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Signal commit Username Integration Test
- sshine 3y agoYou can’t have a social network without usernames!
- rOOb85 3y agoSignal isn’t a social network… it’s a messaging app.
- mhluongo 3y agoSame thing. Parent comment doesn't make much sense though!
- rt4mn 3y agoI mean, I dont agree with the person you are replying to, but signal absolutely is a social network. Its a network you use to communicate socially. You can argue its not social media, but I think the stories feature definitely puts it on the social media spectrum to some degree.
- vdqtp3 3y agoDoes anyone actually use the stories feature?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- aspensmonster 3y agoI turned it off as soon as it was debuted.
- fragmede 3y agoMy friends on Signal do, but I have no idea how widespread it is across their whole userbase. It's not as in-your-face as Instagram, which is actually kind of nice, but like it's being said - signal is social media. you can choose to not use that feature but that's on you. To look at you and your friend group and extrapolate from there is not science, or data driven. the plural of anecdote is not data. It's like saying no one uses Facebook or Google anymore. That's true for certain bubbles, and it's hard to know when you're in one, but, say least for those two, it's not too hard to look outside your bubble. Now the cryptocurrency integration, that one I do wonder about. (Since my friend group doesn't use it and I'm extrapolating :) ).
- ploum 3y agoI disabled that feature as soon as it appeared (the less I use a messaging app, the best it is) and forgot about it. Your comment makes me curious: I do really wonder how this feature is used. Signal announced it was really something users were looking for. I wonder if it was a weak attempt at convincing the Instagram crowd or if it is really popular with some population. In the end, I’m still angry that they removed SMS support. That was really useful to have only one messaging app on my phone.
- tech_ken 3y agoMy friend group uses Signal for cross-platform group texting and the stories feature is super popular. Great for putting up non-intrusive pet pics or memes. IDK the rationale for introducing it, but I do think it's a fun feature that makes it feel more like a WhatsApp/social messaging replacement, rather than just something people download to coordinate protests or sell drugs.
- ploum 3y agoThanks for this comment. It makes me understand better how it could be used (never saw the need myself, even when I was on Whatsapp. I probably too old)
- fragmede 3y ago
- sshine 3y agoYou mean: it wasn’t. If it walks like a duck.
- jstanley 3y agoWhat are we looking at here?
- barbazoo 3y agoSignal at the moment requires a phone number. People don't like that e.g. for privacy reasons. Signal said they'll eventually support usernames, this is a signal that there's progress.
- contact9879 3y agoSignal will still require a phone number for registration. You will be able to hide your phone number and use a username instead.
- ouiouibaguette 3y ago[dead]
- rnk 3y agoI hope I can finally put signal on my second phone with the same account.
- pomstazlesa 3y agoYou can with new molly.im update
- wkat4242 3y agoCrap, I wish I could use it without a phone number altogether. I was hoping this would be the case. It's the problem with telegram too, you can show a username but you must still have a phone number. Matrix does this really well though. So I use that a lot. Unfortunately not many people do.
- GlumWoodpecker 3y agoSession [0] is an up and coming, open source E2EE messenger that doesn't rely on phone numbers (and doesn't require them). It also routes messages through Tor. It's fast and reliable, and I always get notifications on time. It has some disadvantages though, depending on how you use it. Your ID is a 66 character long hexadecimal hash instead of a classic username. Another disadvantage I've found is the paltry 10 MB attachment limit - trying to share a short video clip I made on my phone required several re-encodes to dip below the limit. Even some still photos will hit that limit, depending on complexity. So not very good for sharing media, but great for texting, in my experience. [0]: https://getsession.org/ https://getsession.org/
- codedokode 3y agoSignal is finally copying what Telegram has implemented since long ago? Do people in the West simply do not care about hiding their number (judging by WhatsApp and Signal)?
- andy81 3y agoThe mobile number requirement was always a feature of signal. The friction is slight for users, but higher for scammers that might go through thousands of accounts. Telegram is too easy to sign up, so it's mostly scams.
- slig 3y agoAFAIK, Telegram always had the mobile phone number requirement so, no, the friction to sign up is the same.
- codedokode 3y agoI meant that Telegram doesn't display user's phone number and doesn't require sharing a number to add person to contacts. But with WhatsApp and Signal you have to disclose your number in order to talk to someone.
- sabellito 3y agoNever had any scam messages on telegram, but get ~1 per month on whatsapp.
- tech_ken 3y agoNever really understood the privacy argument for hiding (or disconnecting) your phone number in a User-User "texting" type application. I suppose if Signal were linking my identity across a bunch of platforms I'd be worried, but their privacy policy is pretty aggressive so I'm not really worried about that. Indeed the additional friction for scammers is a benefit to me. Telegram is a morass of dodgy group chats and spam, Signal is miles better for the things I value in a messaging service (encrypted texting and group chatting with people I already know in the real world).
- rt4mn 3y agoI really hope this eventually leads to a situation where an adversary cant forcibly de-link you from your signal account by taking control of your phone number or intercepting an sms.
- tech_ken 3y agoDoesn't the registration lock feature resolve this?
- rt4mn 3y agoNope. "If Alice registers number X and enables reglock, but Bob later proves ownership of number X (by registering and completing the SMS code), then Alice will be unregistered." IE, if somone intercepts the SMS code, even with reglock, you can forcibly de-register somone. This means if you use loose access to your phone number, you can easily loose access to your signal account. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/12595#issuecomment-1310752097 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/12595#iss... They justify this by saying "The intention of reglock is to prevent hijacking of numbers you actually own, not to guarantee the number for yourself for life", but its way to easy for activists and dissidents to lose ownership (temperately or permanently) of phone numbers for the phone number system to be the backbone identity system for a secure messaging platform
- YeBanKo 3y agoI love Signal, but somehow they seem to have stopped developing the product. The last useful feature was being able to change number. But other than that, things like MobileCoin or Stories show that there is no product vision. There are many useful non-social network features that they can implement and test that would greatly improve its usefulness as secure p2p communication platform.
- trog 3y agoThis is a huge feature for me. I want most of my applications to stay as they are and not keep adding new features for the sake of new features!
- lxgr 3y agoAdding a cryptocurrency payment scheme isn’t exactly “not adding features” though, is it?
- k_ 3y agoThat's also part of the issue here: we _are_ getting new [useless] features for the sake of new features lately: stickers, stories, crypto currency support are the main ones that come to mind atm. And a formatting feature with (seemingly? would love to be wrong there) no syntax to use it without clicking/taping everywhere which makes it useless for me (and frustrating because with a syntax (say, markdown like?) I would love it).