• teri@discuss.tchncs.de
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    4 hours ago

    I support the cause in general but: Signal is not federated at all. It may seem like a decent alternative to WhatsApp but is it really? It still falls under the same US jurisdiction. Let’s say the US gov starts agressively prosecuting dissidents and certain minorities (they already do): can and should we still use signal in this case? I don’t think so. Sadly i can’t name a much better alternative. Maybe matrix. But it has other issues.

  • DicJacobus@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    instead of switching ive mostly just been ditching entirely. I need less time interacting with internet people.

    literally the only thing on this list im still using is facebook messenger, for my work colleagues. and youtube. everything else ive migrated (reddit-lemmy), or abandoned and torched

  • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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    10 hours ago

    Are any of these actually good?

    I mean, aside from Lemmy. I tried Mastadon and no one was actually on it, seems like everyone is jumping to Bluesky.

  • RedSnt@feddit.dk
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    14 hours ago

    I was already on Mastodon by just having a Vivaldi (the chromium browser) account, and it’s just lovely I’ve spent most of the day setting up lemmy, even though I joined feddit.dk 2 years ago, it’s only just now I’m taking it seriously.
    And, while not related to the fediverse per se, I switched to linux a year ago.
    The only service that’s hard to drop/switch away from is Youtube imo.

  • breadcat@sh.itjust.works
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    15 hours ago

    I keep seeing this type stuff but neither peertube or friendica are genuine replacements at this point, mastodon is weaksauce compared to akkoma or a misskey fork, and loops is alpha software. also yes signal is centralized but it just works and has contact discovery so it owns matrix and xmpp when compared to whatsapp. basically none of this stuff is truly ready

  • phx@lemmy.ca
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    13 hours ago

    Friendica seems like a new thing? No apps for that yet either

    • Esmoreit@lemmings.world
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      20 hours ago

      Loops will be open sourced later they say.

      Is Loops open source? It will be! We plan on open sourcing the platform after it reaches a stable and easy to maintain state.

      • tempest@lemmy.ca
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        20 hours ago

        That really is not a satisfying answer. It is incredibly nebulous and even if it did have a nice definition I guarantee most software developers will tell you a lot of software rarely reaches that state.

        I can see why they might want to avoid 1000 GitHub issues bike shedding things but they could open source the code and just not have open contribution

        • acockworkorange@mander.xyz
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          1 hour ago

          Sometimes you’re ashamed of the ugly hacks you cobbled together to reach MVP, and you want to fix the stuff you know you need to fix first before being thrown to the wolves. I can respect that, for a limited time.

      • potentiallynotfelix@lemmy.fish
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        18 hours ago

        That means very little to me. Actions speak louder than words, and it would probably help the development of loops if it was actually open source.

        • ubergeek@lemmy.today
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          1 hour ago

          For a lot of FLOSS projects, it’s common to keep the initial team small, so a product can be delivered fast, and gets opened up later.

          It’s to solve the “too many cooks” and prevent bikeshedding.

          A lot of corpo espionage is there solely to tank potential competitors, which include FLOSS projects.

          • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
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            20 minutes ago

            Which I think dansup should deserve our trust on this for quite a long time for doing. It isn’t empty promises if they already made Pixelfed and opensourced it.

            Like… I suppose it could be a grift, anything could but I see no reason to question their goals or motives.

      • YarHarSuperstar@lemmy.world
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        18 hours ago

        I was told that unless you self host, matrix is less secure because it leaks more metadata. Something to consider

          • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
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            12 hours ago

            sender, recipient, chatroom, what kind of event you sent (message, emoji, reaction, vote), if you responded to a message, room privilege changes, etc

            but it’s a question how big of a problem is that. they want to tackle it in the future, but that’s far away for now I think

  • Opinionhaver@feddit.uk
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    19 hours ago

    Switching from WhatsApp to any other messaging service isn’t a realistic option for quite many places. I’d be more than willing to switch but of all the people in my contacts (including my entire customer base) there’s like 3 people using Signal but every single one of them has WhatsApp. Even the 60+ year olds.

    • acockworkorange@mander.xyz
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      58 minutes ago

      I got my family out after some high profile data breaches on WhatsApp. We feel a lot safer sharing personal info over Signal and the switchover was painless. Even the video calls are great on signal.

      There’s inertia, for sure, but once you highlight that some evil corp isn’t the one handling grandma’s inheritance data, it makes for a compelling case.

      We all still have WhatsApp because we need to talk to the others. But our family chat only exists on Signal now.

    • Alfredolin@sopuli.xyz
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      8 hours ago

      I would say it’s a step by step work. I have moved my family from Whatsapp to Signal years ago and then to Matrix. I forced them in some way but I just said “sorry if you want to keep contact we will have to find another app, I don’t accept Whatsapp ToS.” It took some time but my close family and friends are there and I regularly get someone to join, friend or family. It’s still close circle but it’s also a good thing. Same went with work. Colleagues wanted to do a whatsapp group for a project and I basically said “No, best I can do is Signal.” and they went with it.

      • Bazoogle@lemmy.world
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        27 minutes ago

        I stopped with Signal. Getting coworkers/family to move to signal was enough work, but I also trust the signal protocol enough to use a centralized service

      • Opinionhaver@feddit.uk
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        8 hours ago

        Yeah I don’t want to be that guy telling others to install an app to stay in contact with me. That would be extremely hypocritical on my part as I’m the one those people who refuses to install any apps people tells me to and it wouldn’t solve the issue anyway as then I’d still be using WhatsApp as well but now I just have one more additional app to communicate with certain people.

        Nowdays doesn’t seem to matter where ever you go there’s always an app you need to install to do XY and Z. I don’t even have a Lemmy app as I only use it via browser. Same applies to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pixelfed, Reddit and so on.

        • zeca@lemmy.eco.br
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          1 hour ago

          in these groups theres often someone that just cannot install a new app because their phones storage is full and they can’t afford a better phone (or just don’t want to spend money on it). i wouldn’t insist with these people and just accept using whatsapp

        • Alfredolin@sopuli.xyz
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          6 hours ago

          You are wrong on that: It would be a start to solving the issue! Every little step forward counts.

          As for 1000 apps replacing website, I could not agree more… In addition you get much better control on a website like adblocks and javascript control.

    • cally [he/they]@pawb.social
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      17 hours ago

      Same (Brazil), Whatsapp is pretty much a requirement and I hate that I’m forced to give Meta my information by using their shitty app.

      • acockworkorange@mander.xyz
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        51 minutes ago

        I’ll link my previous comment and add that it’s easier for Brazil.

        Lembra de quando prenderam uns políticos pelos bate-papos do Telegram? É só lembrar a tua família que o WhatsApp tem a mesma fraqueza. Pergunta se eles confiam no Zuckerberg outra mandar os dados bancários que toda família manda de vez em quando. Documentos escaneados, dados pessoais…

        Não consegui convencer os meus amigos mas confesso que poderia ter sido um pouco mais insistente. Quando o pessoal manda screenshot de transação bancária pelo wpp pra acertar conta de bar, dá pra dar uma instigada de leve. “A AI do Zuckerberg adorou ver os teus dados.” E deixa assim, vez por outra um comentário curto pra elevar a consciência de privacidade das pessoas. Uma hora vem. Ou não, mas tás fazendo tua parte.

          • WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world
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            17 hours ago

            That’s Lemmy in a nutshell. Guillotine and Luigi memes are constantly repeated because they know that no one’s actually going to act on that stuff, but any time anyone suggests a practical means to weaken the oligopoly people come out of the woodwork to shut it down.

            • Alfredolin@sopuli.xyz
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              8 hours ago

              You think? I consider these memes more like a reminder of our global to-do list. It doesn’t mean we can’t selfhost a matrix server at the same time.

              • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
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                14 minutes ago

                Those memes remind me I don’t actually hate myself I hate the system I am forced to interface with.

                Without them I would not take more action, I would just hate myself more and be even sadder.

    • Cabbage_Pout61@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      My trouble as well, I’d love to switch from Whatsapp, but literally every person I talk to and most people in my city/estate/country uses It.

      There’s a “vendor lock” term, maybe this would be a “social lock”?

      • pfr@lemmy.sdf.org
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        17 hours ago

        It has to start with someone. I made my entire family switch to signal by boycotting WhatsApp. I just said, of you want to contact me your can either SMS, email or install signal. It was surprisingly easy. For non family members, I tell people to switch all the time. Most of my contacts now use signal. It was worth the trouble.

        • Cabbage_Pout61@lemmy.world
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          3 minutes ago

          Don’t get me wrong, I tried the switch, multiple times.

          Where I live the vast majority uses pre-paid plans that give internet bandwidth, some calls but hardly no SMS, so that’s not an alternative, unless in an emergency or you want to contact someone unilaterally.

          If I want someone to use it, they will have to convince their other circles to do the same, which statically decreases the chances of switching, and you get things like: “but we’re already talking fine on Whats (whatsapp)”, “it’s too much trouble to have another app just for you”, “I don’t care who’s behind the app, its works fine”.

          To add salt to injury, many places (like stores, restaurants, salons, etc), have WhatsApp as the main communication method, some companies will even have the option to update you on things like delivery or banking solutions via WhatsApp.

          It’s something so ingrained in our culture at this point that is super hard to change.

          I’m not looking for solutions here, just stating a sad state of affairs, I like privacy but it’s not always an option living in society.

        • Alfredolin@sopuli.xyz
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          8 hours ago

          Yeah same for me. I guess some (quite many actually) people are aware Whutsapp&Co is evil and are just waiting for an opportunity to make the move.

          • pfr@lemmy.sdf.org
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            17 hours ago

            There benefit would be exactly what this top comment is about. For all those people in your contacts who don’t use signal, you could still use signal to message them, it would just be an SMS message. It would therefore also become more enticing for people to switch from their stock SMS app to signal, because it would make no difference in terms of who you can send SMS messages to. It would allow for the signal user base to grow, solving the issue of “no one uses signal”

      • pseudo@jlai.lu
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        18 hours ago

        At least WhatsApp is encrypted and let you have propre group chat

              • pseudo@jlai.lu
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                17 hours ago

                I did not say it was secure, I actually spend a lot of time explaining to people that it is secure and they should switch to Signal. However, I will not tell them to go back to SMS for the reason aforementioned.

              • pfr@lemmy.sdf.org
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                17 hours ago

                You still pay for SMS? Wtf, what country do you live in? Most postpaid mobile plans these days only charge for data usage. In which case, your still paying to use WhatsApp.

                • teohhanhui@lemmy.world
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                  9 hours ago

                  Are you from the global south? Because it’s still a common thing for SMS to be chargeable in many countries. And no one should be using SMS anyway. It’s horribly insecure. At least use RCS.