what are the disadvantages of SIGNAL?

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.

wuseman

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

They don't?

https://community.signalusers.org/

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.

lovefromisrael

the replies were insightful..
and i didn't knew that when using a vpn you often get captcha requests..

how do you update SIGNAL? with AURORA? or another way?
is there a way to update it without aurora or google play which is not bothersome?

love.

DeletedUser5

lovefromisrael I think Signal can update itself.

Probably9857

lovefromisrael how do you update SIGNAL? with AURORA? or another way?
is there a way to update it without aurora or google play which is not bothersome?

Depends on what you consider bothersome.

In addition to the obvious (Play Store, Aurora), Signal also hosts an apk you can download from their website, or with Obtainium: https://signal.org/android/apk/

If you want to use Molly, you can get that from the Accrescent app store.

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!

lcalamar

burningpaper27 does this imply that signal is not secure or private?

TrustExecutor

lcalamar I read it like it has security issues that devs are not willing or competrnt enough to fix.