cross-posted from: https://monero.town/post/934733
SimpleX Chat
Private and Secure messaging platform without user IDs
Will this new messenger replace Signal?
by Evgeny Poberezkin
this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2023
70 points (92.7% liked)
Privacy
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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
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- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
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It doesn't have channels, only groups. It's more like Signal with no phone number req but with worse UX as a trade off
But https://briarproject.org can be used on Gaza right now, works without internet.
EDIT: And has forums posts for important notices around you, which is super useful on war/censorship times.
I think they serve different (though related or overlapping) purposes.
Briar started (IIRC) as a Bluetooth-only comm tool, and they've done a great job expanding what it can do (think it does Tor now?). Briar is not battery friendly, and the devs will tell you so. I don't consider it a daily driver, but rather for specific circumstances. I keep it around just-in-case.
SimpleX is more of a daily driver since it's a more conventional IP networking app, though it's a little battery hungry too.
My main concern wit Briar is that it would be of not much use without a smartphone (I meant the internet-less features in particular). I would not trust sensitive things to a smartphone. I wonder if soemthing like that could be doable with an Android VM or Waydroid with a laptop's bluetooth...
Maybe. Check out Android Subsystem for Windows. It's essentially an Android VM though you don't have a launcher/home screen. You just see the apps in your task bar like any windows app. I run it on an older laptop, it's a touch slow but works well enough.
https://github.com/MustardChef/WSABuilds
Windows is as much of a spyware as an average smartphone though, so not much of a point.
Edit: I should try it in Waydroid then.
Lol, true. I just assume most people are using it.
I'm working on getting away from it, been stuck on fining a OneNote replacement.
Yeah, you are right, I just think SimpleX is not for me as I already use many Matrix chat even for work stuff and collaborations (group chats), and I'm not sure if I can do the same or chat daily with my team as I do on Matrix. And I just hope and have faith that they will fix those metadata issues:
https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/660
https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/549
But can take long, for now I am not worried at all.
Yea, it's a different tool. And it's still early days.
I don't use SimpleX as a daily driver, yet. But it has a lot potential. Just glad to see another tool out there, and the devs seem really earnest (I worked with them a year ago while testing the app).
I should give it a try, but not sure if I will be able to talk with anyone... I don't really have friends that care about privacy... 😢
Lol, welcome to the club!
God how I despise SMS, and I can't get anyone off it, even if other options are easier to use than SMS, much more robust, faster, more flexible, etc.
There are a couple messaging apps that are self-hostable (like I believe SimpleX is). Litewire is one. At some point I plan on hosting one myself, and preconfigure accounts for friends/family to make it even easier for them. Maybe that will get them on board.
Yeah, and I first need to get friends... such a hard work... physical world isn't for me...
Lol, there is that problem. One thing at a time...
Signal only ask for a phone number to verify your identity... its far from private