Not accepting WhatsApp's terms

General lounge
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What is good/popular replacement for WhatsApp and Facebook?

I am not accepting WhatsApps terms. As result my WhatsApp will terminate Feb 8th.
I am moving to Signal.

Is there a way I can sent out a broadcast message to all my WhatsApp contacts and inform them so they can reach me in the future. Changing apps is like changing phone numbers. I don’t want to loose track of my friends and contacts.

I am doing this in part for my HK friends who don’t want to share their meta data.

My wife a constant Facebook user is also leaving Facebook and WhatsApp.
What should I suggest for her?

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Signal is the the most similar alternative to WhatsApp in functionality, UX and layout. It’s open source, GPL, and run by an NPO foundation. Signal (software) - Wikipedia

I’ve used both Signal and WhatsApp for a long time, I plan to not accept their [WhatsApp] updated terms on principal and just stop using it.

In Canada as an average person it probably doesn’t really matter and the largest consequence is that likely means Facebook intends to add targetted advertising to WhatsApp and/or to reinforce their profiling for advertising on their other platforms. But at the end of the day, I’m just sick of software that is so background chatty and intentionally obtuse on valuing privacy.

Signal has been around for years, organization is rooted in security and it’s interests are aligned with privacy. Their lack of metadata has been tested in the US courts.

I’d recommend Signal, it checks the security/privacy boxes while still offering feature parity and familiarity to WhatsApp.

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Agree that Signal is a great alternative to WhatsApp. Personally I like Telegram’s UX better, but I don’t think its security is as good as Signal’s.

EDIT: I should’ve added that I’m a big fan of DeltaChat

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Security professionals have recommended Signal and Wickr.
I prefer Signal

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I’m a co-admin of a FB group. Some members are now asking about alternatives.
What are your thoughts, recommendations etc.? (MeWe?) Of course it would have to be easy to administer.

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How secure is protonmail.com , if both sides use it?

There’s also wnlabs.com . The website is dated, but what about the underlying technology? ( and there’s a BCIT connection).

https://www.wnlabs.com/pdf/Free_Unbreakable_Data_Protection.pdf

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Seems there are lots of us interested in our personal privacy, protecting us from targeted monitoring.
Before 2020 this was not necessary.
Now think about every conversion I have with my HK friends. So many things we implicitly have agreed not to talk about.

I would be interested in learning more about cwtch. You should arrange a tech talk.

But expect I will stick to signal, I need an app that my many non-tech friends can easily move to from WhatsApp, including my daughters’ school.

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