I’m looking for something to share images and videos between small family group. We use mix of android and apple. Text messages are terrible for images and videos.
We were using telegram, now I want to see what lemmy has to offer. Thank you in advance.
Signal ?
Thanks, I’ll check this out!
Signal is likely the best and easiest drop in.
Signal, hello?
So it seems.
Signal.
Thanks
Signal!
Thanks
nothing better than Signal
Seems like it.
Everyone is saying Signal, but my family uses a Matrix space (mix of phones and PCs in this case) and it works great. It’s FOSS, federated. Truly future-proof.
Yeah. Signal is the most polished, but Matrix is the most future-proof.
And that’s not to say that matrix lacks polish, Signal is just excellent in this regard.
At this point I feel the Matrix clients I’ve been keeping on eye on are more polished than Signal. None of my contacts are on Matrix though.
Yeah? Which ones specifically? I like to keep tabs on Matrix - it’s really the most open of the secure systems, and if it’s clean enough to recommend, all the better.
I recommend Element web (it has a nice PWA), Element X for Android, and the matrix.org homeserver. They’re in the middle of a migration to OpenID Connect which should simplify auth for users. You may wanna wait for that.
Thanks!
Thanks, I’ll check it out.
Signal
I’d recommend Threema. It’s privacy focused, based in Switzerland. You don’t even need a phone number to create an account, they collect no data on you (claimed, but haven’t checked) and the code is open source, under A-GPL 3 license.
There’s a build for Apple and Android, for which you pay once.
I use this to talk with important family members.
Looking for a free solution.
I forgot to mention, it’s easy to use, as it’s similar to every other messenger app, so even not so techy members can use it.
Signal is a nice suggestion but is based in the US meaning they could be subpoenaed and legally not allowed to say. It’s unlikely you’d be targeted though, unless you’re a very high-profile person. If you’re concerned about where servers are being run and who by then matrix is a great alternative.
I don’t care. It’s for sharing images and videos of grandkids to grandparents.
Do they have a warrant canary? I bet they might, hopefully
I’ve been using Delta Chat for the last few weeks, its very similar to WhatsApp, but decentralised… Works very well, available on android & ios, definitely worth a look, as it could be good for your use case…
Nah, use Signal. It just works
Don’t you need to use your phone number to sign up?
No phone number required for DeltaChat.
It packetises and encrypts chats, using email(SMTP) as the transport medium. Can send downsampled pics, videos or Push-to-talk audio. Can send full quality pics, videos, or attachments too.
It’s on F-Droid, and you can use a seperate free email address(100MB limit) for the SMTP backend (from https://nine.testrun.org/ ), or use your own existing email address.
Elegant and robust.
For signal, yes.
Removed by mod
I’ll check it out.
I just got to know about Delta Chat which sounds fantastic as it basically uses your email but wrapped as chat.
XMPP and Matrix are other good options too, although these require creating an account (Delta Chat can work with your normal email account).
The good thing about these last 2 is that they have calls and all that stuff.
Signal was developed with financial backing by the CIA, so do with that information what you will. I use Teleguard which is very similar to Telegram but run out of Switzerland, and with 2-way encryption automatically enabled, unlike signal or telegram.
Yeah, but the response to that first part is “and?”
Open source, they’ve been audited, and there’s no sign of anything hinky.
Also, thanks for the teleguard info. Any opinion about features and function for those of us that haven’t run across it before?
I just installed teleguard because of this comment.
It’s run by SwissCows, they claim it’s fully encrypted with the latest/greatest tech, and comply with GDPR (and since they claim to not store user data, it’s pretty simple).
It’s simplistic in it’s setup (not really a criticism, just a description/observation). This seems to be because (they claim) no data is stored on their servers (messages transit,and are deleted upon delivery).
If you want to use another device simultaneously, you have to backup one device, then restore it to the new device (backup requires a password). They’ll then have the same history and will remain in sync, I think. So far I haven’t gotten the restore to work because both devices must run the exact same version, and the Windows version isn’t up to date.
I haven’t found documentation on where the backup is stored, but I suspect the restore process pulls the backup from the first device.
Edit: Sync works, I’m just an idiot. When it says use your ID, they mean the code, not your Nickname. 🤦🏼♂️
It seems to work well, did some voice and video calls between phone and laptop, sent files, etc.
Signal definitely has end to end encryption enabled by default
Signal was developed with financial backing by the CIA, so do with that information what you will.
source?
https://www.opentech.fund/news/february-2018-monthly-report/
It’s not a secret. It’s on their website. Note: the Open Technology Fund is the CIA. Just like Radio Free Asia (or Radio Free X, they’re all CIA-run appendages of the US state department) which the fund grew out of. The US government very often funds technologies and startups that have the potential surveillance applications (among other things) and Signal was one of them. The people calling this a conspiracy theory have no idea what they are talking about, but that’s not uncommon when it comes to Americans and swallowing their own propaganda whole.
I looked up the Open Technology Fund on Wikipedia and it has no relation to the CIA. well, except that its parent agency (Radio Free Asia) is part of the US government like the CIA is. they don’t seem to work together at all, and they’re under the purview of two different branches of government
besides, as other commenters have said, they’re open source and they’ve been audited. anyone can build the client themselves (with any potential backdoors removed) and set up their own server. would the CIA allow for that?
Realistically, how many people build applications themselves?
Signal does not have reproducible builds(on Android at least) and depends on Play Services for notifications.EDIT: Seems they have it now (since 2016). I am getting old.
His ass. This is a conspiracy theory that’s been going around for ages with dubious sources at best.
Do you have a source for the CIA backing claim? I can’t find anything substantiated with a quick ddg search.
Not heard that one before about the cia but let’s say for a moment that is true - Signal is open source so anyone can audit and work with the source code. Also anyone can set up an independent signal server and network.
And are you maybe confusing Signal with Tor and the CIA with the US Navy?
Clear vote for Matrix.
Easily works with basically every system from iOS, Android, Windows, Linux,Mac and there are Web-Clients as well. And everyone can find their own client of choice.
You can use one of the huge federated instances like matrix.org or set one up yourself.(Which is much easier than setting up an Activity pub instance,btw.)
There are rooms/channels that can be open or semi-open just like in Telegram, and bots are absolutely not problem (Not Like in signal). Registration is not bound to a phone number like it was in signal for a long time (but is no longer) and (unlike still needed in signal) a phone does not need to be used for sign up&transfer between devices works seamlessly.
If you selfhost or use beeper you can even bridge to different services (signal,WhatsApp, telegram) etc. so you only use one app for everything.
I run my own XMPP server. https://joinjabber.org/ has some introductory information Snickket is a all in one service you can host or your can pay them to host https://snikket.org/start/
XMPP servers and clients are a lot lighter weight than matrix, though I think matrix has more fancy features.
They’re both self hostable and are federated to share the costs of running the network.
With signal there’s a non-profit that needs some pretty steam funding to stay in business. (Though they’re popular so maybe they can get it) https://www.pcmag.com/news/want-to-run-an-encrypted-chat-app-youll-need-50-million-signal-says
