Facebook Messenger only has end-to-end encryption if you explicitly enable it with secret chats. It only has server-side encryption with normal chats. I don’t believe this has changed in the past few years, but I could be wrong. The UI is confusing and I was never able to convince anyone to use it consistently, but it’s there.
Whatsapp always has E2EE.
That’s not the most important factor to me. I would rather sacrifice privacy and security than give these companies more control over my life.
In principle, Google can refuse to implement the E2EE protocol once the RCS standard gains that feature and continue to only support its own extensions, so Google Messages may be the only practical RCS client. This is something Microsoft would do. Note that I have no understanding of RCS so I don’t know how practical this would be in reality.
If Apple is refusing to implement Google’s extensions and only implements E2EE as part of the RCS standard, this puts pressure on Google to implement this part of the RCS standard, so perhaps Google has no leverage here.
I don’t know whether Google would do this or not, so I’m waiting to find out.
I wouldn’t use non-free software for communication, so that rules Google Messages out for me anyway.
You no longer need secret chats
correct on last one
Your choice, Personally not something I agree nor respect
It’s not Google that’s helping GSMA implement it, it’s an upcoming thing to come as part of the RCS Standard so in that way you won’t need Google Messages (Maybe I misunderstood? but point stands)
I guess true yeah.
When it comes to strangling RCS? As soon as E2EE comes, Google will no longer have that. (At least when RCS apps come out.)
If only more people used Signal. In theory yes sms should be replaced with Signal or at least rcs. But the reality is that people alot of people won’t switch to Signal due to the networking effect. Most join Signal to see what it’s like see 2 contacts on it. Who also see they’re on Signal. Go to message and then either a message doesn’t get through or they never respond. So end up deleting the app and going back to Facebooks whatsapp service. When in reality Signal hadn’t been opened for a while and goes into sleep by the os and thus notifications never arrive.
I’ll agree to disagree.
Yes while I have had struggles convincing people to signal, Some were compliant and one out of friendly force. I got my friends sold merely of stickers which is fun. We’re gacha gamers and 2 games we play happen to have stickers so we use them on Signal and it’s a nice feeling.
Now this method hasn’t always worked, the shy guy who I was almost about to hang out with me despite using the same selling point ghosted me and deleted the signal but I feel I’d add up
I’m stuck with Instagram DMs or LINE (the latter does have E2EE but I heard bad things about it), I tend to prefer the former just because the convenience factor of Instagram having a matrix bridge. I don"t have Google Play Services on my main profile, I keep LINE on a seperate profile that stays of most of the time and I had to keep telling myself to go check it (I tell people, just call me if it’s urgent, I will almost never read it)
Hey, at least I got my cousin, my close family, and my boyfriend (well, my boyfriend already had it before he knows me) and it seems like my best friend is edging closer so hey progress!
I once hosted an iMessage bridge for people who have iPhones to message me through there, but people here just have stigma for “SMS Apps” since SMS is so expensive and they don’t want to accidentally send an SMS
Beeper?
I still would avoid Meta if I can of course.
As for Line, Eh I get it if you have japanese friends perhaps which I agree with your approach, It’s similar to my viber approach where I just very slowly if never just respond and have set necessary mitigations where I can control like having no providers collect or use my data and viber themselves, disappearing messages by default etc. (and is also on my focus profile)
[and tbh I’m impressed someone like my sister puts up with it especially refusing to use Molly for personal signal]
Used to use that, but now I’m self-hosting a conduwuit servers with bridges (Beeper is just matrix and their bridges are open source tee hee)
Oh and I don’t have Japanese friend, I’m from Thailand and this is what people use here
EDIT: LINE sucks, from just a UX point of view, absolutely can’t tolerate it.
I disabled sms months ago. It’s one of the nice perks of voip.
My bank sends me a 2fa code via a voicecall. The only sms I was receiving was from political parties and I can do without that junk.
Quick heads up on the voice call 2FA. It’s often even less secure than SMS. In the article below, they show how to extract codes from voicemail, even when the verification system “requires user interaction.”
I’m not ready to heap a lot of praise or hope on RCS now or future yet. Given it has the ability to tell the sender when you viewed the sent message, it’s kind of prying eyes for spammers and anonymous people to tell if you are there, saw the message, and should get more crap messages.
?
If you mean delivery and read receipts, this is a thing in like any messenger like Signal and SimpleX and etc. They can also be opt out
you’re very much overlooking into the moon at this point.
Feedback on the video, as in my experience YouTube shadowbans/autohides my comments whenever I sign into YouTube over a personal VPN:
First, I find this as a relatively modern appeal to move away from SMS. I’m ok with the editing, but I can see that this was inspired by Vox’s animation style in their videos on YouTube. Some might find this style of animation to be too busy and/or fast.
Secondly, this prescient PSA-style video, as reporting on Salt Typhoon had been drowned out by coverage on the US “ban” of Tiktok in late 2024.
Third, I like the message of spreading the use of Signal and SimpleX to others, as I’ve been in scenarios in which I believe communications should’ve have been delivered via SMS.
Tangent: this does bring to mind a running list in my mind on why not to rely on PGP (and also GPG) for usable secure communications:
(little motivations help indeed)
which is fun. We’re gacha gamers and 2 games we play happen to have stickers so we use them on Signal and it’s a nice feeling.
(the latter does have E2EE but I heard bad things about it), I tend to prefer the former just because the convenience factor of Instagram having a matrix bridge. I don"t have Google Play Services on my main profile, I keep LINE on a seperate profile that stays of most of the time and I had to keep telling myself to go check it (I tell people, just call me if it’s urgent, I will almost never read it)
