Thankfully I've never used this thing. Matrix forever!
this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2026
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Technology
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I know a lot of people who use WhatsApp and I need it in a container for use on occasion. But fuck Microsoft and all the other tech companies colluding in thr or global cartel.
Fediverse and Linux stands still and yet gets better and better by comparison.
Thank god, maybe I can get my family to switch to signal.
it's been so so nice having most of my friends and family (that want to talk to me) on Signal. it's so unobtrusive and chill not to mention the peace of mind
Teach us your ways!
so, honestly i'm a bit lucky because i'm the family and friends tech person, so i really pushed them to get on Signal if they want to reach me reliably because it's so much safer, and they trust me. I've given them practical demonstrations of end to end encryption, I also just kinda hold them hostage by only making myself super available on Signal. Also worth mention is that lots of my friends are queer or at risk in some way or another so they have lots of motivation to stay safe. I still do have to use RCS sometimes to get in touch with some family but that's better than SMS which I avoid like the plague. that's pretty much it
It's SUCH a battle. The only people I had on Signal were my immediate family. I just replaced it with my own XMPP server so my kids can join without a SIM.
Lucky, my parents call me paranoid for using IronFox even though they DO know about tracking.
Same!
WhatsAds
The first thing that came in my mind when I found out about WhatsApp having ads now.
WhatsApp was the best messaging app out there. Clean, fast, intuitive UI. No bloat. And then Facebook bought it and shat all over it. Now it looks like their crappy Messenger app. Time to go.
Will be REALLY hard to go with a family such as mine (my father seriously thought if you uninstalled google you would never be able to download anything else more on your phone).
Poor Meta are just trying to make ends meet. /s
This is a good time to refer back to a Forbes piece on Brian Acton from a few years back:
The Facebook-WhatsApp pairing had been a head-scratcher from the start. Facebook has one of the world’s biggest advertising networks; Koum and Acton hated ads. Facebook’s added value for advertisers is how much it knows about its users; WhatsApp’s founders were pro-privacy zealots who felt their vaunted encryption had been integral to their nearly unprecedented global growth.
This dissonance frustrated Zuckerberg. Facebook, Acton says, had decided to pursue two ways of making money from WhatsApp. First, by showing targeted ads in WhatsApp’s new Status feature, which Acton felt broke a social compact with its users. “Targeted advertising is what makes me unhappy,” he says. His motto at WhatsApp had been “No ads, no games, no gimmicks”—a direct contrast with a parent company that derived 98% of its revenue from advertising. Another motto had been “Take the time to get it right,” a stark contrast to “Move fast and break things.”
Facebook also wanted to sell businesses tools to chat with WhatsApp users. Once businesses were on board, Facebook hoped to sell them analytics tools, too. The challenge was WhatsApp’s watertight end-to-end encryption, which stopped both WhatsApp and Facebook from reading messages. While Facebook didn’t plan to break the encryption, Acton says, its managers did question and “probe” ways to offer businesses analytical insights on WhatsApp users in an encrypted environment.
Long live Signal!
Long live Signal!
Once businesses were on board, Facebook hoped to sell them analytics tools, too.
Then once we've got them hooked, it's Enshitttification Time!
If you use that pile of crap, you deserve it.
Isn't this news 8 months old?
This has happened a couple of times recently. I'd be in favour of a rule saying if you're posting old articles/stories then there's gotta be a datestamp in the title. Just to stop people thinking this is a new development.
Okay, noted, gonna put this on my posts from now on. Thanks!
Yep, the NYT article is from June 2025
Sweet.....
Wow, you're fast.
💪 sorting by 🕑 New because 🔥 Hot was all read
Thats my one complaint about Lemmy. It only gives content for like 3-4 hours. How am I supposed to take a shit for 7 hours at work, with such little content and comments???
I feel like I read every comment on this site. I'm wrong, obviously, but thats how it feels.
I love when people comment. You should comment 400x more everyday. Everyone should! Tell us everything! What's your life story? How was your childhood? Did you have a bully? Did you punch them in the nose? Did you win the science fair? Did you play football? How were your college years? Did you drink 3 bottles of Bacardi 151, and wake up in Michigan in a hotel room filled with 7 lemurs, in a room paid for by Rick Morranis with zero explaination of how you even got to Michigan?
FEED THE MACHINE!!! ATTENTION SPANS DWINDLE!!! ADHD IS REAL!!! OOOOHHHH!!!! I SEE A PUPPY OUTSIDE!!!!
runs outside to play with a puppy before you can respond
Just commenting so you have one more line to read
I like the vibe buddy. 💖
That's why I like it actually. It forces me to interact with the community, it's more organic that way, and I need to eventually move in with my life instead of doom scroll. I get to the end and go "well that's the end of the internet for a day or two"
Here I am, sorting by new all the time
I usually switch to new after scrolling the first 5 or 6 posts. Just too lazy to switch my defaults
I like scaled sort. It sorts posts by popularity relative to the size of the community, so that the feed is a mixture of both popular communities and small ones. It also seems more likely to include newer posts (eg I saw this post in my scaled feed).
Good shout. I'll have a look 💪
... okay?
Dude…
SWEET!
Oh no! And just when I finally got around to setting up an XMPP server, too!
XMPP was really confusing for me, I stick with Signal.
Yeah the UX for setting it up was not great. Conversely though, the UX for using it has been fantastic so far. My biggest concern was that the clients would feel dated (on Android esp), but no, they're surprisingly polished!
I switched to signal, but am just switching to WIRE.
Oh, what motivated you to do this switch? Is WIRE better than Signal?
Well, of course they do...
Hey, is it true that the same encryption algorithm originated at Open Whisper Systems to be included in Signal.app. And so a big difference between Signal and Wahtsap is the lack of ads? Oh yeah, and the backdoor that Meta put in Shatswap.