Tangibly even less people use it than Signal.😅
This is exactly why I don’t use it. I have a super tiny chance of getting somebody to message me on signal. I have zero chance of getting them to simplex.
Neat idea, but in practice, it’s only practical for a single small-ish group of motivated, technical users who wish to communicate internally to the group. When you luck out with such a situation, there are many options out there to choose from, including running a private chat server somewhere running something like XMPP, possibly over tor. It’s well-trodden ground.
Signal has a completely different use case than the above. You can get a lot of regular people to switch from SMS or imessage to a Signal chat without too much cajoling, and sometimes just discover that contacts are already on it so you can start with that.
Why technical users? U just download and use it
Conceptually, it’s a messaging app done right. Not haunted by legacy identifiers like phone numbers, can be run in a decentralized manner, and a more secure invite system.
In practice, it tends to burn through battery, and it’s already hard enough getting people to use Signal. People also seem to have a hard time grasping the concepts of invites, or anything that’s not a phone number for that matter.
I’ve stopped using it due to the battery issue and I don’t want to fragment my communication strategy further. It ought to have a privacy advantage by virtue of not needing a phone number, but at the end of the day, my messages are also getting swept up on the other end by non-privacy-respecting phones.
I played with it briefly. It looks like a good choice for a situation where security is paramount and the people involved are reasonably motivated. I don’t have those needs, and nobody I know has asked to connect with me using it.
Signal, on the other hand is a familiar experience for most people with no new concepts to learn, and popular enough that I think most people will find a number of contacts already using it.
I use it, and its pretty decent. Looks good and works.
Pros: -No user ID needed. -Can self host the server that passes on your messages. -Has the option to use Flux. -Works out of the box.
Cons: -Battery drain is a thing. Either toggle the periodic check, or turn it off and open it yourself to check messages. -Using one account accross multiple devices can be a pain. Since u can’t keep using your phone account at the same time as it is connected to your pc. Can be circumvented by having mutiple accounts in the same group chat; but yea it’s a pain the ass.
Neutral: -Convincing people to use it hahahh. But this is a universal probem vs mainstream messenger apps.
Final verdict: 4/5. Very good if privacy and anonymity is your number 1 priority. It’s less of hassle to set up than some other options, and relatively easy to get people into it. Sent invite, they download the app, make profile and are good to go.
Batterydrain and same use account across multiple devices could and should be better for mainstream adoption. On the other hand if u toggle the periodic checks then I find the drain tolerable. And how many of us are in places that don’t have a wallsocket available to charge your phone :p
I use it, although not with people who are new to encrypted messaging or who I really need to keep contact with.
SimpleX has great features for the separation of pseudonyms, which is part of why I think it’s the best concept for an encrypted messaging app so far. But it’s not only for-profit, but funded by venture capital. I don’t think it’s going to last for the long term, and if it does, it’ll probably experience a similar enshitification that other services have. Supposedly they’re going to profit by allowing businesses to pay for their service, but I doubt that they’ll actually make much money from that.
Only things going for it is that it’s open source and auditable.
It’s venture capitalist funding is a hard no from me though. Same reason I stuck with mastodon vs Bluesky.
And it has been audited by an independent auditor. And it doesn’t have user ID’s. And you can have multiple accounts with no effort. And you can selfhost your own servers. And it’s actively developed. And it’s available on all major platforms. And the list of pros goes on.
I have to contend that the founders views don’t align with my own (or with most people on lemmy). But that aside (freedom of speech), I wouldn’t dismiss them simply because “VC bad”. If you want a different perspective, read this.
I have it and used it in the past. It’s better in privacy than Signal since it’s decentralized and doesn’t use any identifiers. Signal forces you to use the worst identifier ever: your phone number. It should be optional (as Threema) for easy contact discovery, not mandatory. Back to SimpleX, I stopped using it because every time you have to connect the computer to phone if you want to use it from computer (it’s for maximum security, but inconvenient for me). But it’s a great app.
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People like to forget that signal uses amazon servers lmao, yet they praise it for its privacy🙄
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The Signal crowd gets butthurt pretty quick lol. Have been downvoted before for prefering SimpleX over signal and trying to explain that its better in terms of privacy. They really are simps ahhahaha
Tl dr It sucks IMO
That’s a deep and insightful analysis which clearly illustrates why a prospective user might not want to choose SimpleX over other options. Very helpful indeed. Please post more takes like this.
