I am not comfortable that signal depends proprietary google library. However, I find that Molly lags significantly behind signal (around 1 to 2 weeks, so maybe not as significant as I thought), but I am just concerned that if there is a security fix in signal, molly will not be able to react as fast.
I am also quite frustrated with the general lack of communication from the signal team (for example the lack of communication regarding username). I doubt they will have the good will to help molly when there is a critical security fix.
It is frustrating that signal no longer seems like the gold standard for privacy any more; unfortunately, all my friends are on there (ironic, isn’t it…).
I love Signal, and I have persuaded people to use it a lot. That said, it is definitely not the gold standard for privacy. It’s a good-enough compromise between actual unbreakable encryption and trivial for anyone to use. It’s always been valuable for that reason, and still is.
Don’t worry about Molly - it uses a variation of the same code that Signal does, so they don’t need “help” to get critical fixes that Signal receives. Use it if you like it!
The actual gold standard for privacy would be logging in through TOR and sending GPG-encrypted messages that way. And there’s an app which does this, too - it’s called Briar. (No phone number needed, either!) It’s not as seamless to set up as Signal is, though.
Cool I had not heard of this, thanks!
@hoodlem
You can also do private groups, forums, and blogs on #Briar.
@SteleTrovilo
Very nice!
Do you know about SimpleX?
@Nimbus @SteleTrovilo
@[email protected] not.coffee I did not, super interesting.
I gave up Briar for SimpleX, as really good as Briar is, because of only having one ID. On SimpleX, if you enable incognito, it will create a new random ID for each new contact that you message, so no 2 persons will see the same ID for you, they each see you as a different name.
Also SimpleX is on iOS and Android, Briar is only for Android, and SimpleX does calling with contacts.
How do you backup SimpleX? Considering you changed your phone or factory reseted, can a normal person continue to contact their previous list? They don’t have a problem with Signal since it uses the phone number. Can I convince my family / friends on SimpleX, as I barely managed it on Signal? Because SimpleX looks much nicer and I’d love to use it.
In SimpleX app settings, if you have already set a database passphrase, you can do a data backup or export to a file, when SimpleX is installed again, you import database.
I see, thanks for the reply. I guess this is still not so viable for tech-illiterate people, unless the devs find an optional and more streamlined process for this. I barely made people use Signal, they couldn’t managed Matrix for example.
Let them stick with Molly/Signal, that will give them a lot of privacy, and nothing for them to figure out how to use.
Leave SimpleX for people more skilled to handle how to do configurations. SimpleX does have superior privacy over Signal, but mabe they can’t do SimpleX. Take it in stages with what they can handle, don’t jump to the end.
I’m not willing to Matrix and I don’t recommend anyone use it if they wat privacy and anonymity. I’m content only using Molly and SimpleX with everybody I know and no other apps or messaging services.