<story><title>Signal Desktop</title><url>https://whispersystems.org/blog/signal-desktop/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>darklajid</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m feeling dirty, because I don&amp;#x27;t like to be that negative, especially if we&amp;#x27;re talking open-source software. And I feel that I kinda hold this project to higher standards: If I compare this to WhatsApp&amp;#x2F;Telegram&amp;#x2F;Threema&amp;#x2F;Whatever, I inheritently, somewhat subconciously expect more from Signal.&lt;p&gt;And I&amp;#x27;m disappointed. I tend to repeat the &amp;#x27;central server&amp;#x27; and &amp;#x27;a phone number is not an address and not public information, it certainly is no identity&amp;#x27; criticism.&lt;p&gt;When I read the headline&amp;#x2F;title, I thought &amp;#x27;Now maybe that would be enough to be ~good enough~ to ditch Telegram&amp;#x27; in spite of these problems (which Telegram has as well, ofc). But really. A Chrome app. And works only (yeah, I think I said it before: Phone numbers suck) as a secondary client. And only if the first client is Android?&lt;p&gt;I seriously don&amp;#x27;t get it. And it certainly is not for me: I don&amp;#x27;t like that browser (I do have it installed for testing and to follow it at times, but there&amp;#x27;s no &amp;#x27;app&amp;#x27; I&amp;#x27;d run in Chrome). I don&amp;#x27;t want to tie something to my phone and I don&amp;#x27;t think that it should matter what platform my handset runs on - SailfishOS looks nice, FxOS progresses slow but ticks a good number of boxes for me.&lt;p&gt;Full circle to the first line: I don&amp;#x27;t _like_ to be negative and the headline gave me hope for a couple seconds. Unfortunately this release just deepened my belief that Signal wasn&amp;#x27;t meant to be for me.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>moxie</author><text>If we were going to rank our priorities, they would be in this order:&lt;p&gt;1) Make mass surveillance impossible.&lt;p&gt;2) Stop targeted attacks against crypto nerds.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not that we don&amp;#x27;t find #2 laudable, but optimizing for #1 takes precedence when we&amp;#x27;re making decisions.&lt;p&gt;If you don&amp;#x27;t want to use your phone number, don&amp;#x27;t use it.  You can register with any GV, Twilio, Voicepulse, or other throwaway VoIP number.&lt;p&gt;If you don&amp;#x27;t want to run Chrome, use Chromium instead.&lt;p&gt;If you don&amp;#x27;t want to use Google Play Services, use GcmCore.&lt;p&gt;The world you want this software for is not the world that everyone else lives in.  You can certainly make it work in that world with a little effort, but because of how we&amp;#x27;ve prioritized our objectives, that&amp;#x27;s not the default experience.</text></comment>
<story><title>Signal Desktop</title><url>https://whispersystems.org/blog/signal-desktop/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>darklajid</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m feeling dirty, because I don&amp;#x27;t like to be that negative, especially if we&amp;#x27;re talking open-source software. And I feel that I kinda hold this project to higher standards: If I compare this to WhatsApp&amp;#x2F;Telegram&amp;#x2F;Threema&amp;#x2F;Whatever, I inheritently, somewhat subconciously expect more from Signal.&lt;p&gt;And I&amp;#x27;m disappointed. I tend to repeat the &amp;#x27;central server&amp;#x27; and &amp;#x27;a phone number is not an address and not public information, it certainly is no identity&amp;#x27; criticism.&lt;p&gt;When I read the headline&amp;#x2F;title, I thought &amp;#x27;Now maybe that would be enough to be ~good enough~ to ditch Telegram&amp;#x27; in spite of these problems (which Telegram has as well, ofc). But really. A Chrome app. And works only (yeah, I think I said it before: Phone numbers suck) as a secondary client. And only if the first client is Android?&lt;p&gt;I seriously don&amp;#x27;t get it. And it certainly is not for me: I don&amp;#x27;t like that browser (I do have it installed for testing and to follow it at times, but there&amp;#x27;s no &amp;#x27;app&amp;#x27; I&amp;#x27;d run in Chrome). I don&amp;#x27;t want to tie something to my phone and I don&amp;#x27;t think that it should matter what platform my handset runs on - SailfishOS looks nice, FxOS progresses slow but ticks a good number of boxes for me.&lt;p&gt;Full circle to the first line: I don&amp;#x27;t _like_ to be negative and the headline gave me hope for a couple seconds. Unfortunately this release just deepened my belief that Signal wasn&amp;#x27;t meant to be for me.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tptacek</author><text>The central server in Signal does not have the same role as the Telegram&amp;#x27;s.&lt;p&gt;If you care first and foremost about UX, use Telegram. If you care first and foremost about the security of your communications, use Signal; go out of your way to use Signal.</text></comment>