It isn’t at all. It is closed source powered by an American non-profit organization.
You can consider this organization as friendly.
They recurrently said, they would shut the gates if U.S. government/law wants them to store more than metdata (phone number+last activity date) they are storing.
@Valmond@SrMono Most popular out there and one of the easiest to set up / easiest to convince non-tech users to switch over to. Not the best… For me, that award would go to Matrix / Element.
Threema would be second (and should be first), but many will balk at the shocking fact that they dare to ask money to contribute to their development and operation costs…
In terms of security I would go Matrix, Threema, Signal… in terms of usability I would say Signal, Threema, Matrix.
Threema also has a Business line which helps to cover the cost, but yea… the price went up from 1€ to 5€. Back in the days I sponsored some licenses and spilled a bunch 1€ in the club like a rich man.
What about SimpleX Chat? Comes without identifiers, is open source and not located in the US. Relay Servers are located in Germany, UK and Sweden and it’s possible to host your own. Last audit was in 2024. No metadata is stored. Fundings are handled very transparently and presentated on the Website.
Not meaning to advertise it, just genuine interested in other peoples opinion.
you can set up your own server for your own needs as far as I know, but you’ll probably have to build your own version of the client to connect to it. there’s no decentralisation.
@Valmond@lemmy.world @SrMono@feddit.org
Very good question and one of the big critic points about signal.
It is theoretically foss, but so complicated apparently, (or parts missing?) that it seems nobody ever menaged to set it up.
So in effect it it proprietary.
And since I is lock-in there is also no incentive to start another server. That’s one reason to use federated protocols.
Is it possible to set up a signal server, or is it not completely FOSS?
@Valmond @SrMono
If you want to selfhost your own messenger, you can with Matrix or XMPP. XMPP, for ex, is the protocol used by WhatsApp and Signal.
It isn’t at all. It is closed source powered by an American non-profit organization. You can consider this organization as
friendly.They recurrently said, they would shut the gates if U.S. government/law wants them to store more than metdata (phone number+last activity date) they are storing.
So noodlejetskis comment below is wrong?
Thanks for the info BTW, I’m an avid user and proponent of Signal (best out there today eh.)
@Valmond @SrMono Most popular out there and one of the easiest to set up / easiest to convince non-tech users to switch over to. Not the best… For me, that award would go to Matrix / Element.
Threema would be second (and should be first), but many will balk at the shocking fact that they dare to ask money to contribute to their development and operation costs…
In terms of security I would go Matrix, Threema, Signal… in terms of usability I would say Signal, Threema, Matrix.
Threema also has a Business line which helps to cover the cost, but yea… the price went up from 1€ to 5€. Back in the days I sponsored some licenses and spilled a bunch 1€ in the club like a rich man.
What about SimpleX Chat? Comes without identifiers, is open source and not located in the US. Relay Servers are located in Germany, UK and Sweden and it’s possible to host your own. Last audit was in 2024. No metadata is stored. Fundings are handled very transparently and presentated on the Website.
Not meaning to advertise it, just genuine interested in other peoples opinion.
you can set up your own server for your own needs as far as I know, but you’ll probably have to build your own version of the client to connect to it. there’s no decentralisation.
@Valmond@lemmy.world
@SrMono@feddit.org
Very good question and one of the big critic points about signal.
It is theoretically foss, but so complicated apparently, (or parts missing?) that it seems nobody ever menaged to set it up.
So in effect it it proprietary.
And since I is lock-in there is also no incentive to start another server. That’s one reason to use federated protocols.
:xmpp: