I’m thinking of the things listed on the Privacy Guides real-time communication section
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I’ve had good fortune converting some family and friends to use XMPP.
People always mention fragmentation, and while there is some truth to it, it can be massively minimised by choosing blessed clients and servers for them to use.
In my case, I run my own server, and thoroughly test the clients (especially the onboarding flow) that I expect them to use, so that any question they have, I can help them out with quickly. Since we’re all on identically configured servers, it minimises one whole class of incompatibilities.
There is still unfortunately a bit of a usability gap compared to Signal - particularly on the iOS clients. But they have come a long way and are consistently improving.
You can host Simplex server and clients
What’s your use case? Likeminded techie friends? Family members?
Signal works well as an alternative to the likes of Telegram and WhatsApp, even if it still requires a phone number and is centralised. Far easier to explain to the family instead of “oh well you can sign up on this website or this website or that website”.
Granted, if you want to host a small Matrix server just for the family, then go for it.
It doesn’t require a phone number anymore.
Edit: I was wrong. :p
As far as I know Signal still requires a phone number to register an account. Since a while you can use usernames to connect with others instead of exchanging phone numbers.
The username release is quite recent for those not participating in beta versions of Signal.
Ohh, I wasn’t aware that it was still necessary for registering.
Let’s not forget that for those looking for alternatives, a key feature of signal is/was its SMS integration.
I use silence, a fork of signal.
- upside: it can still send and receive SMS messages!
- downside: nobody else uses it, so it only does SMS as a result.
I’m using Matrix/element. I rather not give my phone number, you see, which is must-have for Signal. I have installed the app in my family’s phones, and they were accepting, so all is well. I don’t need to communicate through private messaging with anybody else, so who cares if others don’t use matrix?
Yeah, about that. https://www.signal.org/blog/phone-number-privacy-usernames/
That’s my point. The phone number IS STILL required to create an account at Signal!
I see.
I think Signal rolled out a username system that should let users communicate without having to share phone numbers
Downsides of Signal alternatives compared to Signal?
I guess that anything out there performs better and faster syncs than Signal… so much for the great Signal.
