this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2023
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Why does anyone choose Telegram or WhatsApp over Signal which is encrypted and audited? (Probably features I donβt care about, but they do)
Telegram let's you send 2gb files, and stores them forever. Signal has a 100mb limit.
It also used to be easier to set up on multiple devices at the same time, but I believe that Whatsapp and Signal have improved that by now too.
I'm not sure the file limitations are much of a factor when 100mb covers most files that would need to be sent through a messaging service. There are plenty of dedicated services for sharing larger files.
I mentioned it because it was an annoying limitation for me. 100mb is not a lot for media and zip files nowadays. And I don't know any good free services that will work more conveniently than simply sending with Telegram, suggestions welcome.
Why would you text someone a zip? I always send any files like that over email, I recommend ProtonMail for security but what do I know
https://toffeeshare.com/ is what I usually use for big files. But both sender and receiver need to be online for the whole transfer. It doesn't store anything you send on their servers, but that's a feature for me Β―\_(γ)_/Β―
Piracy tho. I can go to my telegram, search a movie title and click play and it just works.
If the file size is under 2GB I guess, which is ehhh
4GB if the sender was premium, which they will be.
I don't care if its 720p if it just works.
Tbh I'll want it to be decent 1080p
Thatβs the point tho, it negates the need for dedicated services for sharing larger files
Why not use an encrypted service to send files though?
It's encrypted, just not E2E encrypted
A lot of the time the files i'm sending are game clips or parts of Youtube videos. i want good quality above privacy
Why switch platforms if all your data is still being collected? This just provides another business with your data to sell and possibly have hacked. Sure, Telegram offers encryption, but it's not enabled by default even though they advertise it thoroughly. This demonstrates they're taking advantage of peoples desire for privacy simply to increase their user base while making the users + contacts do all the work.
As far as file sharing, with ProtonDrive I can use any messaging service and send a 500GB file if I wanted, fully encrypted with password protection and an expiration date. Telegram keeping the files forever doesn't seem like a benefit either.
Signal is based in the US. Better to use something that is not based in the.US.
As long as your messages are end-to-end encrypted, I don't know why you would care about that. It's proven that they do not collect any metadata that could harm your privacy and most of their stuff is open source. The signal protocol is a pretty solid protocol supporting E2EE. There are not even cloud backup options, so your messages can never be read from someone other than you and the receiver, unlike something like iMessage that has cloud backup option that backups your messages stored locally on your device probably in plain text to iCloud.
It takes just one FISA court order to compromise Signal.
Right?
I've been using Signal for a long time now, it was great until they ended SMS text support, then they started trying to turn Signal into a social media thing, I just want end to end encryption without having to worry about somebody like Zuckerberg having access to my texts.
I agree, and their reasoning to do it was insulting. The crypto bullshit and the stories bullshit along with the SMS decision was enough for me. I've uninstalled it, and haven't missed it. It's not a good app if you care about privacy anyway, there are better apps that don't require a phone number to use them.
I agree that signal is superior in terms of privacy but a lot of people don't care about that. And most people using WhatsApp DEFINITELY don't care about that.
This undermines your whole original post.
Oh so we should only care about good and secure design when end users care about it!
Because you clearly canβt read the room that was sarcasm.
I never said you shouldn't care though??
Was going to post this :3