Signal is working on a way to sign up without a phone number. The feature has not yet been officially confirmed, and it is not yet known whether it will be available to all users or in what form.
just go the matrix route; username, password, 2fa, then any other connection requires you to verify with a current logged in session (or recovery code).
As someone who uses matrix and runs a matrix server, matrix fucking suuuucks jfc why are so many privacy tools soooooo bad at what they do on so many levels like wtf the proto the servers the clients the ux the metadata issues like so much wrong
Edit: and if anyone tells me to use XMPP I’ll slap them
Unencrypted by default (among other bad defaults), leaks metadata like it was built to do so, makes it surprisingly difficult to tell what’s encrypted and what’s not, filled to the brim with bugs and exploits, bad feature interop between most clients (most of which have known vulnerabilities or abandoned dependencies), defacto-standard “just use synapse/element if you want things to work properly” (and still doesn’t), bad user communication about well everything but mainly teaching new users what all the things mean (session, verification, 1:1 vs jitsi, when you’re using what,…), ton of federation issues and bugs, …
And despite all that it somehow has a massive csam seeding problem, which really just makes me think the whole thing is a telegram-like fed psyop but one level higher on the tech competency ladder.
… Multi-device session chaining is a neat feature and surprisingly user-friendly (tho no one maintains their session list or verification; half pebkac admittedly), so that’s something nice I can say about it… But almost nothing else.
Seriously, Signal is basically a joint three-letter-agency sigint project and I still think it’s safer and easier to use than matrix for the vast vast vast majority of people
just go the matrix route; username, password, 2fa, then any other connection requires you to verify with a current logged in session (or recovery code).
Cannot decrypt message
As someone who uses matrix and runs a matrix server, matrix fucking suuuucks jfc why are so many privacy tools soooooo bad at what they do on so many levels like wtf the proto the servers the clients the ux the metadata issues like so much wrong
Edit: and if anyone tells me to use XMPP I’ll slap them
What are your main issues with Matrix?
Unencrypted by default (among other bad defaults), leaks metadata like it was built to do so, makes it surprisingly difficult to tell what’s encrypted and what’s not, filled to the brim with bugs and exploits, bad feature interop between most clients (most of which have known vulnerabilities or abandoned dependencies), defacto-standard “just use synapse/element if you want things to work properly” (and still doesn’t), bad user communication about well everything but mainly teaching new users what all the things mean (session, verification, 1:1 vs jitsi, when you’re using what,…), ton of federation issues and bugs, …
And despite all that it somehow has a massive csam seeding problem, which really just makes me think the whole thing is a telegram-like fed psyop but one level higher on the tech competency ladder.
… Multi-device session chaining is a neat feature and surprisingly user-friendly (tho no one maintains their session list or verification; half pebkac admittedly), so that’s something nice I can say about it… But almost nothing else.
Seriously, Signal is basically a joint three-letter-agency sigint project and I still think it’s safer and easier to use than matrix for the vast vast vast majority of people