Friend asked me about Signal, triggered by the ever growing concerns about US big tech.
They're not technical and I said I'd look into it for them.
I've never used it and upon install it asked for
1. Permissions to see my "contacts"
2. A phone number.
What? Why?
Can Signal be used without these?
@rzeta0 Signal will not work without a phone number. The contacts (if you give permission) is used to show you who of the people you know already uses it.
If you want messengers that are fully anonymous check out @delta @threemaapp or @briar
@rraggl @delta @threemaapp @briar
thanks for the suggestions
a key priority here is also usability for non-technical people because my friend and their friends are just "normal facebook users"
I'll take a look at delta as someone else mentioned it too
Delta is plenty easy.... once you created your account (you can use one of their chatmail relays or use a mailserver of your own if it is compatible: https://providers.delta.chat) you just send your friends your invite link and they will be guided through the process. If you are helping them set up in person you can just scan a QR code.
Did it with non-technical acquaintances of mine and had it up and running in minutes no input from me needed.
The in-chat apps are a nice to have too.
@rraggl @rzeta0
Yup. I agree with @rraggl
Delta is not located next door to Meta and Alphabet in Mountain View, Silicon Valley. Its open source based in Freiburg Germany. It doesn't have a big marketing budget and doesn't make million dollar losses https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/824506840
Delta is a great app in my opinion. Super easy to get your non-techie friends started with.
Also the decentralised nature means its not dependent on AWS, US-EAST-1 and Cloudflare.
For the rest, Delta Chat works pretty much like every other messenger...
But do keep in mind it is e-mail based, so the conversation will be not quite 100 % real time. There can be a couple of seconds delay between you sending the message and it arriving at the receiving end. But there is no normal "chatting amongst friends" situation that I can think of that requires a message to arrive in milliseconds.
Tariq
Rene Raggl 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 🇬🇱
Leander Lindahl 🇪🇺