t_luke parent
Does anyone else find Signal quite hard to use? The syncing between devices stops working a lot of the time, and needing to sign in again fairly regularly. I’ve tried switching but it doesn’t stick because of the annoyance factor.
I've had a broken Signal account for like a year. I migrated from an older phone and the process didn't work because apparently the version of Signal I had on the old phone was "too old" or something? (why didn't the new destination phone's copy of Signal tell me this?) ... I've been waiting, hoping they fix the issue where I can re-register my phone without having to delete the app and lose all my message history with photos from family etc. For a while, I could receive messages but not send them (yes, seriously). Recently a "re-register device" button appeared, but when I try to go through that process, I get the SMS with the verification code, I enter it, and the app crashes. Now I can't even access the message history because the app forces me to resume the "re-register" flow, but it doesn't work. I'm holding out hope that yet another app update will eventually fix THAT crash and I may indeed one day be able to use Signal again. Not that I want to, I'm not impressed with my experiences with it. :\
I’ve been using Signal on half a dozen devices for years and haven’t experienced what you describe.
Unfortunately, while you're right, it has plenty of annoyances, there's no real alternative.
Matrix doesn't have that problem and it's even federated, without a single point of failure.
Matrix does have that problem. I’ve lost so much message history to key management bugs.
This was pretty common until (I think) late last year, but GP was writing in present tense. The Matrix team have been fixing the various bugs responsible. I haven't seen an "unable to decrypt" error recently.
https://matrix.org/blog/2024/10/29/matrix-2.0-is-here/#4-inv...
I really want Matrix to succeed but it's not there yet, and not really making progress either.
It's vastly more complicated than Signal.
I don't really use Whatsapp, or any IM client on my phone, but do have a few friends use Telegram so I'm using it on my computer. We're looking at alternatives. We tried out Signal, and that feels extremely basic and spartan, like old ICQ or AIM. We tried Matrix (with the Element client) and it feels much more featureful and modern. And the federated aspect feels much better than the centralized nature of Signal.
Can you explain a bit more about where you feel the complication comes from?
This group of friends are mostly not very technical. They were able to create an account on matrix.org perfectly fine. They felt a bit strange that they had to pick a username "like in the past" and not use their phone number. But at the same time they felt pretty nice not giving away their phone number to a foreign company/organization.
Matrix makes progress, see https://matrix.org/blog/2023/09/matrix-2-0/ and the UX has improved a lot since Element X (compared to previous Element), especially encryption settings have been simplified (a pain point I myself discovered when onboarding less experienced people)
> I really want Matrix to succeed but it's not there yet, and not really making progress either.
I suppose whether it's "there" yet depends on your personal needs, but it absolutely is making progress. Maybe slow, but steady and visible.
After a decade of holding on with a small pool of friends with Matrix, we finallly gave up this month over notifications dropping It hurts because I agree in principle - I don't even fully understand why notifications even should need Play Services or whatever Apple does. But after enough missed occasions, we decided it wasn't worth it and reverted to a blend of SMS and Jabber, where the notifications consistently work (on apps that dont use the above). I don't think the Matrix team is taking this seriousy enough. If you miss out on moments over dropped notifications, you or one of your group will fall back to another method and soon enough so will the whole group.
>Does anyone else find Signal quite hard to use?
In what way? I've found device sync to work fine now (better than messages on macOS/iPhone), and not lost sync with any of the other devices I'm using. Not had to sign in needlessly for over a year.
I’ve been using Signal as my main chat app on iOS and desktop for a long time. Yes, this happens to me every other month too. It’s annoying, but I can live with it.
It’s always give me that Linux desktop feeling, where all the features are there, but it’s held together with spit and baling wire
people will give zuck control over their entire life over having to sign in here and there … wild