I’m wondering what everyone thinks about Simplex chat in comparison to Signal. Is anyone using Simplex, if so what are your thoughts?
I have been testing Simplex for a while now, and for my use case and threat model, I don’t see it as replacing Signal. Even as a tech-savvy user, the user experience feels much more complex than Signal, so it doesn’t seem like a messenger you can just recommend to everyone. Also, Simplex is a very new messenger that hasn’t been battle-tested the way Signal has. Since I’m not trying to be anonymous, I don’t see an issue with Signal’s phone number requirement.
Moreover, Signal does an excellent job with encryption, as the Signal protocol is commonly seen as the gold standard for messengers. Furthermore, they are great at encrypting metadata, so even if they might have your phone number, they still cannot see who you are talking with, etc. The only information they have is the registration time and the last time you used the app, which is very little when compared to other messengers that collect virtually everything they can.
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I have to agree with backfield. But remember that there’s no reason why you couldn’t have both.
Still for 99% of people signal is just better. Its security and privacy are well established, with people like Edward Snowden (who has a much higher threat model than any of us here) using and recommending it. Plus it does this without sacrificing simplicity or ease of use. I was able to convert a lot of people I know from WhatsApp and FB messenger to signal because of this. These are people who most certainly wouldn’t have put up with SimpleX’s much steeper learning curve.
Yeah signal does require a phone number, but most of the people I need to communicate with through an im app are friends and family, and so they already have my phone number anyway. Come to think of it, I feel like simplex is a better replacement for discord than WhatsApp (which is what signal is meant to replace).
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