6 ms·

What's a good alternative to Signal on Android for casual messaging? I don't think Element is a good fit since it's not easy to ask a friend or family member to

by keb_ 5y ago

What's a good alternative to Signal on Android for casual messaging? I don't think Element is a good fit since it's not easy to ask a friend or family member to sign up for Element whereas it's simple to install Signal.

kome 5y ago
Telegram?
- botto 5y ago
  Sorry, no. Although Telegrams has encryption it's by default Client-Server, you have to explicitly start a secret chat with individual people. Additionally group chats are not encrypted except between client and server. I'm not sure of a good alternative as simple as Signal
  - snovv_crash 5y ago
    By default it's not e2ee, but this makes the distributed app model sooo much more user friendly. All your history is instantly available on the web client for example. Try that with Signal. The web client works if your phone is out of battery. Try that with WhatsApp.
    - input_sh 5y ago
      But I don't want my entire history to be available on a website? Who would even want that, what's the use case? Who looks at their months or years old messages? If my message is over two weeks old, I'd prefer it not to be on anyone's server. I can keep a local backup if I wish to do so.
      - emptysongglass 5y ago
        Then you're not a person who values their message history. That's OK, you do you but there's many users out there, myself included who deeply value a searchable index of their chats from all time. I use it as a Memex or outboard brain I can tag and search. It's been in invaluable to digging up old quotes, pics, links, ebooks, etc. I wanted to re-surface either to share to someone else than the original recipient or for my own reference. Because you can search by broad types, it's doubly easy to find that archived data.
        maqp 5y ago
        The problem isn't the message log itself, it's the fact you pay for the privilege of having the cloud backup of conversation history, by giving that history to Telegram as a company. It doesn't have to be this way, as WA's planned feature of client-side encrypted cloud backups[1] shows, disproving Durov's implied claim that Telegram must have access to messages to provide such feature. [1] https://engineering.fb.com/2021/09/10/security/whatsapp-e2ee-backups/ https://engineering.fb.com/2021/09/10/security/whatsapp-e2ee...
    - maqp 5y ago
      "By default it's not e2ee" And Win/Linux desktop chats are groups are not E2EE even if you want, so it's not just about it not being default, it's about the complete lack of E2EE for those. "but this makes the distributed app model sooo much more user friendly." It does not. It forces you to either drop E2EE, or whip out your phone hundreds of times a day. "All your history is instantly available on the web client for example." Which is a privacy nightmare, web-based crypto is never safe, not even when it supports E2EE. https://tonyarcieri.com/whats-wrong-with-webcrypto https://tonyarcieri.com/whats-wrong-with-webcrypto "Try that with Signal." You obviously can't because a) it's a security risk as per above and b) you don't need to as you can have native Signal client on your phone and your laptop and your desktop. Try having just one E2EE chat with Telegram across all three devices. You can't, even if you want to. "The web client works if your phone is out of battery. Try that with WhatsApp." Yeah, WA's system is shit, but at least they're working on a native desktop client (that also works on tablets), and that too, will feature E2EE for everything. Can't say that for Telegram.
na85 5y ago
SMS, WhatsApp, if you don't care about security and/or privacy. Perhaps Telegram but I recall reading some commentary on their crypto that made me hesitant. Conversations is a good XMPP messenger, and it supports crypto extensions, OMEMO, etc.
- YeBanKo 5y ago
  Telegram supports E2EE only of you specifically switch to secret chats and I believe it is only supported in pm, not in groups.
  - maqp 5y ago
    It's also not supported for majority of desktop clients, so if you want to continue the "secret chat" you had on mobile on laptop when you get to work/school/whatnot, guess what, you're shit out of luck and need to whip out your phone every time you want to reply. It's so bad you'll just give up and use non-E2EE 1:1 chats because at least they're cross-platform. So one could argue Telegram has no _functional_ E2EE at all.
- donkeyd 5y ago
  > security and/or privacy WhatsApp is arguably more secure than many of the alternatives. Just look at the repo for Signal. For privacy it probably isn't, when you're in the US, that is.
  - annadane 5y ago
    Whatsapp is owned by Facebook. That automatically disqualifies it.
    - maqp 5y ago
      Metadata-wise, yes. For protecting content, it's still pretty good. Also, WA seems to add features pretty close to Signal, which could indicate WA supports Signal in testing some of the features Signal provides consultation wrt secure implementation. WA probably doesn't want to fully take the wheel and fuck around with the Signal protocol. They've of course made some changes such as the group management system, and the levels of safety number warnings (no-warnings/non-blocking warnings as opposed to Signal's non-blocking/blocking warnings). But WA has been working on interesting proof of concepts for wider deployment such as the client-side encrypted backups. Those are actually fantastic when properly implemented. There's of course shitty aspects with WA about those like the 64-bit passwords, but, if that's a feature Signal thanks to possible collaboration can properly deploy later, I'm all for it. There's a difference between Signal being categorically better for pretty much everything when compared to WA, but, WA isn't the worst option, even when considering its owned by FB.
dr1337 5y ago
Really? I haven't found it an issue to get friends or family to sign up for Element. In fact it's even better because you don't need to use your mobile number for that.
- tfehring 5y ago
  Haven't used Element but that sure doesn't sound better. Signal works as a drop-in replacement for the default SMS app on Android, I'm not gonna tell my mom to stop using my phone number and message `tfehring` from Element instead (if it's even that simple), especially since she'd still need an SMS app for everyone else.
  - atatatat 5y ago
    I've found this specific issue doesn't matter for 30% of mobile users, because they're using the phone purely in a reactive state (usually to popups, or the notification area!).
crakenzak 5y ago
Telegram is great!
- deepsun 5y ago
  Telegram is not even in "secure" category, according to Bruce Schneier and other security researchers. They also meddled with Russian elections this year, blocking opposition bots, but allowing govt bots.
  - bmarquez 5y ago
    "Meddling" with Russian elections is a pretty strong statement, they just followed what Apple and Google did, and there was lots of discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28655937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28655937 Telegram is not E2E encrypted by default, so the other comment makes sense.
    - deepsun 5y ago
      Good question btw: Do Signal owners have capability to selectively block chats/groups?
      - maqp 5y ago
        Nope. WA uses server-side group management, with Signal its purely on user-side. The message is revealed to be a group message on client-side. In theory, since the group messages are a burst of packets of the same size, the server can distinguish between messages to groups,and drop them if it wants to, but that would be interference of communication which, IIUC, is a felony.
- krater23 5y ago
  Maybee as good as ICQ
- maqp 5y ago
  -Not end-to-end encrypted by default (on any platform) -No end-to-end encryption for groups (on any platform) -No end-to-end encrypted desktop chats (Win/Linux) -No cross-platform end-to-end encrypted chats (iOS) -No end-to-end encrypted group (video) calls Great, for Durov if he wants your data, and all entities hacking their server for your data. Not that great for you.
NikolaNovak 5y ago
Casual Messaging? Family? Facebook Messenger, Hangouts, Google Chat, and above all SMS / iMessage. Whatsapp by all accounts is the most popular (as much as I personally detest it). I know I know, not HN-fare exactly, but they're easy, popular, and work. That's all that most of our's social network actually cares about. There's a lot of discussion in this thread about detailed encryption/security policy, but while I am a privacy nut, none of my non-IT friends/family could possibly care less... And they're not wrong. This convoluted encryption which severely limits multi device usability Andb frequently has louse ui is out of proportion with other comms methods such as email also used. While I may stand up for principles of privacy, my family isn't wrong asking why should their exchange of recipes or birthdays wishes be any harder than necessary.
- cranekam 5y ago
  > Facebook Messenger, Hangouts, Google Chat, and above all SMS / iMessage. Whatsapp by all accounts is the most popular (as much as I personally detest it). Given you’re calling out WhatsApp specifically as a service you detest I’m going to assume you rank it last of all these options. Why is this? WhatsApp is E2EE, has a simple UI (at least IMO) and doesn’t store messages centrally. If I claimed to be a privacy nut I’d put WA above any of these.
  - ranguna 5y ago
    Because past experience matters and Facebook has failed quite a few times on the privacy spectrum
    - pope_meat 5y ago
      I'm starting to suspect fb has people here to downvote critique. Or the vast majority have drank the Kool aid. I really hope it's the former, instead of the latter. Whatsapp is a non starter for me because the company that owns and operates it is not trust worthy. Very profitable, and probably making some of the people here great returns on their investments...but it's not trust worthy, nor ethical.
    - 5y ago
quaintdev 5y ago
Matrix is the best alternative. I have been onboarding one friend/family member at a time. And it's slow ride but the advantage is they don't have to sign up to anything else ever again.
decrypt 5y ago
I want to try Briar on the Tailscale network, but couldn't figure out how to change the listening interface so far. Probably requires building Briar manually.
brylie 5y ago
Jitsi Meet. It doesn't require any account or installation. Just create a room and share the link or room name. https://meet.jit.si https://meet.jit.si There is also a Jitsi app available for mobile devices, but it is optional.
- bigiain 5y ago
  I really like Jitsi. But. In a thread about a Signal outage with a request for an alternative "casual messaging" app - I really don't think open source video video meetings is a relevant answer...
  - brylie 5y ago
    I must have misread it as "casual meeting", like a simple way to set up an online meeting.
osamagirl69 5y ago
For what it is worth, creating an account on the matrix home instance using app.element.io or the matrix android app (haven't tried ios, but I assume it is the same) takes literally 3 clicks. Click register, select the matrix home server, type in your desired username, password, and recovery email (no phone # required or even requested) and click register. The one part I see people struggle with is transferring keys across devices which is slightly convoluted (your keys are not stored on the matrix home server--for obvious reasons) but there are wizards to help you install your keys to a new device and for most use cases with phones completely unnecessary since you will always be using the same device.
- the_other 5y ago
  Server, keys, recovery email, wizards? That’s four steps too many for most people.
emptysongglass 5y ago
For casual messaging, Telegram is fantastic. Actual multi-session clients across devices. No Electron. Truck loads of features and thoughtful touches everywhere. It's easily the slickest and if you're looking to have friends and family who don't have a lot of patience for technical issues actually convert and stay converted, it's the only one I've found to do the trick. Searching through your messages by type, really good video messaging, voice messaging, video chats, and the best stickers on any platform. It doesn't do E2EE by default (you need to manually flip on Secret Chats) and group chats are not E2EE at all, both of which make it HN kryptonite because apparently E2EE everywhere, by default, is the only thing that matters even though there are technical trade-offs to an E2EE-everywhere model. I appreciate I can flip on Secret Chats when I need them but do wish it was an option in group chats. I selfhost a Matrix homeserver: it's nowhere near ready for primetime and misses a lot of those thoughtful touches less technical people appreciate. If you do want to try to onboard people to Matrix with the Element client (and be very careful because you only get one, maybe two shots with your friends and family before they go back to whatever they were using before) use Mozilla's homeserver for its vastly better performance and option of SSO sign-on.
- novok 5y ago
  WhatsApp has a better privacy story than Telegram, because every chat is a 'secret chat' by default. If your using signal, a priority for you is private chat with something the normies in your life can use, otherwise you'd just use whatever is the most popular where you live.
  - theshrike79 5y ago
    I'll take proper native bot support over privacy for my everyday chats any day. And by "chat" here I mean a channel with multiple people. For 1-on-1 it's all the same to me. Telegram is still the easiest, since I can have the same chat history on multiple devices easily.
  - the_other 5y ago
    > WhatsApp has a better privacy story than Telegram No it doesn’t. It’s owned by the 2nd largest surveillance capitalist; it shares a back-end with Facebook (so at a whim they can use the metadata around your chats to update their advertising models of you and your contacts); IIRC it leaks your engagement to FB (via web link previews).
pmlnr 5y ago
SMS. It's on every phone. Beyond that, there are free XMPP servers, and you can even run you own. Clients like Conversations, blabber.im are all wonderful. I've been using it with friends and my wife for years without issues, albeit I have my own server.
- Kelteseth 5y ago
  SMS is awful for everything more than just plain text, and costs money. Have you ever tried to send an image or a short video via SMS?
  - pmlnr 5y ago
    Why would I? The question was: for casual messaging.
- mmwelt 5y ago
  I, too, thouht that, until I realised that the iOS clients are terrible in comparison with Android. :-(
Multicomp 5y ago
DeltaChat. Chat over email,no separate service to go down. Even has group chats and Android & IOS apps and a desktop app.
- maqp 5y ago
  No forward secrecy. No future secrecy. No deniability. No metadata protection. PGP for secure communication needs to die. We've had better architecture for the past 17 years when OTR was introduced.
dunefox 5y ago
Honestly, Threema is my favourite messenger so far.

by keb_ 5y ago

kome 5y ago

Telegram?

botto 5y ago
Sorry, no. Although Telegrams has encryption it's by default Client-Server, you have to explicitly start a secret chat with individual people. Additionally group chats are not encrypted except between client and server. I'm not sure of a good alternative as simple as Signal
- snovv_crash 5y ago
  By default it's not e2ee, but this makes the distributed app model sooo much more user friendly. All your history is instantly available on the web client for example. Try that with Signal. The web client works if your phone is out of battery. Try that with WhatsApp.
  - input_sh 5y ago
    But I don't want my entire history to be available on a website? Who would even want that, what's the use case? Who looks at their months or years old messages? If my message is over two weeks old, I'd prefer it not to be on anyone's server. I can keep a local backup if I wish to do so.
    - emptysongglass 5y ago
      Then you're not a person who values their message history. That's OK, you do you but there's many users out there, myself included who deeply value a searchable index of their chats from all time. I use it as a Memex or outboard brain I can tag and search. It's been in invaluable to digging up old quotes, pics, links, ebooks, etc. I wanted to re-surface either to share to someone else than the original recipient or for my own reference. Because you can search by broad types, it's doubly easy to find that archived data.
      - maqp 5y ago
        The problem isn't the message log itself, it's the fact you pay for the privilege of having the cloud backup of conversation history, by giving that history to Telegram as a company. It doesn't have to be this way, as WA's planned feature of client-side encrypted cloud backups[1] shows, disproving Durov's implied claim that Telegram must have access to messages to provide such feature. [1] https://engineering.fb.com/2021/09/10/security/whatsapp-e2ee-backups/ https://engineering.fb.com/2021/09/10/security/whatsapp-e2ee...
  - maqp 5y ago
    "By default it's not e2ee" And Win/Linux desktop chats are groups are not E2EE even if you want, so it's not just about it not being default, it's about the complete lack of E2EE for those. "but this makes the distributed app model sooo much more user friendly." It does not. It forces you to either drop E2EE, or whip out your phone hundreds of times a day. "All your history is instantly available on the web client for example." Which is a privacy nightmare, web-based crypto is never safe, not even when it supports E2EE. https://tonyarcieri.com/whats-wrong-with-webcrypto https://tonyarcieri.com/whats-wrong-with-webcrypto "Try that with Signal." You obviously can't because a) it's a security risk as per above and b) you don't need to as you can have native Signal client on your phone and your laptop and your desktop. Try having just one E2EE chat with Telegram across all three devices. You can't, even if you want to. "The web client works if your phone is out of battery. Try that with WhatsApp." Yeah, WA's system is shit, but at least they're working on a native desktop client (that also works on tablets), and that too, will feature E2EE for everything. Can't say that for Telegram.

na85 5y ago

SMS, WhatsApp, if you don't care about security and/or privacy. Perhaps Telegram but I recall reading some commentary on their crypto that made me hesitant. Conversations is a good XMPP messenger, and it supports crypto extensions, OMEMO, etc.

YeBanKo 5y ago
Telegram supports E2EE only of you specifically switch to secret chats and I believe it is only supported in pm, not in groups.
- maqp 5y ago
  It's also not supported for majority of desktop clients, so if you want to continue the "secret chat" you had on mobile on laptop when you get to work/school/whatnot, guess what, you're shit out of luck and need to whip out your phone every time you want to reply. It's so bad you'll just give up and use non-E2EE 1:1 chats because at least they're cross-platform. So one could argue Telegram has no _functional_ E2EE at all.
donkeyd 5y ago
> security and/or privacy WhatsApp is arguably more secure than many of the alternatives. Just look at the repo for Signal. For privacy it probably isn't, when you're in the US, that is.
- annadane 5y ago
  Whatsapp is owned by Facebook. That automatically disqualifies it.
  - maqp 5y ago
    Metadata-wise, yes. For protecting content, it's still pretty good. Also, WA seems to add features pretty close to Signal, which could indicate WA supports Signal in testing some of the features Signal provides consultation wrt secure implementation. WA probably doesn't want to fully take the wheel and fuck around with the Signal protocol. They've of course made some changes such as the group management system, and the levels of safety number warnings (no-warnings/non-blocking warnings as opposed to Signal's non-blocking/blocking warnings). But WA has been working on interesting proof of concepts for wider deployment such as the client-side encrypted backups. Those are actually fantastic when properly implemented. There's of course shitty aspects with WA about those like the 64-bit passwords, but, if that's a feature Signal thanks to possible collaboration can properly deploy later, I'm all for it. There's a difference between Signal being categorically better for pretty much everything when compared to WA, but, WA isn't the worst option, even when considering its owned by FB.

dr1337 5y ago

Really? I haven't found it an issue to get friends or family to sign up for Element. In fact it's even better because you don't need to use your mobile number for that.

tfehring 5y ago
Haven't used Element but that sure doesn't sound better. Signal works as a drop-in replacement for the default SMS app on Android, I'm not gonna tell my mom to stop using my phone number and message `tfehring` from Element instead (if it's even that simple), especially since she'd still need an SMS app for everyone else.
- atatatat 5y ago
  I've found this specific issue doesn't matter for 30% of mobile users, because they're using the phone purely in a reactive state (usually to popups, or the notification area!).

crakenzak 5y ago

Telegram is great!

deepsun 5y ago
Telegram is not even in "secure" category, according to Bruce Schneier and other security researchers. They also meddled with Russian elections this year, blocking opposition bots, but allowing govt bots.
- bmarquez 5y ago
  "Meddling" with Russian elections is a pretty strong statement, they just followed what Apple and Google did, and there was lots of discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28655937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28655937 Telegram is not E2E encrypted by default, so the other comment makes sense.
  - deepsun 5y ago
    Good question btw: Do Signal owners have capability to selectively block chats/groups?
    - maqp 5y ago
      Nope. WA uses server-side group management, with Signal its purely on user-side. The message is revealed to be a group message on client-side. In theory, since the group messages are a burst of packets of the same size, the server can distinguish between messages to groups,and drop them if it wants to, but that would be interference of communication which, IIUC, is a felony.
krater23 5y ago
Maybee as good as ICQ
maqp 5y ago
-Not end-to-end encrypted by default (on any platform) -No end-to-end encryption for groups (on any platform) -No end-to-end encrypted desktop chats (Win/Linux) -No cross-platform end-to-end encrypted chats (iOS) -No end-to-end encrypted group (video) calls Great, for Durov if he wants your data, and all entities hacking their server for your data. Not that great for you.

NikolaNovak 5y ago

Casual Messaging? Family? Facebook Messenger, Hangouts, Google Chat, and above all SMS / iMessage. Whatsapp by all accounts is the most popular (as much as I personally detest it). I know I know, not HN-fare exactly, but they're easy, popular, and work. That's all that most of our's social network actually cares about. There's a lot of discussion in this thread about detailed encryption/security policy, but while I am a privacy nut, none of my non-IT friends/family could possibly care less... And they're not wrong. This convoluted encryption which severely limits multi device usability Andb frequently has louse ui is out of proportion with other comms methods such as email also used. While I may stand up for principles of privacy, my family isn't wrong asking why should their exchange of recipes or birthdays wishes be any harder than necessary.

cranekam 5y ago
> Facebook Messenger, Hangouts, Google Chat, and above all SMS / iMessage. Whatsapp by all accounts is the most popular (as much as I personally detest it). Given you’re calling out WhatsApp specifically as a service you detest I’m going to assume you rank it last of all these options. Why is this? WhatsApp is E2EE, has a simple UI (at least IMO) and doesn’t store messages centrally. If I claimed to be a privacy nut I’d put WA above any of these.
- ranguna 5y ago
  Because past experience matters and Facebook has failed quite a few times on the privacy spectrum
  - pope_meat 5y ago
    I'm starting to suspect fb has people here to downvote critique. Or the vast majority have drank the Kool aid. I really hope it's the former, instead of the latter. Whatsapp is a non starter for me because the company that owns and operates it is not trust worthy. Very profitable, and probably making some of the people here great returns on their investments...but it's not trust worthy, nor ethical.
  - 5y ago

quaintdev 5y ago

Matrix is the best alternative. I have been onboarding one friend/family member at a time. And it's slow ride but the advantage is they don't have to sign up to anything else ever again.

decrypt 5y ago

I want to try Briar on the Tailscale network, but couldn't figure out how to change the listening interface so far. Probably requires building Briar manually.

brylie 5y ago

Jitsi Meet. It doesn't require any account or installation. Just create a room and share the link or room name. https://meet.jit.si https://meet.jit.si There is also a Jitsi app available for mobile devices, but it is optional.

bigiain 5y ago
I really like Jitsi. But. In a thread about a Signal outage with a request for an alternative "casual messaging" app - I really don't think open source video video meetings is a relevant answer...
- brylie 5y ago
  I must have misread it as "casual meeting", like a simple way to set up an online meeting.

osamagirl69 5y ago

For what it is worth, creating an account on the matrix home instance using app.element.io or the matrix android app (haven't tried ios, but I assume it is the same) takes literally 3 clicks. Click register, select the matrix home server, type in your desired username, password, and recovery email (no phone # required or even requested) and click register. The one part I see people struggle with is transferring keys across devices which is slightly convoluted (your keys are not stored on the matrix home server--for obvious reasons) but there are wizards to help you install your keys to a new device and for most use cases with phones completely unnecessary since you will always be using the same device.

the_other 5y ago
Server, keys, recovery email, wizards? That’s four steps too many for most people.

emptysongglass 5y ago

For casual messaging, Telegram is fantastic. Actual multi-session clients across devices. No Electron. Truck loads of features and thoughtful touches everywhere. It's easily the slickest and if you're looking to have friends and family who don't have a lot of patience for technical issues actually convert and stay converted, it's the only one I've found to do the trick. Searching through your messages by type, really good video messaging, voice messaging, video chats, and the best stickers on any platform. It doesn't do E2EE by default (you need to manually flip on Secret Chats) and group chats are not E2EE at all, both of which make it HN kryptonite because apparently E2EE everywhere, by default, is the only thing that matters even though there are technical trade-offs to an E2EE-everywhere model. I appreciate I can flip on Secret Chats when I need them but do wish it was an option in group chats. I selfhost a Matrix homeserver: it's nowhere near ready for primetime and misses a lot of those thoughtful touches less technical people appreciate. If you do want to try to onboard people to Matrix with the Element client (and be very careful because you only get one, maybe two shots with your friends and family before they go back to whatever they were using before) use Mozilla's homeserver for its vastly better performance and option of SSO sign-on.

novok 5y ago
WhatsApp has a better privacy story than Telegram, because every chat is a 'secret chat' by default. If your using signal, a priority for you is private chat with something the normies in your life can use, otherwise you'd just use whatever is the most popular where you live.
- theshrike79 5y ago
  I'll take proper native bot support over privacy for my everyday chats any day. And by "chat" here I mean a channel with multiple people. For 1-on-1 it's all the same to me. Telegram is still the easiest, since I can have the same chat history on multiple devices easily.
- the_other 5y ago
  > WhatsApp has a better privacy story than Telegram No it doesn’t. It’s owned by the 2nd largest surveillance capitalist; it shares a back-end with Facebook (so at a whim they can use the metadata around your chats to update their advertising models of you and your contacts); IIRC it leaks your engagement to FB (via web link previews).

pmlnr 5y ago

SMS. It's on every phone. Beyond that, there are free XMPP servers, and you can even run you own. Clients like Conversations, blabber.im are all wonderful. I've been using it with friends and my wife for years without issues, albeit I have my own server.

Kelteseth 5y ago
SMS is awful for everything more than just plain text, and costs money. Have you ever tried to send an image or a short video via SMS?
- pmlnr 5y ago
  Why would I? The question was: for casual messaging.
mmwelt 5y ago
I, too, thouht that, until I realised that the iOS clients are terrible in comparison with Android. :-(

Multicomp 5y ago

DeltaChat. Chat over email,no separate service to go down. Even has group chats and Android & IOS apps and a desktop app.

maqp 5y ago
No forward secrecy. No future secrecy. No deniability. No metadata protection. PGP for secure communication needs to die. We've had better architecture for the past 17 years when OTR was introduced.

dunefox 5y ago

Honestly, Threema is my favourite messenger so far.