6 ms·

Signal and WhatsApp are bloated and slow in comparison.

by isatty 2mo ago

Krasnol 2mo ago
What is slow? I don't understand what there is to accelerate.
- forgotmypw17 2mo ago
  The main things that are slow are loading the app and opening the app, loading the messages, and receiving the messages. On my phone, this is much slower than Telegram, and on my computer, the WhatsApp program doesn't even work have the time -- it just gets stuck in the loading process. Signal is not as bad, but can still take a minute or two to update everything on my computer. The phone app is better.
  - Krasnol 2mo ago
    Sounds more like your personal problem. I live in Germany and use both. None do that and as I'm "the IT guy" for many people at work an din private, I'd have heard about it. Hell, the whole continent would have heard about it as whatsapp is widely used. My Signal also doesn't do that.
    - Paracompact 2mo ago
      There are three people in this thread with this "personal" problem.
      - econ 2mo ago
        It's the gold standard for bad support: pretend the user has a problem. There once was this thread on a blog for a windows XP pirated edition. Someone commented that something small didn't work. They replied in less than a minute, that's terrible! 10 minutes later the version was incremented and a new reply said: Try the new version! After 30 minutes the bug fix was confirmed. They weren't trying to be funny but it still makes me laugh how it compares to Microsoft, the 3 trillion software company.
        Krasnol 2mo ago
        I worked for a long time in IT Support and this generalisation, like all of them, is false. If someone tells me that a program crashes in 50% of the time on launch but it's only him reporting it, it is almost certainly his problem and not a problem of the program. Especially if you're supporting millions of people. This is not some prejudice story people make up. It is happening. Every day to thousands of poor IT Warriors on the front.
        forgotmypw17 2mo ago
        But it's not "his" problem or "my" problem, it's "our" mutual problem for "us" to figure out together, collaboratively, down to its root causes, which are yet unknown. (And in the future, to mitigate and prevent, using whatever means are available to us.)
        Krasnol 2mo ago
        Maybe. If someone choses to do so in their capacity. But they don't have to. On the other side, suggesting that it is a general issue with those programs is wrong. Which is what I have been actually pointing out. This gives you the chance to check your devices and seek help if necessary. This doesn't make my comment "bad support". I am not the tech support guy for HN.
        econ 2mo ago
        I sometimes send an email with 1) the things that don't work, 2) terrible ui, 3) possible improvements. Most often I've moved on to similar software that does what I want. I get responses like. 1) It works for me, 2) you should have looked at this and that, 3) no one wants that/it works fine the way it is. The worse part is that they wasted their time reading and responding. I've had wonderful feedback on things I've made. The funniest were people who didn't understand standard ui convention. It had me wonder if I can expose mission critical parts some other way in case the user doesn't know how a hamburger menu works. Imagine my shock when I learn a young user conditioned by modern flat buttons thought [shall we say] windows 95 industrial buttons are decorations. You can click on that??? If I pretend it is their problem I haven't actually solved anything.
    - econ 2mo ago
      Since the whatsapp cliënt on desktop was replaced by a web wrapper it's even worse. I don't even remember how the previous cliënt did it but my spelling suggestions are in English (as is the OS) but my chats are all in Dutch. Most words have a red underline. It recently gave up downloading images. Turned out it was no longer allowed to write to its own folder. Not sure if this should be blamed on MS but from the (many) user perspective it just stopped working. It keeps limited chat history which makes it inferior to IRC. It badly wants you to use ai. It has a spam channel where it promotes it self. The phone app is decent tho
      - opem 2mo ago
        Exactly, signal is decent on all the platforms, while mobile clients for whatsapp is somewhat tolerable if you ignore the constant AI push. But the web/desktop client is a pain in the ass to use.
      - Krasnol 2mo ago
        I agree on all the content related things but your argument was about speed. I use whatsapp web every day at work. The page. In my Firefox browser. It's almost constantly open. Never had any issues with that. The phone app just does what it's supposed to do and even on my Pixel6, it's just fast. I mean there is always faster but it's not even a second. I use Whatsapp only because I have to. Privately, I prefer Signal. Works also great. Same with the windows app. Been using both since day 1. On a Pixel7Pro....
    - cardiffspaceman 2mo ago
      From USA, one mainly needs WhatsApp to chat with Latin Americans. Judging from the billboards I have seen in Argentina and Uruguay, there are a lot of Latin Americans getting WA free. So of course, why pay more?
      - maximilianthe1 2mo ago
        >> why pay Both WhatsUp & Telegram are completely free to use. Telegram has premium features, but they are tangential to chatting & average use.
    - opem 2mo ago
      Not at all, telegram clients in every platform are much much faster than whatsapp, signal etc. on the same platform. Although, this is more visible on older devices and on poor network conditions, I clearly see a difference in my newer devices too.
      - Krasnol 2mo ago
        Could you give me one for Android which is really fast? I'd try that out on a phone with whatsapp and signal. Also, what does "fast" mean? Fast on start?
    - forgotmypw17 2mo ago
      I'm confused about how it is that because it hasn't happened to you or anyone you know, it's my personal problem that closed-source software that I have no capability to modify is working slowly or failing to work at all?
      - Krasnol 2mo ago
        As I wrote: If "WhatsApp program doesn't even work have the time -- it just gets stuck in the loading process." this would be true for half of the European Continent, since it's very popular there, there would be uprisings, memes, news. You could read people trying to fix it, find out why, etc. There is nothing. It's not just me who doesn't know ANYBODY with those issues. So the logical conclusion is: you're either lying or you have a problem on your own device other people don't have.
- 0x457 2mo ago
  In Telegram, I can open a chat, find a sticker, send a sticker, post a circle story, and shitpost in another group chat. All while WhatsApp loads my chat history. That is on any platform and any network condition, except for fully offline. Their desktop apps are just Qt and not WebView inside a Qt. Mobile apps are native and not React.
  - Krasnol 2mo ago
    Ok I don't know what finding a sticker has to do with speed. Whatsapp and Signal have stickers too. Kids use them sometimes. They are like in a list. You open the list. Chose one and then it appears. Don't know what there is to accelerate. ...and yeah, whatever language they are. I don't really care because, as said: there is no problem...
    - 0x457 2mo ago
      > Ok I don't know what finding a sticker has to do with speed. You don't know that it takes time to load graphical assets? And you can't comprehend that I'm using it as an example of how much more stuff Telegram clients manage to do/load in the time it takes WhatsApp to load one screen?
      - Krasnol 2mo ago
        No I can't since I've never experienced any delay which would justify this amount of criticism and I mean, Germany is outside of big cities quite messy in it's coverage.

Signal and WhatsApp are bloated and slow in comparison.

by isatty 2mo ago

Signal and WhatsApp are bloated and slow in comparison.

Krasnol 2mo ago

What is slow? I don't understand what there is to accelerate.

forgotmypw17 2mo ago
The main things that are slow are loading the app and opening the app, loading the messages, and receiving the messages. On my phone, this is much slower than Telegram, and on my computer, the WhatsApp program doesn't even work have the time -- it just gets stuck in the loading process. Signal is not as bad, but can still take a minute or two to update everything on my computer. The phone app is better.
- Krasnol 2mo ago
  Sounds more like your personal problem. I live in Germany and use both. None do that and as I'm "the IT guy" for many people at work an din private, I'd have heard about it. Hell, the whole continent would have heard about it as whatsapp is widely used. My Signal also doesn't do that.
  - Paracompact 2mo ago
    There are three people in this thread with this "personal" problem.
    - econ 2mo ago
      It's the gold standard for bad support: pretend the user has a problem. There once was this thread on a blog for a windows XP pirated edition. Someone commented that something small didn't work. They replied in less than a minute, that's terrible! 10 minutes later the version was incremented and a new reply said: Try the new version! After 30 minutes the bug fix was confirmed. They weren't trying to be funny but it still makes me laugh how it compares to Microsoft, the 3 trillion software company.
      - Krasnol 2mo ago
        I worked for a long time in IT Support and this generalisation, like all of them, is false. If someone tells me that a program crashes in 50% of the time on launch but it's only him reporting it, it is almost certainly his problem and not a problem of the program. Especially if you're supporting millions of people. This is not some prejudice story people make up. It is happening. Every day to thousands of poor IT Warriors on the front.
        forgotmypw17 2mo ago
        But it's not "his" problem or "my" problem, it's "our" mutual problem for "us" to figure out together, collaboratively, down to its root causes, which are yet unknown. (And in the future, to mitigate and prevent, using whatever means are available to us.)
        Krasnol 2mo ago
        Maybe. If someone choses to do so in their capacity. But they don't have to. On the other side, suggesting that it is a general issue with those programs is wrong. Which is what I have been actually pointing out. This gives you the chance to check your devices and seek help if necessary. This doesn't make my comment "bad support". I am not the tech support guy for HN.
        econ 2mo ago
        I sometimes send an email with 1) the things that don't work, 2) terrible ui, 3) possible improvements. Most often I've moved on to similar software that does what I want. I get responses like. 1) It works for me, 2) you should have looked at this and that, 3) no one wants that/it works fine the way it is. The worse part is that they wasted their time reading and responding. I've had wonderful feedback on things I've made. The funniest were people who didn't understand standard ui convention. It had me wonder if I can expose mission critical parts some other way in case the user doesn't know how a hamburger menu works. Imagine my shock when I learn a young user conditioned by modern flat buttons thought [shall we say] windows 95 industrial buttons are decorations. You can click on that??? If I pretend it is their problem I haven't actually solved anything.
  - econ 2mo ago
    Since the whatsapp cliënt on desktop was replaced by a web wrapper it's even worse. I don't even remember how the previous cliënt did it but my spelling suggestions are in English (as is the OS) but my chats are all in Dutch. Most words have a red underline. It recently gave up downloading images. Turned out it was no longer allowed to write to its own folder. Not sure if this should be blamed on MS but from the (many) user perspective it just stopped working. It keeps limited chat history which makes it inferior to IRC. It badly wants you to use ai. It has a spam channel where it promotes it self. The phone app is decent tho
    - opem 2mo ago
      Exactly, signal is decent on all the platforms, while mobile clients for whatsapp is somewhat tolerable if you ignore the constant AI push. But the web/desktop client is a pain in the ass to use.
    - Krasnol 2mo ago
      I agree on all the content related things but your argument was about speed. I use whatsapp web every day at work. The page. In my Firefox browser. It's almost constantly open. Never had any issues with that. The phone app just does what it's supposed to do and even on my Pixel6, it's just fast. I mean there is always faster but it's not even a second. I use Whatsapp only because I have to. Privately, I prefer Signal. Works also great. Same with the windows app. Been using both since day 1. On a Pixel7Pro....
  - cardiffspaceman 2mo ago
    From USA, one mainly needs WhatsApp to chat with Latin Americans. Judging from the billboards I have seen in Argentina and Uruguay, there are a lot of Latin Americans getting WA free. So of course, why pay more?
    - maximilianthe1 2mo ago
      >> why pay Both WhatsUp & Telegram are completely free to use. Telegram has premium features, but they are tangential to chatting & average use.
  - opem 2mo ago
    Not at all, telegram clients in every platform are much much faster than whatsapp, signal etc. on the same platform. Although, this is more visible on older devices and on poor network conditions, I clearly see a difference in my newer devices too.
    - Krasnol 2mo ago
      Could you give me one for Android which is really fast? I'd try that out on a phone with whatsapp and signal. Also, what does "fast" mean? Fast on start?
  - forgotmypw17 2mo ago
    I'm confused about how it is that because it hasn't happened to you or anyone you know, it's my personal problem that closed-source software that I have no capability to modify is working slowly or failing to work at all?
    - Krasnol 2mo ago
      As I wrote: If "WhatsApp program doesn't even work have the time -- it just gets stuck in the loading process." this would be true for half of the European Continent, since it's very popular there, there would be uprisings, memes, news. You could read people trying to fix it, find out why, etc. There is nothing. It's not just me who doesn't know ANYBODY with those issues. So the logical conclusion is: you're either lying or you have a problem on your own device other people don't have.
0x457 2mo ago
In Telegram, I can open a chat, find a sticker, send a sticker, post a circle story, and shitpost in another group chat. All while WhatsApp loads my chat history. That is on any platform and any network condition, except for fully offline. Their desktop apps are just Qt and not WebView inside a Qt. Mobile apps are native and not React.
- Krasnol 2mo ago
  Ok I don't know what finding a sticker has to do with speed. Whatsapp and Signal have stickers too. Kids use them sometimes. They are like in a list. You open the list. Chose one and then it appears. Don't know what there is to accelerate. ...and yeah, whatever language they are. I don't really care because, as said: there is no problem...
  - 0x457 2mo ago
    > Ok I don't know what finding a sticker has to do with speed. You don't know that it takes time to load graphical assets? And you can't comprehend that I'm using it as an example of how much more stuff Telegram clients manage to do/load in the time it takes WhatsApp to load one screen?
    - Krasnol 2mo ago
      No I can't since I've never experienced any delay which would justify this amount of criticism and I mean, Germany is outside of big cities quite messy in it's coverage.