“They” is the browser/browser maker. The browser, acting as the client, would have access to the keys and data. The browser maker could do whatever they want with it.

To be clear, I’m not saying they would, only that it defeats the purpose of an E2E chat, where your goal is to minimize/eliminate the possibility of snooping.

I think the encrypted messages are not saved in the server. You probably have to backup from phone and restore it on pc. “They” is the other programs running on browser

That’s for your insightful comment. I’m now going down the rabbit hole of the signal spec :)

There is no sharing of messages between linked devices - that would break forward secrecy, which prevents a successful attacker from getting historical messages. See the first bullet of: https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007320551-Linked-Devices

Messages are encrypted per device, not per user (https://signal.org/docs/specifications/sesame/), and forward secrecy is preserved (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward_secrecy, for the concept in general, and https://signal.org/docs/specifications/doubleratchet/ for Signal’s specific approach).

Cool, could I recover a backup to te desktop to have access to the historical ones?

Yes and no. I personally would like to be asked permission for such behaviour, but a gallery application, for example, could have legitimate reasons to index all photos on your system. I personally prefer to manually set the folders it is supposed to index, but that doesn’t seem to be a generally accepted paradigm.

In general, I see why you need to trust that a system your app runs on is uncompromised to a a certain degree, but measures to potentially limit harm in case it is still seem sensible, especially for an app with a focus on privacy and security.

I have never worked on a properly hardened desktop app, so I don’t have much of a perspective on that, and can definitely see that it might not be worthwhile for the signal team.

I would appreciate some level of encryption, thinking that it might help with less targeted attacks. I’d also appreciate a Web client, like Threema’s with none permanent sessions. But all that’s, as you’d say in German, “Meckern auf hohem Niveau”, especially since I’m not currently contributing to Signal.

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I managed to get my parents on signal because it’s functionally a WhatsApp clone

as a big proponent of FOSS I see where you’re coming from - but the reality will always be that apps which have a significant learning curve to even install are obviously hugely off-putting to the majority of users.

i think part of the problem is that stuff like matrix is built for a very specific interface. Where as we could build something like matrix, in a different design meta, more akin to something like mumble, which not only greatly simplifies the construction of it, but also greatly simplifies administration of it. The protocol itself shouldn’t innately require an obtuse arbitrary system that makes it a nightmare.

Anything that is remotely related to “web apps” or web in general, seems to be an utter fucking nightmare these days. I think we need a healthy dose of dedicated native applications.

Sorry,but have you at least read the wikipedia article before writing this post?

Matrix is a standard. Not an App. Just like Lemmy is.

There are dozens of clients (Element, Schildichat, Fuzzychat, Beeper) available to download for basically every system imaginable and in all major Appstores.

You can easily join an existing instance - and with beeper there is even one existing that handles all the bridges for you.

Only when you self-host it gets more tricky-just like it does with Lemmy(as a matter of fact Matrix is far easier to selfhost than Lemmy). And again there are various distributions available. They aren’t as easy as the clients and not as easy as flatpacks, but someone who has done their due diligence can absolutely handle them easily. (And self-hosting should absolutely not be “as easy as flatpacks/snaps” - the risk for both the admin and the net itself is too high). But again: The average user has little incentive to selfhost. Just like you don’t selfhost your Lemmy instance.

The Matrix environment is as easy to use as Signal, Threema, WhatsApp for ages now. In some points I would even argue that it’s more user friendly than Signal,btw.

elitist because I said they don’t want to read? lol ok … you weirdos get so butthurt over a simple statement

For most uses of electron I’d agree, but if some engineers are going to use it anyway, I’d prefer the approach I’ve described.

Programming is not that difficult.

Learning how to do something in a new language and framework isn’t that tough, I agree, but no one is going to become an expert in something overnight. I don’t reckon many desktop native engineers are choosing electron unless they actually need it, so if you imagine the case of an expert web engineer building a desktop UI, they’re going to do a much better job with their main skillset than something they have just learned.

Well obviously it is, or we wouldn’t have electron in the first place.

they both suck.

this is literally just what i said, but ok.

while true, i am not an iphone user, and IOS is still rather funny.

gotta love when they implement half of the functionality, instead of just implementing all of the functionality, because it would take like, ten more seconds.

And your way to look at things that “all apps must be 20 mb or less otherwise they are unoptimised” is better because?

That sounds like a problem with YOUR phone. Every phone I’ve bought has been faster than the last. Maybe you have too much bloatware?

I use open source Android only, will not use a phone with stock android. Bloatware is a non-issue on AOSP unless you do that to your own phone.

ah yes the classic “trust me bro i’m safe” usb trick