General > General Technical Chat
Delete WhatsApp, use Signal Private Messenger instead
tooki:
--- Quote from: VK3DRB on January 17, 2021, 10:15:42 am ---Encrypted messaging or telephony is for those who have something to hide.
--- End quote ---
Which is literally everybody, without exception. We all have things we hide.
Let's pretend everything happened in cleartext. Would you want for a house guest to be able to snoop in on your messaging with your spouse? Would you be OK with a thief knowing when you were going to be out of town, because they listened in on your messaging while you made plans with a friend? What if you were a woman with a stalker ex? Does that suddenly make privacy more important?
Consider that seemingly most Internet use these days is on Wi-Fi, whose security is good, but not perfect. And if you're on the same Wi-Fi network (like public Wi-Fi hotspots), you may be able to snoop tons of traffic.
Upshot is, crime is but a tiny, tiny, tiny share of the reasons for wanting secure communication. And it's certainly not reason enough to deny all the legitimate uses.
Gyro:
Just a follow up on my WhatsApp / Signal / VSee comparison in reply #92....
I've given Signal some time now and it seems to have mostly recovered from the surge of new users. I wonder if there will be another surge in mid-Feb when Facebook 'clarify' their WhatApp privacy policy!
So what am I left with - I've excluded the Whatsapp and VSee items because nothing has changed (functionally):
Android App UI...
- Notification ticks seem intermittent, sometimes delivered but only shows one tick.
Yep, that was a new user surge issue, now fine.
- One case of application hanging (Pixel 4A). Messages shown as delivered (2 ticks) but never arrived or notified, Required Force Stop and run again.
No reoccurrence, fine.
- Messaging sluggish compared to VSee.
Yes, another new user surge issue. Usually fine, occasionally phone notification takes rather longer than desktop app.
- Video quality poorer than VSee.
Still true (though better), I think VSee just has more efficient video compression.
Windows App...
- Startup is slow.
- If messaging has been happening between phones since it was last run, it can take several minutes downloading messages before you can do anything.
The desktop app (itself) is still very slow to startup, compared to other programs. Downloading messages is quicker though (another new user surge issue)
- When using a webcam (the reason for using the desktop version in the first place), it only sends a narrow vertical central strip of the camera image to the phone, not the full 4:3 image. There does not seem to be any setting to correct this.
Still a ridiculous problem, that makes the desktop app almost pointless. I did a lot of searching and finally found a reference in the Signal forum, to which the answer was pretty much 'Yeah, it does that, we might fix it some day'.
- The video that is transmitted and received was poorer quality (detail and smoothness) than VSee.
Still the case. As mentioned above, it's just down to video compression - not that it matters when you are fighting each other to get into the central letterbox of the webcam!
So where does that leave things. I now (thanks OP) need three apps installed on the phone and two on the laptop. Signal so that I can feel all warm an secure, WhatsApp for the people who are never going to bother switching, and VSee so that we can have sensible webcam video chats with our Son! Hopefully that number won't need to increase any further - unless there's somebody who still insists on using Skype. :palm:
^ Ok, a little 'tongue in cheek', but it's still a fair representation of a typical usage case.
lisarose9:
It is actually very difficult to complete stop using whatsapp, since all my professional groups are there. But i have actually, revoked all the access permissions to the app. hope that makes a difference.
Zero999:
I have WhatsCrap insalled on my phone but hardly ever use it. I have the notifications switched off, because most of the time it's people posting random crap I don't care about, such as what they've eaten for dinner. The main reason why I don't use it much is because every photo I view gets uploaded to my phone's photos folder, which is backed up to the iCloud which gets full, if I don't go through and delete the pictures I don't want to keep, which is labourious.
Halcyon:
--- Quote from: Gyro on February 01, 2021, 11:54:13 am ---WhatsApp for the people who are never going to bother switching
--- End quote ---
You're an enabler. People won't switch because you continue to use it. Once you stop using it and transition away to something else, people will follow. I limit the number of ways people can contact me. Either call or text me (via Signal or traditional cellular network) or email. That's it. No social media, no app bloat, no constant notifications of cat photos from people, just the people who actually want to talk to me. I do use Discord occasionally but that lives on my PC, I don't have it one my phone any more.
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