10 ms·

Signal does some things well, but lacks far behind other apps in UX. It doesn't do cloud backups either, which keeps me from recommending it to less technical f

by gsa 10mo ago

Signal does some things well, but lacks far behind other apps in UX. It doesn't do cloud backups either, which keeps me from recommending it to less technical folks.

andrepd 10mo ago
> It doesn't do cloud backups either, Yes it does.
abraham 10mo ago
Signal recently introduced cloud backups. https://signal.org/blog/introducing-secure-backups/ https://signal.org/blog/introducing-secure-backups/
- gsa 10mo ago
  Looks like the needle has moved, but reading the blog it's a recent development and only available in the beta version of the Android app.
  - abraham 10mo ago
    They've probably expanded support since the initial announcement
- Nextgrid 10mo ago
  Only in the Beta Android app for now... Signal is around for what, a decade now? And they still can't (or rather, refuse to) do the basic "copy the SQLite DB file to a folder". Edit: and even this beta feature is some bullshit proprietary thing with their own cloud and subscription rather than simply "let me export the DB file and stick it in a cloud provider of my choice". Last time I had to reinstall my phone I ended up finding an implementation of their phone-to-phone transfer protocol to emulate a "new" device I'm transferring to just to get a dump of the data (I'd share, but don't want them to close this option, since clearly the lack of export option is very much intentional). Then I deleted Signal and begrudgingly moved to WhatsApp (in addition to iMessage which I've already been using).
  - abraham 10mo ago
    Signal has had a backup to a file you can do any you want to for years.
    - newscracker 10mo ago
      Never on iOS or any other Apple platform. Signal is designed not to be able to backup to iCloud either. The only option iOS users have had over the last few years is to do a device to device transfer where both phones are expected to be in physical proximity and it takes hours to transfer the data. Lost phone has meant losing all chats. WhatsApp, which is infamous by association with Meta, backs up to Google Drive or wherever.
encom 10mo ago
My biggest problem with Signal is their desktop app is awful. Telegram, for all its faults, has an excellent desktop app. I hate writing on a phone - anything longer than a few words I use my computer for.
- joecool1029 10mo ago
  > Telegram, for all its faults, has an excellent desktop app. Their developers are also very responsive to PR's, I have a couple GCC build fixes in it. I really soured on Signal early with when running BB10, they would not let us fork and use/distribute websocket builds to get around not having google play services on available on that platform: https://github.com/libresignal/libresignal/issues/37#issuecomment-217211165 https://github.com/libresignal/libresignal/issues/37#issueco... I'm still a little sour on it now because there's still no way to transfer the identity since they refuse itunes/icloud backup, refuse any way to export a key, and I have to look at hideous corporate memphis icons every time I set up Signal new again on iOS (at least Android doesn't have the last thing). I mentioned before, but I use mautrix-signal to be able to have a unified (except for telegram) messenger on desktop with nheko or element via matrix. It works really well.

by gsa 10mo ago

Signal does some things well, but lacks far behind other apps in UX. It doesn't do cloud backups either, which keeps me from recommending it to less technical folks.

andrepd 10mo ago

> It doesn't do cloud backups either, Yes it does.

abraham 10mo ago

Signal recently introduced cloud backups. https://signal.org/blog/introducing-secure-backups/ https://signal.org/blog/introducing-secure-backups/

gsa 10mo ago
Looks like the needle has moved, but reading the blog it's a recent development and only available in the beta version of the Android app.
- abraham 10mo ago
  They've probably expanded support since the initial announcement
Nextgrid 10mo ago
Only in the Beta Android app for now... Signal is around for what, a decade now? And they still can't (or rather, refuse to) do the basic "copy the SQLite DB file to a folder". Edit: and even this beta feature is some bullshit proprietary thing with their own cloud and subscription rather than simply "let me export the DB file and stick it in a cloud provider of my choice". Last time I had to reinstall my phone I ended up finding an implementation of their phone-to-phone transfer protocol to emulate a "new" device I'm transferring to just to get a dump of the data (I'd share, but don't want them to close this option, since clearly the lack of export option is very much intentional). Then I deleted Signal and begrudgingly moved to WhatsApp (in addition to iMessage which I've already been using).
- abraham 10mo ago
  Signal has had a backup to a file you can do any you want to for years.
  - newscracker 10mo ago
    Never on iOS or any other Apple platform. Signal is designed not to be able to backup to iCloud either. The only option iOS users have had over the last few years is to do a device to device transfer where both phones are expected to be in physical proximity and it takes hours to transfer the data. Lost phone has meant losing all chats. WhatsApp, which is infamous by association with Meta, backs up to Google Drive or wherever.

encom 10mo ago

My biggest problem with Signal is their desktop app is awful. Telegram, for all its faults, has an excellent desktop app. I hate writing on a phone - anything longer than a few words I use my computer for.

joecool1029 10mo ago
> Telegram, for all its faults, has an excellent desktop app. Their developers are also very responsive to PR's, I have a couple GCC build fixes in it. I really soured on Signal early with when running BB10, they would not let us fork and use/distribute websocket builds to get around not having google play services on available on that platform: https://github.com/libresignal/libresignal/issues/37#issuecomment-217211165 https://github.com/libresignal/libresignal/issues/37#issueco... I'm still a little sour on it now because there's still no way to transfer the identity since they refuse itunes/icloud backup, refuse any way to export a key, and I have to look at hideous corporate memphis icons every time I set up Signal new again on iOS (at least Android doesn't have the last thing). I mentioned before, but I use mautrix-signal to be able to have a unified (except for telegram) messenger on desktop with nheko or element via matrix. It works really well.