notes by alifeee profile picture tagged software (1) rss

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here I may post some short, text-only notes, mostly about programming. source code.

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what's the best messaging app # prev single next top

tags: privacy, software β€’ 314 'words', 94 secs @ 200wpm

Recently some of my friend group wanted to move messaging app. We were using Instagram. For me this was a great opportunity to promote the good word of God encryption and privacy, and also make a proto-comparison matrix of different apps, as every comparison matrix is biased, usually to whoever's website you're on. In this case, I provide the bias.

Instagram is only on the list because this was a proposal to move away from Instagram, and WhatsApp is only there because everyone I personally know whines and says "but eeeveryone has WhatsApp". Currently, I'm mostly using Telegram and Signal to message people.

The list of features is just from me imagining what I want, what I've experienced before, and clicking around on various apps and seeing what they have (e.g., Signal's story feature - does anyone use this???)

key:

features:

high quality photos πŸŸ©πŸš™πŸ‘οΈβ€πŸ—¨οΈ
voice notes πŸŸ©πŸ“ΈπŸš™πŸ‘οΈβ€πŸ—¨οΈ
video notes πŸŸ©πŸ“ΈπŸš™πŸ‘οΈβ€πŸ—¨οΈ
sharing location πŸŸ©πŸš™πŸ‘οΈβ€πŸ—¨οΈ
sharing files πŸŸ©πŸš™πŸ‘οΈβ€πŸ—¨οΈ
editable theme/colours πŸŸ©πŸ“ΈπŸ‘οΈβ€πŸ—¨οΈ
private (encrypted) πŸ‘οΈβ€πŸ—¨οΈ
can delete history automatically πŸŸ©πŸš™πŸ‘οΈβ€πŸ—¨οΈβ€‘
see image feed πŸŸ©πŸ“ΈπŸš™πŸ‘οΈβ€πŸ—¨οΈ
see file feed πŸŸ©πŸš™πŸ‘οΈβ€πŸ—¨οΈ
see link feed πŸŸ©πŸš™
can mute for a period of time πŸŸ©πŸ“ΈπŸš™πŸ‘οΈβ€πŸ—¨οΈ
can share to it easily πŸŸ©πŸ“ΈπŸš™πŸ‘οΈβ€πŸ—¨οΈ
can pin messages πŸŸ©β€ πŸš™
custom reactions πŸŸ©πŸ“ΈπŸ‘οΈβ€πŸ—¨οΈ
polls πŸŸ©πŸš™
formatting (italics/bold/etc) πŸŸ©πŸš™πŸ‘οΈβ€πŸ—¨οΈ
spoiler text πŸš™πŸ‘οΈβ€πŸ—¨οΈ
group story πŸ‘οΈβ€πŸ—¨οΈ
disappearing images πŸŸ©πŸ“ΈπŸš™πŸ‘οΈβ€πŸ—¨οΈ
group description πŸŸ©πŸš™πŸ‘οΈβ€πŸ—¨οΈ

† only for short time ‑ yea but it looks super annoying

options not considered here, for a multitude of reasons (feel free to guess why):

We ended up moving to Signal.

P.S., it is possible that I have a Western bias against Telegram, I enjoyed this podcast about Signal but it did feel that some of the criticisms were just "it's not an app controlled by the USA": https://logbuch-netzpolitik.de/lnp504-the-politics-of-intellectual-shame

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