Signal is to privacy what duct tape is to a broken item - it solves your issues and concerns, but you shouldn't expect it to last. Instead, consider Matrix.
Matrix edit: Element aims to be more of a replacement for Slack/Discord than WhatsApp/Signal/Telegram though.
I think XMPP is probably the better replacement for the latter. With apps like Conversations/Blabber.im and Siskin for iOS the “personal messenger” experience is quite good these days (but not perfect), and with e2ee coming to Movim, there is a strong contender for a convenient to use XMPP webapp as well.
Funny thing is, every time Matrix is proposed as an alternative for Slack/Discord, people say the opposite, i.e. that Matrix is more a replacement for WA/Signal/TG.
After using Matrix for a while, IMO it’s closer to a personal messenger, since you have less focus on collections of channels (Servers, Categories) and more on single groups and PMs. True, there is Spaces and Threading in Beta, but that is a pretty recent development in the Matrix world.
But the lines get blurrier anyways, so I don’t think it’s useful to discern between these two kinds of messaging platforms any more
Ok, maybe I should have said Element, i.e. their official Matrix web-client. Which is clearly much closer to Slack/Discord and also aimed at being a team-chat client like that. You can argue that it isn’t a very good one, but even more clearly it isn’t a good personal messenger like WhatsApp etc.
I share your view that XMPP is superior to Matrix as replacement for WhatsApp (which actually uses XMPP internally but does not participate in federation) in the context of personal/direct 1:1 messaging.
The reason, though, is more technical. Matrix works like a globally synchronized database - it duplicates the message history to all participants of a chat and is stored on the server which makes it incredibly complex, expensive and error prone. XMPP rather works like a simple relay - the message is only stored until delivery. This makes the server part way more lightweight and adminstration easier as you don’t run out of memory as fast as with matrix. (See more)
Regarding the clients I don’t like either. Element is too Slack-ish and the more modern clients like FluffyChat are quite buggy. Conversations one the other side looks outdated with a design from like 2015. I would like to see it adopting more recent iterations of material design such as cards or rounded corners.
After all both protocols unfortunately leak considerable meta data :/
Besides the meta-data leaking, I would always use xmpp Conversations app over anything else. I don’t find it too outdated UI wise, but I’m no expert in this area. It does feel intuitive - somewhat like watsapp. But the blabber fork does a sligthly better job in UI
Matrixedit: Element aims to be more of a replacement for Slack/Discord than WhatsApp/Signal/Telegram though.I think XMPP is probably the better replacement for the latter. With apps like Conversations/Blabber.im and Siskin for iOS the “personal messenger” experience is quite good these days (but not perfect), and with e2ee coming to Movim, there is a strong contender for a convenient to use XMPP webapp as well.
Funny thing is, every time Matrix is proposed as an alternative for Slack/Discord, people say the opposite, i.e. that Matrix is more a replacement for WA/Signal/TG.
After using Matrix for a while, IMO it’s closer to a personal messenger, since you have less focus on collections of channels (Servers, Categories) and more on single groups and PMs. True, there is Spaces and Threading in Beta, but that is a pretty recent development in the Matrix world.
But the lines get blurrier anyways, so I don’t think it’s useful to discern between these two kinds of messaging platforms any more
deleted by creator
Ok, maybe I should have said Element, i.e. their official Matrix web-client. Which is clearly much closer to Slack/Discord and also aimed at being a team-chat client like that. You can argue that it isn’t a very good one, but even more clearly it isn’t a good personal messenger like WhatsApp etc.
I share your view that XMPP is superior to Matrix as replacement for WhatsApp (which actually uses XMPP internally but does not participate in federation) in the context of personal/direct 1:1 messaging.
The reason, though, is more technical. Matrix works like a globally synchronized database - it duplicates the message history to all participants of a chat and is stored on the server which makes it incredibly complex, expensive and error prone. XMPP rather works like a simple relay - the message is only stored until delivery. This makes the server part way more lightweight and adminstration easier as you don’t run out of memory as fast as with matrix. (See more)
Regarding the clients I don’t like either. Element is too Slack-ish and the more modern clients like FluffyChat are quite buggy. Conversations one the other side looks outdated with a design from like 2015. I would like to see it adopting more recent iterations of material design such as cards or rounded corners.
After all both protocols unfortunately leak considerable meta data :/
Very good break-down.
Besides the meta-data leaking, I would always use xmpp Conversations app over anything else. I don’t find it too outdated UI wise, but I’m no expert in this area. It does feel intuitive - somewhat like watsapp. But the blabber fork does a sligthly better job in UI
And, among other issues, this is why it leaks tons of metadata and allow for easy correlation attacks and social graph discovery.