This is an awful decision. I've converted some friends and family to Signal over the past years (it took a while) and it is now their default messaging app on their phones. This is going to confuse them and is going to make it difficult for me to keep convincing them that Signal is the route to use. ("Why do I need 3 apps (Android Messages, Signal, Whatsapp) to talk to people?")
I absolutely agree. Personally, I've managed to convert around 3 times as many Android users as iOS users, because of this feature. And the few people who stopped using Signal after starting using it did so because of limitations in the SMS/MMS features (fewer number of users allowed in group text, etc). I fully expect to loose 2/3 of my Signal contacts as a result of this decision, and may drop it myself if the number remaining is too small to be worth running a separate app, as most of the ones left will probably be on Matrix as well.
It also puts a spot-light on the "your phone number is your username" policy. This made perfect sense when you are using Signal for opportunistic encryption of texting. It is much less justifiable when using it as a Silo'd app. I really hope they change that and give people who were waiting for that change time to join before killing SMS support.
> It also puts a spot-light on the "your phone number is your username" policy.
I'm willing to bet that this decision is just jumping the gun by a month or two since usernames are around the corner (code exists, just not enabled. Can be used if built from source).
Though I haven't had a hard time converting (Android) users by using another app. Especially people that already use WA. The "other app" just comes off as normal. Apple is a different ball game because the walled garden, but that's also the weakness because you can't send photos/videos in group chats with mixed devices (but Signal can).
They say “opportunistic” as in similar to how iMessage works. If you’re both on the platform, it’s encrypted but you still can communicate with everyone else from one app.
That’s a major boost for those that might not particularly care about encryption to look for specific messaging apps, while still helping by building out the network slowly over time.
The downside is that they will opportunistically send your messages via Signal. If the recipient chooses to not have SIgnal installed any longer, then your messages go into a black hole.
This became much more of a problem for me after they rolled out their shitcoin; suddenly my techie friends were just not responding to messages, and Signal as my main SMS app was not falling back to SMS for these folks.
Apple has the same problem, and an article and entire process for disabling it out of band, plus a heartbeat so it’s done automatically after a while if you don’t reset your phone. It’s a major problem.
I’ve only done the switch from iOS to Android once and I remember it was a pain for a few days until everything realized I didn’t have iMessage anymore.
Even without an iPhone I sometimes miss texts from people using iMessage because my only occasionally used MacBook seems to randomly like to turn messages back on, and so anything from an Apple user ends up there instead of on my phone. It stays that way until I figure out I’m missing texts and go find them on the MacBook and have to manually turn off messages to it again.
> If the recipient chooses to not have SIgnal installed any longer, then your messages go into a black hole.
For two weeks, messages will be shown as sent but not delivered, and after two weeks Signal will not let you send messages to that number until it reconnects to the Signal servers.
For comparison, Apple automatically sends all SMS messages via iMessage opportunistically, and if the user then switches to another phone, all SMS messages from iOS users will be silently discarded in perpetuity. This is a big problem because the recipient has no idea that they're missing messages, and also if they no longer have access to an iPhone, there's no way for them to deregister their phone number from iMessage.
They will also deregister you automatically after some period of time. What you described is the situation several years ago, but it's much better now.
That's a link to deregister a phone number from iMessage without an iPhone, which is good, but I don't see any text on that page that confirms that they'll deregister you automatically, or if there's any user-visible indication of the issue. If that's the case, then I'm glad they finally addressed it, because it was definitely a problem for far too long.
In that case, Signal's current behavior would be comparable to Apple's, if Apple also deregisters you after a period of inactivity.
> The downside is that they will opportunistically send your messages via Signal. If the recipient chooses to not have SIgnal installed any longer, then your messages go into a black hole.
The user cannot just log out of Signal and have the app on other people's devices automatically fall back on SMS the way it works with iMessage?
A lot of people will just delete an app and think there were no side-effects. There was an article here a few weeks ago about people not cancelling in-app subscriptions after deleting an app. Apple will remind you after it deletes it, Google does not.
Logging out might not even be enough, depending on the logic on Signal’s side. Do they use active devices, or just that an account exists?
Yes, exactly. The ability to send SMS from the Signal app has meant I've been pretty successful in getting Android users to switch to Signal. Every iOS user I know always just goes back to using iMessage. Now many of those Android users won't bother either.
I hope it's communicated well to users who aren't readers of Signal's blog. I have relatives who use Signal, and they rely on its fallback-to-SMS feature, possibly without fully understanding it. I'll make sure they understand and are aware of this change, but others may be in the same position.
That ship sailed a long time ago. Signal's userbase overwhelmingly objected to having their sensitive information permanently stored in the cloud too, but signal ignored them.
This is an awful decision. I've converted some friends and family to Signal over the past years (it took a while) and it is now their default messaging app on their phones. This is going to confuse them and is going to make it difficult for me to keep convincing them that Signal is the route to use.
I learned to stop trying to improve the technical lives of other people after Dropbox's decision to restrict free accounts to three devices resulted in a shitstorm of angry and confused messages from half the people I know.
You know, I haven’t really thought of it like this. Those for whom I take an interest in their technical lives typically get a spiel from me about whatever solution I’m offering. That spiel often includes something about how “they’ll probably change this eventually in ways no one wants, but the most we can do is speak up. We probably won’t get options.”
But I have to admit your perspective calls to me. I can imagine it would feel quite freeing.
I’m in a minor mess of a situation with my dad’s phone and computer because I’ve tried to be helpful. Now he resists help and that makes both of us frustrated.
I'm happy to share the best information I have with others and most of them are glad that I do.
I had recommended signal to others, but thankfully I've already warned those same people against continuing to use Signal years ago. Nobody was mad at me for Signal's actions and changing your default SMS app isn't hard anyway.
I don't think you have to stop recommending things to people just because situations change. Hasn't everybody had some service or software they depended on go from great to shitty? It's just the nature of using someone else's stuff. At some point they get greedy or busy or decide to pivot into something different from what you want and you have to find something new. Isn't everyone used to that? Why would they blame you?
I have never understood why decisions and options have to be mutually exclusive. Yes, you want to have a rock-solid, thoughtfully-design default install for new and casual users. You can still have an advanced control panel with everything a power user could want.
KDE is such a great example of how to do it right that I didn't even think of it. It just works so well and so transparently that I forget how great it is sometimes.
Rock solid and both works and looks great right out of the box. So customizable that using literally anything else feels like using a Fisher-Price computer for toddlers.
That review of KDE is so over-the-top it almost reads like satire. Is KDE really that great? (Using Gnome under Ubuntu - no complaints here. But I also am not sure what KDE is giving you. Control over look-and-feel of the windowing environment? Default utility applications? Perhaps a desktop API thick-client programmers can write against?
KDE is really that great. Used a GNOME desktop on Fedora recently and there were so many simple features missing.
Windowing rules for one. Simple example: Firefox picture-in-picture. On KDE I have a windowing rule so that if from any firefox window playing video I hit the picture-in-picture button the picture-in-picture window becomes a certain size, goes to a certain placement on my monitors, stays on top of all windows, and is visible across all virtual desktops.
Ability to control the layout of my virtual desktops is also incredibly useful to me. (I use a 3x3 grid, so switching from my "main" task in the center to any one of 4 sub-tasks up-down-left-right is easy, and my universal tasks (chat/email/etc) go in the 4 corners.
KDE puts you in control, and gives you a LOT of control. IMO GNOME feels much more windows/mac in it's design philosophy. "We know best, do it the way we let you."
And as far as an API, yes, also that. With the Plasma desktop plugin Firefox remembers which virtual desktop each window is supposed to go to, so I have no issue rebooting with 5 or 6 different windows open.
I apologize if it sounds over the top, but for my use-cases at least the level of control and "just does the right thing" really do stand out above the alternatives.
+1 to this. If Signal drops Android SMS support, I suspect it'll create friction within my friend group that uses it. I do not want yet another app for just text messages. No thank you.
No. Secrecy will have backdoor keys, but that is not what walled garden means: it means more like people have no power over the decisions made in the garden.
"... those designated as gatekeepers will have to:
allow third parties to inter-operate with their own services, meaning that smaller platforms will be able to request that dominant messaging platforms enable their users to exchange messages, send voice messages or files across messaging apps. ..."
Thank you, I should have clarified that in the original comment.
(I admit that I actually edited that original comment, since the link I initially included was more speculative, talking about a law that was expected to pass, and being much more vague about when it might enter into force. The page at the updated link is more definitive, but not as narrowly focused, so I'm glad you managed to isolate the relevant section.)
I think I've burned a lot of social goodwill switching my family and close friends to signal and have no desire to support them through yet another change.
Honestly I'm pretty critical of the Signal app design: from the crypto nonsense, to the removal of chat bubble colors (used to be each person had a color, pretty useful in group chats), to the copious amounts of whitespace that have been linearly increasing for years, to the fact that the design has to change and break familiarity every 6 months or the devs have a stroke.
But I actually like this decision. It makes things less confusing and accidental use of unsecure SMS impossible. The downside is if you still use SMS you have to keep 2 apps, back them up separately, etc.
> "Why do I need 3 apps (Android Messages, Signal, Whatsapp)"
"You need Signal to talk to people on Signal, WhatsApp to talk to people on WhatsApp, and Messages to talk to people on SMS." Seems more straightforward than "use WhatsApp to talk to people on WhatsApp and Signal to talk to people on Signal or SMS; just pay attention to the color of the send button".
This issue for myself and many others is it makes something that used to be transparent, entirely unsupported. The UX is unambiguously worse. I could trust signal to upgrade my texts for me when possible, or not when my contacts were SMS. I don't care about always being encrypted 100% of the time. Signal was that perfect tradeoff between privacy, and ease of use, which is exceptionally rare. Providing this tradeoff is what made them popular, them going against it is counterproductive and will hurt them badly. I know this because now I'm considering leaving myself.
I dunno, all my friends use at least a handful of messaging apps (iMessage, FB messenger, Discord, Telegram, SMS). Sure people grumble about a new messaging app but the younger generation seems to not have an issue adopting new things.
I wouldn’t frame it as an issue around adopting new things. Some don’t care, some go with the flow, and some prefer to make active choices about these kinds of things.
I am very intentional and active when it comes to what has push notification privileges. I factor that into my app use consideration. I have multiple email accounts in two different email apps, each that send me notifications. I have Signal, Discord, iMessages and SMS. I have a few Google chat apps. I used to have WhatsApp and Wickr and Telegram. I have Skype, Teams, and two Mattermost servers.
It’s exhausting to constantly switch between these, so over the course of a few years I’ve been very clear in where people can expect to reach me reliably. If you need or want to chat with me on Discord, Skype, or Google whatever you need to send me an iMessage, SMS, Mattermost, or Signal message. Sending me a message anywhere else will get you a response only the next time I open that app. That only happens when someone specifically asks.
I’m OK with having 63847394038 chat and video calling apps, but I’m not OK with being instantaneously notified by an infinity such apps. I can’t be that available.
Yeah, I can understand that; but I've brought over various older family members, and non-tech friends (as in people that wouldn't have ever heard the words Discord or Telegram before in their lives) to Signal. That's who this will impact most.
And while older generations might be less willing to use a high number of apps side by side, having one kind of message in one app and the other kind of message in the other app is still much less confusing to them than dealing with the subtleties of multiprotocol if everything is forced through the single one-size-fits-all interface of a messenger that tries to do SMS on the side.
The US seems to be the only place where everyone uses iMessage, so Android users have to use SMS and suffer the bizarre shaming of the green bubble. In most countries outside the US, WhatsApp seems to be the default. SMS is just legacy 2FA messages, and various other transactional messages like parcel delivery notifications.
I'm guessing. Though I'm in the US but also in grad school. With a large number of foreign students there are similarly a large number of WhatsApp, Telegram, and WeChat users. I suspect this problem is very Americentric. India was able to get all its old people to use WhatsApp and multiple apps, I think there is a bit of an overreaction going on here. You'd think the world is ending for a feature most people didn't know existed (despite it being a prompt during signup).
Is the snark and reducing of the parent comment to a “bla bla bla” really necessary? We’re all adults here, we can make a point while treating the other person with respect.
