this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2025
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Signal – an ethical replacement for WhatsApp (greenstarsproject.org)
submitted 15 hours ago by Pro@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] Armand1@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

The exit plan from WhatsApp is quite simple. Start by installing Signal and setting it up – it takes only a couple of minutes. Then, resume any WhatsApp conversations on Signal if that person is already a Signal user. If they are not, then switch to regular text messaging and gently suggest to that person to switch over to Signal.

Sadly for me, this doesn't really work for some relatives as

  • They live abroad and the cost of sending text messages abroad is not insignificant
  • Some are so tech un-savvy that even installing a new app by themselves is too much.

All I can do for those relatives is to leave WhatsApp installed but take away basically every permission I can, including running in the background.

[–] NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 4 points 39 minutes ago

They live abroad and the cost of sending text messages abroad is not insignificant

Signal is free just like whats app. For text, calls, and video. So that isn't a problem.

I too have friends and family in different countries, one of which is crazy about whatsapp. I simply tell them this is how we are going to do things now, and walk them through it. It is not hard. If they can't do it, well then we don't need to communicate this way. Whatsapp is not an option. It is that simple.

[–] NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 2 points 41 minutes ago

They live abroad and the cost of sending text messages abroad is not insignificant

Signal is free just like whats app. For text, calls, and video.

[–] mintiefresh@lemmy.ca 27 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Wish more of my contact list would switch over to Signal. It's nearly the same. I don't see why it's so hard for some people to just start using Signal instead of WhatsApp.

Oh well.

[–] Kekzkrieger@feddit.org 23 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Because people are beyond stupid. "i dont want to download another app" - while having an app for almost every other store and bullshit game and whatever

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 9 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I think what they really mean is "I don't want another account".

[–] FinalRemix@lemmy.world 6 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Hell I've been getting rid of accounts lately. Feels good.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 5 points 1 hour ago

It's super cathartic, I agree. Feels extra good when it's big tech and fascist-owned as well.

[–] anachrohack@lemmy.world 7 points 5 hours ago

My dad won't switch from Facebook messenger so now we have to talk via unencrypted sms

[–] network_switch@lemmy.ml 12 points 8 hours ago

Ya it’d be better if it didn’t require a phone number but it’s a solid start as it’s build up a user base over the past decade. Matrix is good but I know far less people that use it and it’ll be a long time of growing with nerdy/geeky communities before it starts getting more mainstream users

[–] Nima@leminal.space 17 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

signal requires a phone number and won't even allow you to send sms to those that aren't on signal.

its better, but still not great.

[–] TeddE@lemmy.world 21 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

It used to function as a fallback SMS/MMS messenger (like how iMessage does) but when Google started moving to convert Android from SMS/MMS to RCS Signal made the hard decision to cut the fallback functionality rather than follow Google's new framework.

I personally hope once the dust settles Signal designs a RCS engine and restores the fallback functionality.

[–] oppy1984@lemm.ee 4 points 6 hours ago

Yeah killing the sms function was basically a deal breaker for me, no matter how much I tried I could only get three people to use Signal, the rest were all sms. When the sms feature was removed 2 of the 3 dropped Signal completely, so now the only person I know who still uses it is my mom and even she still flips back and forth between Signal and Google messages when texting me.

I still have Signal on my phone and suggest it people when they ask how to contact me, but everyone just wants to text my phone number.

[–] anachrohack@lemmy.world 5 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

If you need to send sms to someone not on signal, why not just send them an sms

[–] Nima@leminal.space 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

if they need my phone number to have an account anyway, they can offer both.

i dont need more apps that do the same thing. i need less.

[–] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

It's arguably a very bad idea for a secure messenger to also provide an SMS interface, since those are basically cleartext

[–] Nima@leminal.space 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 10 minutes ago) (1 children)

exactly. so I'm wondering what the purpose is for its need.

(edit: apologies- the phone number. needing the phone number.)

[–] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 1 points 28 minutes ago* (last edited 18 minutes ago) (1 children)

What? You use a secure messenger to send secure messages. It doesn't make sense for a secure messenger to offer sending insecure messages (SMS).

Edit: oh, you're probably referring to why it requires a phone number. This seems to be due to abuse/spam prevention, as otherwise creating new accounts to spam people with is basically free.

[–] Nima@leminal.space 1 points 6 minutes ago

using the phone number is still a pretty unnecessary risk, imho.

there's no real need for it any longer.

[–] Arcane2077@sh.itjust.works 43 points 12 hours ago (5 children)

I like Signal. I even got all my close friends and family on it, specifically to message me because I won't use whatsapp. The PIN reminders are annoying it enough to be legitimately holding it back from mass appeal imho

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[–] arin@lemmy.world 17 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

A truly ethical replacement would not need a phone number

[–] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 9 points 6 hours ago

And it would have as much spam as email.

[–] vga@sopuli.xyz 20 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

And would have FOSS implementations of reference server & client + an openly specified protocol.

Like Matrix.

[–] Flipper@feddit.org 9 points 8 hours ago

Matrix still has it's problems. All the meta data is still saved on every server permanently.

There is still space to improve from there.

[–] Humanius@lemmy.world 99 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (17 children)

After Trump was elected and inaugurated, Signal has finally been gaining some steam here in the Netherlands.

It's still an American company, so it's not ideal. But it's still significantly better better than letting a tech giant like Facebook have control over the most commonly used chat app.

WhatsApp needs to go and Signal is the most likely way in which we can achieve that. We can worry about the American elephant in the room later.

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[–] mathemachristian@lemmy.blahaj.zone 28 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Proprietary servers is still proprietary software

[–] Humanius@lemmy.world 89 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (5 children)

Don't let perfection stand in the way of good enough
It may not be the holy grail, but moving away from Meta-owned Whatsapp is already a pretty significant improvement

[–] rfr_Foglia@feddit.it 11 points 9 hours ago (4 children)

I agree and it would be much better if people would use Signal instead of WhatsApp, but I think there's still one problem.

Due to how messaging platforms work, every time you switch you lose pretty much everything (messages, media, etc) This makes switching very hard even for a nerd like me, because if Signal is not "perfect" it means that I will have to switch again at some point and lose everything again.

[–] lemonuri@lemmy.ml 4 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

Thats a problem with silos (where one owner hosts all the servers) in general. You will have to switch the entire ecosystem once the inevitable enshitification sets in. It's a good idea to switch to something open source and federated (where many different non profit organisations and even self hosting individuals host many different servers). That way you can migrate your history and contacts to another server of necessary but never have to switch the ecosystem again. Think it how email works, it's the best known federated system. If you don't like you email provider anymore you can just chose another one and still keep your contacts and messages on a client like Thunderbird forever. Xmpp and matrix are the hottest candidates in my opinion, but you can check the messenger matrix that was linked in a comment above to see what suits you best.

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[–] foggenbooty@lemmy.world 4 points 8 hours ago

I've been using Signal for years and my database was getting really bloated with media, attachments, etc but I didn't want to delete it all. I used this and it's incredible:

https://github.com/bepaald/signalbackup-tools

Just make a backup from within signal, copy that backup file to your PC, then run this tool. The commands I used make an HTML webpage that looks just like the signal messenger, along with a way of searching your messages. You can choose different commands to export however you like.

I used:

signalbackup-tools [input] [passphrase] --exporthtml [directory] --split --searchpage --originalfilenames

So while this doesn't help you move off your current messenger, you don't have to worry that your data/messages will be lost in Signal.

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[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 69 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

It's ethical because it runs on donations and has a non-profit business model.

Meta likely spends at least $1 billion a year running WhatsApp.

Please donate to Signal if you use it.

[–] eodur@lemmy.world 5 points 8 hours ago

How about Delta Chat? At least as secure as Signal, open source, and decentralized.

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