WhatsApp is pretty much the first app anyone installs on their phone

Is this really the case?

Maybe it's a regional thing. I'm in the northeast US, and nearly everyone I know uses Facebook Messenger as their main form of communication, even people who don't touch Facebook at all. I hate Messenger for the same reasons that people hate WhatsApp, but I still have to use it because my entire social circle does. If I want to message someone outside Messenger without giving my phone number out, I use my Google Voice number.

I've only ever used WhatsApp to talk to work contacts overseas, and I've only ever used Signal to talk to paranoid drug dealers, which is a use case that's mostly been replaced by Telegram now.

FYI, while Threema front-end clients (apps) are open-source (and offer reproducible builds, which is surprisingly uncommon in open-source land), the server component, though supposedly audited, remains closed-source.

EDIT: for comparison, the Signal server code is mostly open source, but things like the spam filter are closed.

why do you think they have you sign up with a phone number in the first place?

Again, spam & abuse prevention. We've been over this.

I’m sorry that not everyone thinks Signal is a god app worthy of worship. its a message app, and its not the only one. it does stuff some people don’t like. including me.

I'm not saying that Signal is a god app worthy of worship, I'm saying it's detrimental for them to include SMS functionality, since that's fundamentally insecure. That's literally why they removed it. Is that so hard to understand?

After Trump was elected and inaugurated, Signal has finally been gaining some steam here in the Netherlands.

It's still an American company, so it's not ideal. But it's still significantly better better than letting a tech giant like Facebook have control over the most commonly used chat app.

WhatsApp needs to go and Signal is the most likely way in which we can achieve that. We can worry about the American elephant in the room later.

I will use the opportunity to remind that Signal is operated by a non-profit in the jurisdiction called "the US". This could have implications.

A somewhat more anarchist option might be TOX. There is no single client, TOX is a protocol, you can choose from half a dozen clients. I personally use qTox.

Upside: no phone number required. No questions asked.

Downside: no servers to store and forward messages. You can talk if both parties are online.

You can use Signal with a different client. Signal being operated within the US has no effect. As of now the jurisdictions that I know of to be worried about are:

The UK, where Apple was recently ordered to remove end-to-end encryption features, and have been gagged from talking about it

Sweden, where a law is proposed to add an encryption backdoor

The EU, where leadership is pushing for an encryption backdoor

My understanding is that the Indian government under the BJP and Congress has been pretty consistently anti-encryption, and violated privacy rights

France arrested the founder of Telegram for using end to end encryption in Telegram

Australia in 2018 passed a law that enabled the government to require communications platforms add a backdoor for government decryption. The Director of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) said that “privacy is important but not absolute”. Which has the same vibes as "this is not about human rights, this is about human life."

WhatsApp was previously suspended in Brazil for refusing to hand over decrypted messages.

Austria is in the process of passing legislation allowing police to backdoor encryption in messaging apps

China and Russia are very obvious problems. Here's an easy one of many examples

The White House both in Trump's first term and in Biden's presidency were pro-encryption. Signal and Tor were US government funded projects. That's not to say the US is great on encryption, and there have been laws in the past that did/were proposed to limit it. But, as of now, it seems that the US is (edit: one of) the most hospitable jurisdictions for encrypted messaging non-profits.

BTW, I'm not saying using Tox is bad, or that Signal is good, I'm just talking about the US jurisdiction part.

Not sure if you're actually sincere or are sarcastically making fun of Tox's onboarding. That's a long key.

You can use Signal with a different client.

Can you advise, which one would be a good one? Because I actually use Signal too, it's just misbehaving a lot recently.

I have had endless difficulties with Signal forcing upgrades on me and requiring to sign in on the phone, under threat of deactivating my account (I use it on a PC).

Signal is based in America but it's a non profit organization, not a company. Important difference

no we are all on different platforms. half are on android and half are on apple which is irritating. so sadly the sms is our best tool to hit everyone at the same time with any urgency.

sms is not even an option for us; international texting costs a lot. Some people don't even use a phone, they rely on internet connected devices only. Trying to coordinate all of this gets complicated fast.

Not sure if you're actually sincere or are sarcastically making fun of Tox's onboarding. That's a long key.

Well yeah we could also use Briar or whatever... but would your grandma?

Well, just an anecdote:

I simply deleted my WhatsApp and moved to signal. Just did it.

People installed the app, at least the ones that cared about staying in touch. Which was most everyone I cared about staying in touch with. A few of my friend groups also moved the group chat to signal, though all of them do have other ones with the people who didn’t care enough to move too, but I hear it isn’t that big a deal, they had multiple groups before and will have in future, doesn’t really feel like any extra hassle they say.

It’s been fine. No problems. I’ve had more trouble trying to explain to my extended family why I’m no longer posting on instagram. Those I never had in WhatsApp either back in the day, so they “stayed in touch” by watching my pictures I suppose. But I just consistently tell people they can reach me always via signal or plain old sms.

I guess the biggest thing to be scared about would be fomo for most, but I don’t really care enough, I’ve got so much going on already that it’s more of a blessing that I don’t have to be involved in every conversation or meme sharing or whatever.

It really gets so easy after simply switching. Just do it and that’s that. The people worth anything come with you, it’s just another app and another group chat or personal chat. Most already have discord and the meta messenger whatever its name is these days anyway. I know zero people with only one messenger/chat app and unsplintered groups across them. It’s not a big chore, and if it is, there’s always sms.

Just ditch WhatsApp. Don't give in to social pressure to install malware on your phone

WhatsApp is pretty much the first app anyone installs on their phone

Is this really the case?

Maybe it's a regional thing. I'm in the northeast US, and nearly everyone I know uses Facebook Messenger as their main form of communication, even people who don't touch Facebook at all. I hate Messenger for the same reasons that people hate WhatsApp, but I still have to use it because my entire social circle does. If I want to message someone outside Messenger without giving my phone number out, I use my Google Voice number.

I've only ever used WhatsApp to talk to work contacts overseas, and I've only ever used Signal to talk to paranoid drug dealers, which is a use case that's mostly been replaced by Telegram now.

Outside of North America, most other countries' use WhatsApp as a choice for personal and business uses is WhatsApp. Rest are mostly dominated by Facebook messenger. Excluding China which has WeChat domestically.

How Meta was ever allowed to buy WhatsApp without triggering anti-trust laws is beyond me.

Some numbers

Many of my European and South American friends are having a hard time because that's where all their families and friends back home are, and it's hard to get them to use something new, especially the older folks.