Session is a decentralized alternative to signal. It doesn’t require a phone number and all traffic is routed through a tor like onion network. Relays are run by the community and relay operators are rewarded with some crypto token for their troubles. To prevent bad actors from attacking the network, in order to run a relay you have to stake some of those tokens first and if your node misbehaves thay will get slashed.
I would not recommend it. Session is a signal fork that deliberately removes forward secrecy from the protocol and uses weaker keys. The removal of forward security means that if your private key is ever exposed all your past messages could be decrypted.
The main issue with Session is they removed PFS when they redesigned everything. Also, it’s admittedly been years since I tried it, but I remember the app being noticeably buggy.
It’s gotten more usable over the past couple of years. Sadly, I just got done getting all my family/friend contacts to get on Signal (they’d much prefer to use WhatsApp) so Session remains a lonely place for me. I seem to use it solely as a place to stash notes for myself, even though I do this with Signal as well.
I don’t know that we’ll ever see a messenger that both appeals to everyone and has all the features we want (from privacy to visual appeal).
I feel like this about SimpleX. It was a hellish struggle to get people to use Signal (and still a bunch only use Instagram or insist on doing plain phone calls/SMS). Some of my family continuously complain that Signal is too complicated despite the interface being pretty much exactly the same as whatever app they want to use. I really don’t want to try to get them to use another app ever again.
I found it workable when I tried it recently, but wound up going with simpleX. I like the multi identity system and you can proxy it through tor. Found the app customization more flushed out too.
Session is a decentralized alternative to signal. It doesn’t require a phone number and all traffic is routed through a tor like onion network. Relays are run by the community and relay operators are rewarded with some crypto token for their troubles. To prevent bad actors from attacking the network, in order to run a relay you have to stake some of those tokens first and if your node misbehaves thay will get slashed.
I would not recommend it. Session is a signal fork that deliberately removes forward secrecy from the protocol and uses weaker keys. The removal of forward security means that if your private key is ever exposed all your past messages could be decrypted.
The main issue with Session is they removed PFS when they redesigned everything. Also, it’s admittedly been years since I tried it, but I remember the app being noticeably buggy.
It’s gotten more usable over the past couple of years. Sadly, I just got done getting all my family/friend contacts to get on Signal (they’d much prefer to use WhatsApp) so Session remains a lonely place for me. I seem to use it solely as a place to stash notes for myself, even though I do this with Signal as well.
I don’t know that we’ll ever see a messenger that both appeals to everyone and has all the features we want (from privacy to visual appeal).
I feel like this about SimpleX. It was a hellish struggle to get people to use Signal (and still a bunch only use Instagram or insist on doing plain phone calls/SMS). Some of my family continuously complain that Signal is too complicated despite the interface being pretty much exactly the same as whatever app they want to use. I really don’t want to try to get them to use another app ever again.
This is a bad tool but even if it weren’t the no phone number thing is an anti-feature for most of the population.
I found it workable when I tried it recently, but wound up going with simpleX. I like the multi identity system and you can proxy it through tor. Found the app customization more flushed out too.