It seems like it could be a really cool alternative to Signal, but wait, there’s more! It has a “Teams” feature that could make it a decent alternative to Discord as well. Only problem is I don’t know anyone else who uses it.

  • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
    ·
    10 months ago

    Just use Matrix or spool up your own instance of something open source like Rocket Chat or Mattermost if you want security. Most of the "security" platforms that exist as a service are lies or trash anyways.

    • combat_brandonism [they/them]
      ·
      10 months ago

      If you use matrix, don't federate. It leaks metadata like crazy (hard not to when federating) and was built/incubated at a canadian telco that was a notorious mossad front for harvesting telephony metadata in north america.

      • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
        ·
        10 months ago

        I think Signal has had some issues with fed related activity. Telegram is fine because it's based on Matrix, but the most secure will always be using your own instance where you have control of the data. The ones I mentioned aren't end to end encrypted, but hosting your own instance puts them in your control.

        • ianovic69@feddit.uk
          ·
          10 months ago

          Thanks for that. I'm using Telegram which seems to be increasing usage in the UK. As I don't use Meta I'm happy with it as an alternative to WhatsApp at least.

          Telegram is fine because it's based on Matrix

          I didn't know that. What makes Matrix a good thing?

          • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
            ·
            10 months ago

            Matrix is just a backend framework for sending and receiving. I was actually wrong about Telegram being a Matrix client. I usually just don't use a lot of online messaging stuff though outside work so that's my bad. Got Telegram and Element confused.

            Matrix is just the one I see more trust about in the community and getting an instance up and running is easy to do.

            All three are open source (Matrix, Signal, and Telegram) so you can audit their security protocols or follow people on the issues pages that are identifying security vulnerabilities, but in the end using any service that you don't have control over is gonna make it difficult to remain truly secure.

            If at any point an instance owner decides to share server data they can, which in most of these apps won't necessarily give them access to messages if the server never loads them as plaintext, but will give them access to information about who you're talking with and such.

            If you aren't like actively organizing or doing anything that would require absolute security in messaging all of them would probably be fine as they're better than sending MMS or SMS, but at the end of the day you just need to be aware of who is controlling your data and who might want it.