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Tiktok cements it's #1 status
Holy shit, three of the top five downloaded apps are within the Facebook ecosystem (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram).
And further down you have Messenger and WhatsApp Business, also from Facebook (I refuse to call them Meta).
That's really awful.
Always has been
How fucked we are
SHEIN on #19 is one of the worst apps for the planet due to slave labor and cheap clothes which are meant to be trashed instead of washed.
🤦♀️
I would really like if Telegram goes 100% FOSS
Their client software is open source and also on F-Droid and Flathub.
Server-side is not FOSS.
Even if it was open source, how would we know they were really running what they shared?
Yeah, server side really only makes sense if you can run it yourself and federate with other servers.
Of course it being open is better than it not being open... but the real difference as in the case of Signal is minimal.
Signal is still a US-based entity, so I'm hesitant to recommend them to anyone
Sorry, this wasn't meant to be an endorsement of Signal, on the contrary. Centralized systems are a bad idea, open-source or not.
I agree, we need something with the security level of signal and with the hability to federate. Or even better, make it P2P.
This is basically Matrix.org.
How does Session fair?
That's the problem with every open source application or software, actually.
Flathub isn't open source though.
isn't it? I thought that was the whole point of "snaps bad, flatpak good" thing.
When I install flathub repository on Fedora, I'm warned that it is non-free. There is a Fedora flatpak repository, but it doesn't have as many packages.
I logged into telegram today and found that all my data had been deleted because I hadn't used it in 6 months. Like I get why that feature might be desirable in some circumstances but for me, I'm not using end-to-end encryption because I'm sharing state secrets that need to self destruct upon opening - I just don't want the middlemen.
I've been looking into alternatives like Matrix/Element, XMPP etc - it sounds like Element might be easier to get non-techy friends to adopt but it, from my understanding, has a fairly power hungry mobile app.
Conversations is pretty user-friendly (XMPP front-end). Just sign up, then log in, like email. End-to-end encryption with groups is still as janky as a Windows XP server, but if you don't need that, then it's fine.
FluffyChat is a less power hungry alternative to Element. The reason these use so much battery is that they constantly check for new messages and don't do it over the privacy infringing Google cloud messaging services, also known as Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM), if it's Android. These are integrated into the system and work a bit more efficiently.
You can set the self destruct option to 1 year in Telegram. Matrix or Signal isn't as safe as people think they are. One has history of having ties to Mossad and other with CIA. Signal requires phone number and both have huge privacy issues with meta data. XMPP and Session seems better option.
Sources :
Why not Signal? And the Five Eyes
Matrix and Israeli Intelligence Amdocs
The more direct competition to telegram is signal imo. It has a limit of 1k users versus the like 30k in telegram but otherwise pretty feature parity.
I always thought that people that used short video sharing apps went Vine->Dubsmash->Tiktok. Instagram, ofc, being a given, since Facebook is backing it.
For good reason. Out of all the messenger apps I've tried - open source, decentralised, or stuff like whatsapp - Telegram is THE best one imo. Fast as hell, great UI/UX, lots of customisation, nice features, and good bot support.
I know some people dislike Telegram here, but among centralised apps their philosophy and track record is pretty decent imo