Nice. I don't think I need this but its good to have options
this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2025
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Privacy
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That's a pretty good idea for monetization.
Completely fine with that, I agree
Cloud backups, for security!
If anyone is actually going to get that right in a mainstream product, it will probably be Signal.
Year according to a wiki page on the unofficial Signal wiki the backup will not be directly linked to the user "It appears that backups will not be directly linkable to a user. Authentication for operations against a given backup will use zero-knowledge proofs.".
Finally a good approach at raising money (other than donations)
I don't mind paying a fair price, for a service, so they should go for it. I use both Signal and Telegram, and I would pay for Telegram too, if the price was more fair...
Don't use Telegram, let alone pay for it. So many red flags with Telegram.
Feel free to list them - with evidence and not just prejudice...?
- No end-to-end encryption by default, you have to explicitly start a secret chat. That means that instead of it all being encrypted noise, secret chats stand out.
- Servers are not open source (last time I checked). Why not? Seriously, why not?
- Admittedly, not much of an issue any more, but in the beginning they had horrible security (so did WhatsApp until Facebook threw some competent engineers at the problem)
There's end-to-end encryption. It's fine that you can chose what needs to be private, and what doesn't need to be.
There could be several reasons as to why the servers are not OS. Why do you need that part to be OS? Seriously, why?
Oh, so your problem with Telegram is, that it had some issues in the past, just like EVERY other app in the beginning? Nice one. :-)
So, let's summarize.
- You lie, and say that there's no end-to-end encryption when there is.
- It would be preferable to have OS servers, but it's not a major issue, since everything else is.
- You have an issue with something in "Back to the Future"... Which is no longer an issue.
You lie, and say that there’s no end-to-end encryption when there is
That is not what I said. Please take a deep breath, maybe go outside for a minute, and read my reply again.
First of all, you injected yourself in my debate with another person. You do it by answering for that person, which mean, you lie by default, since you don't know that persons answers. Then you say there are no end-to-end encryption by default, but that depends on what you use it for. Calls are encrypted by default.
But nice to know that you really didn't have any serious red flags. Now it would be nice to hear from the person I was originally debating with...
Woot?! (not op),
- He said "no e2e by default" which is true. Straw man/missrepresentation
- You post on the fediverse, which is decentral - why shouldn't you want this for telegram too? Open source server would allow to check / trust code, host your own, be more resilient against central attacks/malicious intend. Also you just waved it away saying it is not a biggy - maybe to you.
- Last time I checked telegram still has major trust issues for me. No way to know how much governments are involved, code is not independently checked for security (happy to be proven wrong on especially the last one)
Its totally fine that you like telegram, but you can do that while acknowledging others preferences
- it's not true. Default calls are encrypted.
- I have not said anything about what I want for Telegram. Are you trying to make a straw man here? Not that you want to interject yourself into this debate - then tell me, what is the big problem with the serverside not being OS? I did write it would be optimal, but what is the big issue for you? Try to answer without making another straw man about something I didn't say... ;-)
- I don't care about your trust issues. Go deal with them...
So far, don't you think that you really would know, if government was involved in any way that didn't involve crime fighting? Do you prefer an app, where crime roam free? Is that your issue? That it doesn't?
AFAIK it's you and two others, who don't acknowledge my preferences... So please consider following your own advice!
Price is fair but features aren’t worth it.
You contradict yourself. You can't say that the price is fair, for something that doesn't have the features that the price should cover.
As long as they leave the local backup option that sounds like a good idea to me.
All of my signal conversations have auto expiry
Do people really use their conversation logs for things? Are you often searching your conversational logs?
Outside of corporate compliance issues I can't imagine the workflow for most people
Yes, and yes.
"I said this was happening 3 weeks ago. Here's the literal text of me sending it to you and you saying 'Okay thanks' in reply."
Shuts down an argument real quick.
I never set auto expiry and often search messages. Sometimes it's because I want to find a specific fact or datum from two years ago; other times it's just for a reminder of a memory. On occasion, if the history wasn't there, people might remember something important differently.
History search is great when you have a lot of friends and poor memory. Perhaps not your use case ?
Me and my wife and wife sends information, pictures , whatever. I often search my messages for stuff
Yes, and yes. But most of it's because I've moved all communication over to it.
If I have anything that shouldn't stick around it doesn't stick around, If I need my grocery list from last month it's there though.
That said, I really don't have any interest in backups. It's an ephemeral stream at best that is there when I need it. And there are parts of it disappear when they're no longer needed.
The days where we presumed we could safely bitch about things to our friends over social media are clearly gone and privacy is of ultimate importance.
Pretend it's 1984, and you won't get yourself in trouble.
My grocery list is its own signal group chat with other members of the household
Same, We do more than groceries though, It's kind of fun anybody that needs anything just pops it in there
I have never searched for a message ever.
Most Whatsapp users (my parents) want to keep logs of everything, its become normalised.
You are right, I don't really search my messages that much. Most important conversion is going by email for most people still.
Though the same I like my conversations disappear when I need to reinstall Signal.
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Makes sense., something as huge and expensive as Signal can't run entirely on donations.
Sure it can, just look at Wikipedia. But it's probably a good idea to have some alternate forms of revenue generation.
Wikipedia has way more donors, since it's basically the only one of its kind. There is no Big Tech alternative to Wikipedia, so everyone just uses it by default. There are lots of other messengers though, so Signal isn't the default choice.
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Good to see they have some reasonable revenue streams lined up.
At least this time they do it out in the open, not like with the MobileCoin integration.
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