Signal, an alternative to Whatsapp?
The last 3 years or so people started to recommend Signal, It is a chat app that is more secure and able to protect your privacy is the general statement people use.
I installed it several times and found to be harassed by sms spammers the day after I installed it. This happened to me three times over the last years. So when Facebook stated it will change how it will be used in order to integrate it more into Facebook itself a lot of people spammed me to change to Signal again. I did, and this time there are not sms spammers yet after a day.
One posting on a German security blog pointed me to the fact that Signal is using Google storage for its group functions. I do see that those messages are encrypted between every reader and the poster. That is good, but does that mean we all need to be a contact of each other to achieve this? And why is Signal using the Google storage?
Another issue, it only runs on Android instances that use the Google store. It is not listed in alternatives like F-droid or other stores. Therefor Google is able to see where and when you use Signal since it uses the Google Play services or it's successor. When you visit the Signal site you will be tracked by Google analytics
So, the basic question is... can you live with Facebook or with Google when it comes to a chat app on your phone? I will delete it again simply since I see them both as a bad alternative. I will keep Whatsapp to make sure family can reach me.
When I want to chat encrypted it will probably simply ask for someones public gpg key so we can use an encrypted chat where the meta data is visible but where there is real encryption. If you do not want or understand it then please let's just chitchat about laughing goat movies.