messages are E2EE, you really have to just trust them.

I'm sure you could argue about UI design or reliability of notifications, or extra nice-to-have features. But if you care at all about security and privacy, then there is really no question that you should prefer Signal over Whatsapp (except for that pesky problem of getting the people you communicate with to use it).

lovefromisrael

tnx
btw
i've discovered that they do have a forum still..

[deleted]

lovefromisrael there are messenger comparison tables online or you can just search "Signal vs Whatsapp". We don't know what kind of disadvantage it is that you look for.

lcalamar

Probably9857 Since WhatsAPP is owned by Facebook - how much trust are you willing to give it?

WHile Signal may have its issues (I don't really have many - besides using SIgnal with Beeper is the best of all worlds - so I still have a single messaging app - plus I can 'use' signal on mulitple devices via Beeper!!!)... Personally I don't trust anything owned by 'big tech; facebook, google, apple, etc...) sometimes staying away from those companies is a real PITA but I feel better... besides why would I want to support them in ANY way?

Probably9857

lcalamar
I completely agree. It's not only who you are trusting, but how much you're required to trust them when using Whatsapp (alot) vs using Signal (much less, though still some).

Graphene1

It's centralized and has a board of directors. When governments around the world think Signal is a threat to surveillance there will be a CEO to go after and pressurize into compliance.

Probably9857

Graphene1
True enough, but this is also true, and much more so, of Meta.

So far Signal has been quite good about standing up to governments, especially in the EU. But as you say, any centralized entity is a potential single-point-of-failure.

lcalamar

Graphene1 True enough but how does that NOT apply to any service?

If you don't want ANY surveillance or privacy issues the only sure way to do that is to get off of the internet...
(you could try pagers!!! ;( )

Roger

Probably9857 No zuck wouldn't sell out (again). Sure he admitted he buckled under pressure from the US gov. last election cycle, but he's a changed man. Now he's a hip jiu-jitsu guy who raises his own wagyu cattle.

dc32f0cfe84def651e0e

I ~~hate~~ strongly dislike Signal continuously throws CAPTCHA requests when being used via VPN.

other8026

dc32f0cfe84def651e0e I hate strongly dislike Signal continuously throws CAPTCHA requests when being used via VPN.

@"lovefromisrael"
#p101406 i didn't knew that when using a vpn you often get captcha requests..

I don't recall ever having to do a captcha for Signal/Molly

Probably9857

lcalamar
There are decentralized messaging protocols (e.g., SimpleX, Matrix). And there are definitely important differences between platforms. No one is suggesting that any protocol/platform/service is perfect (in fact, that was exactly the point of my first post in this thread).

Graphene1

lcalamar the question was what are the disadvantages of Signal. Having a centralized entity the government can go after in my eyes is a disadvantage.

I still use Signal, that was just the first disadvantage that come to my mind.

DeletedUser5

Molly is supposed to be a bit more secure/private than Signal. It is a hardened version thereof.

Decentralized services may be better. But what good are better messengers if most of the sheep stick to whatsapp? When you run with the herd, all you see are butth****

Probably9857

DeletedUser5 Molly is supposed to be a bit more secure/private than Signal. It is a hardened version thereof.

Molly is a client for Signal's platform. Yes, it is hardened, and probably more secure than Signal's own client. I use it myself. But it still uses Signal's servers. You're still trusting Signal, and you're actually introducing an additional trusted 3rd-party (Molly's devs), so as always, there are trade-offs.

DeletedUser5 But what good are better messengers if most of the sheep stick to whatsapp?

Yep, network effects are definitely one of the biggest problems here. Still, people are trying to solve these problems, and I want to support their efforts.

[deleted]

DeletedUser5 No problem if the butts are pretty. That's the trouble with the herd. They show you the way and you follow. We all live in different circumstances. I used Molly with some family members, but there were technical issues on their side so had to come back to WA. Thank you for giving me an idea. It is time to be selfish. I don't use Google Play and running Molly and Whatsapp at the same time is a battery hog. I will disable regular Phone & SMS and only use Molly. WA is the only app that "dirties" my phone. I will later report on how I fare.

DeletedUser5

Probably9857 I switched to Signal years ago, leaving everyone behind on Whatsapp. A few followed me. The important ones.