KLISHDFSDF

In Matrix a direct chat is a group chat with two people.

You're right, I forgot how Matrix handled messages and the current state is that there's are at least 6 other clients that support E2EE - this is awesome.

That said, as soon as you look for a stable client that supports other features like Native 1:1 calls and Threads the only client listed is Element, check here: https://matrix.org/ecosystem/clients/

Side note: Looks like ~3 years ago a Fluffychat dev stated they would not implement E2EE in the app [0], this must have been around the time I was looking at other clients because I recall this one "looking" the best and might be viable for non-techy people to use/recommend. I'm glad they changed their mind and implemented E2EE. Time to take a look at it again.

[0] https://gitlab.com/KrilleFear/fluffychat/-/issues/25#note_423061121

First off, how can you claim RCS "requires you to buy an Android and then state iMessage is "cross platform through Apple's ecosystem? RCS works on Android and is available in various devices from many manufacturers. iMessage is only available on devices sold by Apple.

Secondly, why would you rate iMessage higher than RCS for "ease of use"? That makes zero sense, they behave basically the exact same way.

Lastly, RCS is coming to iOS - Apple's just been lagging because implementing a cross-platform solution is detrimental to their profits.

So RCS will eventually work across iOS and Android AND work by default. There's no reason RCS wouldn't be easier or rated higher than iMessage in terms of "ease of use"

This is an often repeated piece of misinformation. The developer of gurk-rs, a third party Signal client, has even said this himself. The client presents itself with a completely identifiable name to the Signal servers - the Signal devs can see this and could easily block this client from connecting but they don't. This project has existed for at least 3+ years now.

There's a few clients for Signal, nobody is preventing developers from creating apps; there's Molly, gurk-rs, Axolotl, Flare, signal-cli, Pidgin (with the Signal plugin.

The problem is 3rd party clients don't implement all features because it takes a lot of work and they're created/developed by volunteers - just take a look at Matrix and how many clients support all features or even just group end-to-end encryption (E2EE). Last I checked many third party Matrix clients didn't support encrypted group messages, primarily just Element, the reference client built by the matrix developers. So you have the same problem on Signal that you have on Matrix.

I could settle for this but remove telegram as it's not even E2EE by default. It's basically facebook v2.

You're looking at it through the eyes of a competent user. It's obvious to us. It's not trivial to the general population. Just ask most iOS users what the difference is between green/blue bubbles - they have no idea other than "one sucks and means they use Android"

What phone do you have? have you taken a look at this? https://dontkillmyapp.com/

It’s a shame that Signal has discontinued its support for normal SMS,

While this does suck for those of us who used it, it was the cause of a few issues:

1. It was confusing to less "technical" users.
2. Because of point 1, it introduced a security/privacy weakness to its userbase in that users could be tricked into thinking their communications were secure/private.
3. The feature was poorly maintained due to the small team behind Signal and the decision to improve their platform vs supporting something they had minimal control over.
4. Signal's SMS feature was causing real-life delivery issues with some new users as RCS started rolling out. A user's phone would register with RCS - and if they installed signal -which then takes over SMS messaging but couldn't (thanks to Google) support RCS - they would stop receiving RCS messages. This is a problem caused by Google to their benefit.

hadn’t implemented RCS,

Signal cannot implement RCS on Android without Google providing an API like they did with SMS. Apple doesn't even allow alternative SMS clients so this made no sense going forward - basically SMS/MMS/RCS is a dead-end for Signal.

is spending too much effort on “stickers”

What year is this? Signal stickers were released at the end of 2019 [0] and, in the nearly five years since, the work to maintain them is so small it may as well be zero. Check github - the work they release is public and you can see exactly what they've been working on.

and now keeps prodding you to donate money.

Its a free service, god forbid they ask users to contribute so they can continue to exist and provide said service to those who can't afford it? 🤷‍♀️

Then there’s the broken notification with iOS users who just don’t find out that you messaged them until they launch the app.

Valid criticism IF true. I don't have an iOS device so I can't say much here but I do message iOS users pretty frequently and haven't had any problem with response times - not sure if that's because they're always on their phone or because notifications work in most cases.

As a direct result my use of Signal has pretty much ceased.

While unfortunate for your privacy, if you were primarily using Signal for SMS, you weren't really using Signal to begin with.

[0] https://signal.org/blog/make-privacy-stick/

Amazon was caught hiding evidence by using Signal - most larger orgs have a pretty strict policy (with mandatory yearly trainings) that remind users not to use non-company approved messaging apps because of this specific reason. There's all kinds of rules, regulations and laws that may have been broken by them using a service like Signal.

Signal > Matrix/Element > RCS > SMS.

iMessage isn't in the equation because it only works on a single platform.

Never forget: The second-largest egg producer in the country - a family farming company of a Republican candidate for the US Senate- was found liable to fix the price of eggs.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/23/john-rust-rose-acre-farms-egg-price-fixing-senate

What's wrong with Briar? https://briarproject.org/

Censorship-resistant peer-to-peer messaging that bypasses centralized servers. Connect via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or Tor, with privacy built-in.

I think the reason these apps don't take off is the compromises they make in order to work the way they do. When you do need them, you best hope you're able to get them and get others to use them as well.