what's the best messaging app # source
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:
- Instagram πΈ
- whatsapp π©
- telegram π
- signal ποΈβπ¨οΈ
features:
high quality photos π©πποΈβπ¨οΈ
voice notes π©πΈπποΈβπ¨οΈ
video notes π©πΈπποΈβπ¨οΈ
sharing location π©πποΈβπ¨οΈ
sharing files π©πποΈβπ¨οΈ
editable theme/colours π©πΈποΈβπ¨οΈ
private (encrypted) ποΈβπ¨οΈ
can delete history automatically π©πποΈβπ¨οΈβ‘
see image feed π©πΈπποΈβπ¨οΈ
see file feed π©πποΈβπ¨οΈ
see link feed π©π
can mute for a period of time π©πΈπποΈβπ¨οΈ
can share to it easily π©πΈπποΈβπ¨οΈ
can pin messages π©β π
custom reactions π©πΈποΈβπ¨οΈ
polls π©π
formatting (italics/bold/etc) π©πποΈβπ¨οΈ
spoiler text πποΈβπ¨οΈ
group story ποΈβπ¨οΈ
disappearing images π©πΈπποΈβπ¨οΈ
group description π©πποΈβπ¨οΈ
β only for short time β‘ yea but it looks super annoying
options not considered here, for a multitude of reasons (feel free to guess why):
- messenger
- SMS
- IRC
- Matrix
- Discord
- Jabber/XMPP
- Skype
- Snapchat
- Kik
- Viber
- Slack
- Teams
- ones I found while googling that I've not heard of
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