This morning, my entire family either switched or said they already had a Signal account. Now we have a family Signal chat.
I expected resistance, not compliance! I’m very happy.
Where the fuck do you live, heaven???
Fucking adopt me
If I even dare suggest this, my family disowns me
I’ll reiterate that this was very much not the expected result.
Ive been chatting to my brother and sister on signal for I thinkn3 years now. TODAY Sister asks me “is Brother on Signal too?” (They’ve been chatting on apple iMessage-text thing this whole time. Not knowing they are BOTH on signal, just not chatting through there)
Mom is starting to chat to me on signal, but its probably a 30% success rate at best. (Mom also on iPhone)
One day, apple will change their Terms and Conditions enough to kick my family enough to leave, but it is not this day…
I was getting my family on board and then a week later Signal dropped SMS/MMS support and my family uninstalled Signal. Frustrating.
Maybe I can try again with…everything going on.
I literally stopped using it when that was taken away. I understand why but it was the single biggest use feature for me.
I had a similar experience
rip. That is probably the biggest feature that was taken away and that I miss from any app ever
I was loudly opposed on their repo but ideology won over practicality. I think it severely hampered their adoption rates letting perfect be the enemy of good enough.
I get their reasoning but I think it was quite obvious when I was talking to someone via secure Signal infra vs SMS.
I have a weird switcheroo situation. My family came across no worries but my friend group, nobody switched.
I deleted all the meta bullshit a while back and went 100% signal, let everyone know where they could reach me and so far 1 person has contacted me via signal (in about 6 months). Feels kind of shit tbh.
Still cant understand why people stay on those platforms full of ads and horrible UI when soooo much better alternatives are out there.
Most people don’t think about these things. When it becomes a value based decision, it’s pretty clear what’s going to happen. As long as you don’t know or care about what Meta is doing, there are no values or emotions involved in the decision. That’s when using the worst platforms becomes a purely a practical choice.
I gave up facebook a year or so after college. Told my friends, made sure the group chat had my number, same situation.
That feeling sucks, still a little bitter and bothered by it almost a decade later. I try to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they’re just busy and the average person is a cognitive miser.
This is exactly what I expected when I suggested it and precisely why I’m so pleasantly surprised. I’m sorry for your experience.
Sorry, but your friends don’t care about you and/or are dangerously stupid and de facto untrustworthy.
Yep. It’s that simple, at this point.
People stay on platforms that are literally detrimental to their wellbeing because they are addicts, to social validation, to feeling like they’re part of the popular group, to their attention span destroying dopamine hits, whatever.
Anybody who thinks that having all of their online messages and posts be easily read by a violent fascist government and their corporate collaborators, who can easily tie them back to their entire identity … anybody who thinks this doesn’t have a high liklihood of seriously biting them in the ass… is dangerously stupid, and de facto untrustworthy.
I think its more so willfully ignorant than stupid, which in itself could be seen as stupid I guess.
If my 80 y/o grandma can do it then noone has an excuse
Hah, yeah, willful ignorance is imo… just a kind of stupidity, its actually an active, intentional stupidity that takes effort to maintain.
Powerful stupid, you might say.
Or, you know, just outright delusion.
So thats much worse than say, genuine naive ignorance or actual inability to comprehend the relevant concepts and their importance.
Those behaviors I would generally be more kind towards, because… there’s either room for improvement or they really can’t help it.
But if you insist on being wrong, even though you know you’re wrong?
You’re fucking stupid, lol.
As you say, if 80 yo gam-gam can figure it out… ~90% of people have no excuse.
Fuck yeah
I prefer to speak to face to face with my family. Once a year at Christmas is plenty.
Other people have different families.
Right.
Left.
And center.
Is it like where you can own three suits and coordinate them to make it look like you have 20-something different outfits?
Well, it is now
I feel that, but unfortunately it’s not always respected.
Same here. Switching the whole family to Signal was much easier than expected when I, the trusted IT professional laid out all the reasons they should.
I should look for a clear and simple list of reasons, published somewhere to share with family and friends. ADHD and lazy stand in my way.
- Secure, both from governments and advertising agents.
- Simple to use, easy to master.
- All the smartest people who know, use it.
Oh, you’re a trusted IT professional? Must be nice.
It is a blessing and a curse.
My friends group and I switched years ago. Had things we weren’t comfortable saying with fascists in control of the government the first time around.
We have the messages set to auto-delete after 1 week. We’ve been debating changing that to 24 hours cuz this fascist train ain’t slowing down.
Though I recognize the potential wisdom, I don’t know that I could (yet, at least) get my family on board with auto delete.
My friends and I would love to switch to Signal but every time we try it we just find that the app isn’t very nice to use and a lot of functionality we have come to take for granted is missing. Has it improved recently or is that still the case?
What… What sort of functionality? I struggle to think of something it lacks as a messaging app…
I can imagine live location and stickers. Like all the stickers from WhatsApp can’t be transferred.
Live location is shared as needed. This means the app isn’t consciously transmitting your location, but you can send your location whenever you want by pressing the + then location. This design choice is more private.
As for the stickers, yes, your WhatsApp ones won’t transfer (unless something changed), but they have plenty premade packs to choose from and you can make your own sticker packs (super easy).
I see that, and I have signal, I just know I won’t make my friends move there unless there’s a big shock that moves everyone. I’m also not convinced signal is future proof in terms of privacy (open to your argument against, it’s just a hunch)
Let me explain the power of the stickers. We have made and shared stickers with each other for many years. These stickers are ourselves, edited memes, pictures we have created from videos. They are extremely contextual and can’t be replaced with packs. I don’t think we should underestimate the power of this. It sounds ridiculous but it’s like forcing a friend group to stop with half their inside jokes that have built up over years.
WhatsApp doesn’t own the concept of stickers. It was invented by a Japanese messaging app. I think its possible we can push for a requirement for messaging apps to sync stickers across platforms.
I’m also not convinced signal is future proof in terms of privacy (open to your argument against, it’s just a hunch)
No argument against. It’s a centralized platform, and is not immune. It’s just the best one thus far.
I left a link in another comment to a HowTo on moving all your stickers from Whatsapp to Signal. Someone had a hard time opening it, so I’ll copy it below as a crude copy/paste.
You don’t have to explain yourself. First of all, if it’s important to you, it’s important. Secondly, I completely understand your needing them, even without your explanation.
Hello, I saw a few people asking this question*, so I thought of preparing a short guide. Basically, you need two things to carry stickers; firstly, your stickers as webp files (because WhatsApp saves them in this format) and secondly, Signal’s desktop application. I guess the easiest way to move webp’s is by using WhatsApp’s own “export” feature: … You can send all the WhatsApp stickers to yourself or one of your chats so that you can export all your stickers effectively. To export chat in WhatsApp on phone, you need to Step 1 Go to the chat that include all your WhatsApp stickers, it might be the one you sent all the WhatsApp stickers to. Step 2 For iOS devices, tap the contact name of the chat, scroll down and you will see the Export Chat, click on it. For Android, click the three dots on top right corner, from the pop up asking if you like to attach media files, click Attach Media because we are exporting WhatsApp stickers which are media files. Step 3 After the process of exporting data, you can choose which app to export to. Normally people will choose email to export. You can also choose Google Drive, or anyone you like. The chat will be exported as a zip file include a txt. file and a folder with all the media files, so it’s better that you can receive on computer. Source: imyfone Android users can even transfer it directly to their computers via cable, but I think this is the easiest way for IOS. Then you could simply download your stickers and upload them to Signal database by using Signal’s desktop client: Step 1 Open Signal Desktop and select File > Create/Upload Sticker Pack.
Step 2 Add up to 200 stickers. Drag and drop to re-order. Hover over a sticker to preview in light and dark theme. Step 3 Select one emoji per sticker.
Step 4 Enter a Title and Author. (Optional) Select a new cover sticker. Make changes now. Stickers are not linked to the Signal Creator’s account. You cannot edit a sticker pack after uploading. Step 5 Copy the link to share your sticker pack outside of Signal. Step 6 Use the hashtag #makeprivacystick to help other people find the URLs for any custom sticker packs that you would like to make publicly accessible. Step 7 Select the sticker icon in your chat and select a sticker to automatically send. Source: Signal And there is an unoffical site for finding or sharing stickers too: Signal Stickers If you want to create your own stickers by Adobe Photoshop there is a psd file for this to use, just don’t forget to save your files as png, webp or apng: WhatsApp Let me also make a warning that I haven’t seen on the internet. All of the stickers in your sticker package appear when the sticker is clicked. Keep that in mind. I hope this was helpful. Edit: I just saw FutureSwim’s great guide, but I think this short guide still could be useful for those who
Well, I suppose. I’ve found that my keyboard has most of that, so I don’t need it in the apps I use.
I cannot find anything lacking in the app that exists in the default texting app. If you would like to provide specific examples, I can possibly give a better answer.
All the stickers you have in WhatsApp. For almost all my friends it’s one of the main thing that keeps them from switching. I also just noticed it doesn’t have live location.
I used a bot to transfer some in the past, it wasn’t the simplest solution but it exists. I don’t remember what it was called anymore unfortunately
Everywhere I’ve searched the solution is to transfer only one at a time.
I’ve never once used WhatsApp and … Honestly don’t really know what stickers are in this context.
For location, I wrote a whole paragraph that I then realized came from a place of privilege. I will acknowledge that that’s on me.
But what are stickers?
Stickers are quite big in some countries. They are slightly bigger emojis that use gifs or pics that people themselves can make. Some of my group chats are filled with memes with my friends faces on them. We communicate a lot through these. Make up our own moods and ways to express ourselves. When a new sticker is used in another group chat we sometimes find it so hilarious that we share it in another. WhatsApp makes it very difficult to transfer stickers away. You have to do it one by one.
Reddit, I know, but hereArchived link as an easy way to transfer your stickers from Whatsapp to Signal en masse.Edit. Changed reddit link to archived link.
Thanks for sharing, the link doesn’t load though.
It works for me. Not sure why it’s not working for you.
Here’s a crude copy/paste.
Hello, I saw a few people asking this question*, so I thought of preparing a short guide. Basically, you need two things to carry stickers; firstly, your stickers as webp files (because WhatsApp saves them in this format) and secondly, Signal’s desktop application. I guess the easiest way to move webp’s is by using WhatsApp’s own “export” feature: … You can send all the WhatsApp stickers to yourself or one of your chats so that you can export all your stickers effectively. To export chat in WhatsApp on phone, you need to Step 1 Go to the chat that include all your WhatsApp stickers, it might be the one you sent all the WhatsApp stickers to. Step 2 For iOS devices, tap the contact name of the chat, scroll down and you will see the Export Chat, click on it. For Android, click the three dots on top right corner, from the pop up asking if you like to attach media files, click Attach Media because we are exporting WhatsApp stickers which are media files. Step 3 After the process of exporting data, you can choose which app to export to. Normally people will choose email to export. You can also choose Google Drive, or anyone you like. The chat will be exported as a zip file include a txt. file and a folder with all the media files, so it’s better that you can receive on computer. Source: imyfone Android users can even transfer it directly to their computers via cable, but I think this is the easiest way for IOS. Then you could simply download your stickers and upload them to Signal database by using Signal’s desktop client: Step 1 Open Signal Desktop and select File > Create/Upload Sticker Pack.
Step 2 Add up to 200 stickers. Drag and drop to re-order. Hover over a sticker to preview in light and dark theme. Step 3 Select one emoji per sticker.
Step 4 Enter a Title and Author. (Optional) Select a new cover sticker. Make changes now. Stickers are not linked to the Signal Creator’s account. You cannot edit a sticker pack after uploading. Step 5 Copy the link to share your sticker pack outside of Signal. Step 6 Use the hashtag #makeprivacystick to help other people find the URLs for any custom sticker packs that you would like to make publicly accessible. Step 7 Select the sticker icon in your chat and select a sticker to automatically send. Source: Signal And there is an unoffical site for finding or sharing stickers too: Signal Stickers If you want to create your own stickers by Adobe Photoshop there is a psd file for this to use, just don’t forget to save your files as png, webp or apng: WhatsApp Let me also make a warning that I haven’t seen on the internet. All of the stickers in your sticker package appear when the sticker is clicked. Keep that in mind. I hope this was helpful. Edit: I just saw FutureSwim’s great guide, but I think this short guide still could be useful for those who
About your comment: thank you for teaching me.
About what it says: I don’t know how best to express my frustration, so I’m just going to say … Actually I can’t even think of a positive way to share my thoughts.
It’s cool that you’re able to put yourself out there that way. It’s very upsetting that Meta gets to decide whether or how you do so.
I share your frustration, it’s yet another trick such that WhatsApp doesn’t have to compete.
Signal is easy to use, but I think mainly that some people might say that it’s “boring”. The motif and colour is not as jazzy and lighter as WhatsApp, and people like jazzy and light colours.
My family used to use Signal after the whole WhatsApp fiasco a few years ago. Everything was going fine until we switched back because of a family emergency. I suggested switching back several times after that, but to no avail :(
My condolences.
One of my friends still uses google hangout to talk with me. I’m the only person they talk to on there. I ask them every so often to switch to signal. It’s, like, trivial to install. it’s free. They won’t do it. It’s too much.
I do not understand ADHD depression brain and I want to be kind but I’m also like “just give me your phone I’ll do it”.
Rough. My aunt is like that. Every time I log into hangout, I see a bunch of messages from her and kept telling her I’m not active.
She suggested we switch to Facebook. I cant deal with this.
Getting used to a new UI can be stressful and taxing to the audhd brain. If it’s your own choice that stress and effort can be fun, it can be an adventure. But if you perceive the world around you to be forcing you into it, it feels like being attacked. Other people forcing you into an exhausting situation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathological_demand_avoidance
I had a meltdown for most of a day the last time I updated Discord on My phone.
I just look at this picture and then all is well
I do not understand ADHD depression brain and I want to be kind but I’m also like “just give me your phone I’ll do it”.
I’m the exact same (I have said give me your phone I’ll do it before lol), but I think it’s that they don’t like change so much that any amount of change stresses them out a lot.
I guess you gotta wait till google kills Hangout, can’t be that long right (I didn’t know it still existing, I’m surprised it does knowing that Google kills every app)?
I’ve talked friends and family into using Signal. Some of my family still insists on using FB Messenger though.
Everyone in my fiancée’s family is installing signal except her brother. I guess he will miss out on planning (or I will)
Did you drug them?
HAha, nice work man. My friends are deathly afraid of anything internet that isnt corpo net. They wont touch the fediverse or signal with a 49.5ft pole.
Did you give them reasons? People I know willingly give google and m$ all their data without a blink and dont care. Why would they do something inconvenient ?
I do feel like just saying im leaving fb messenger, if you want to talk get signal. But then ill just be left out.
Did you give them reasons?
There’s one person in the group chat who will often rant, especially about political topics. That person actually was already on Signal but also participated in the group chat.
After one rant in the group chat, I said that we should all switch to Signal, as it’s more privacy respecting and therefore a safer place to have opinions.
Apparently that was enough.
My parents are pretty much the same. Trying to get my dad to trust and/or use KMyMoney (or GNUCash for that matter) is like an uphill battle.
Looking forward to doing that with my family as well. Need to get everyone in the same room first…
They can’t do it via whatever messenger they’re using now?
Unfortunately I think some of them will need in-person IT assistance.
Ah, sorry. Good luck to you and them.
