Oddbean

#Signal is not decentralized, nor do they want to be. They don't allow using any other client to connect to the server except the one they wrote. They block the completely open source edition of their app (Signal-FOSS) from being listed in F-Droid. But everyone will cheer and forget all of this when they allow usernames, even if they are still collecting phone numbers and tying them to the usernames behind the scenes Usernames will be good, but not sufficient for me to recommend Signal again. #Matrix still wins #Privacy #Security #infosec #SecureMessaging

It's not perfect but much better than most apps used by 99% of the people. If Matrix become too sucessful, most user will be or would like to be on the matrix.org server, which will end up no so much more decentralized, and even if there are other servers, most people will not be able to run their own, so they will be dependant of who manage their server for censorship and privacy. Still I think that Matrix is a good replacement for public and semi-public group chats, I would love that all these interesting Telegram channels move to Matrix. What about SimpleX for private messaage? It looks much more secure, sensorship resistant, privacy friendly and decentralized. But I don't know it well yet, I have to study it more.

I still use Signal, and I have done so for over a decade. I was a huge advocate for it years ago. It's just not my first choice anymore and most non-technical people I convinced to use Signal stopped using it when Signal ripped out SMS support. I've been moving people off of it to Matrix servers for a while now and with the new library resolving a bunch of "unable to decrypt" issues, it's note ready for non-technical users. It's not just the ability to choose your server, but also a choice of clients, and they don't collect phone numbers (in fact most people that I set up didn't even have to provide an email address!). SimpleX reminds me a lot of Briar, which is a very good thing. I'm intetested in using it more and seeing how it goes.