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I’m surprised this hasn’t been said yet… but what I hate most about Signal is its requirement for a phone number. I don’t want to be identified, and I want to be able to create multiple separate accounts with different identities if I want to.
I also hate the fact that it’s a mobile-first service. Yes, there is a desktop application (and just one really crappy one at that), but it’s clearly designed to revolve first and foremost around your phone and be virtually impossible to use without one. As someone who hates writing on a 3-inch screen, this is a also non-starter for me.
I understand the arguments about perfectionism, but this is too much. I’ll stick with XMPP, Matrix and IRC, thanks.
A federated social fitness app(like Strava) would be cool
(momentary confusion as I wonder why I’d want to switch from the X Window System to Mastodon)
Unfortunately, the switch from YouTube to PeerTube has not worked for me so far. I can’t find a decent instance (not full of right-wing/conspiracy content) with interesting stuff that also allows me to make an account.
Yes finding the right instance on peertube is a nightmare — and also the general lack of quality content, or subtitling, which makes it as good as useless for deaf people like me.
Signal is not Fediverse! Element/Matrix is!
Absolutely, signal isn’t federated, but I don’t want my messaging app to be federated. I want my social media to be federated. Lemmy is good because it’s open. Signal is good because it’s shut.
Element/matrix aren’t part of the fediverse, either. It doesn’t speak AP.
Are we claiming now that Activity Pub is the only protocol that we can use for the fediverse? I think XMPP is roughly 30 years old at this point, and I’m pretty sure Activity Pub is much younger than that. I could be wrong though.
But regardless, I don’t see why Activity Pub has to be the only protocol we accept to be considered a part of the fediverse. It’s not even like different AP implementations talk to each other all that well. My understanding is that Mastodon doesn’t federate that well with Lemmy, and I haven’t seen Loops or Pixelfed on Lemmy yet either.
I’d be happy to be corrected on any of this though, I haven’t looked too closely into exactly how AP works or how it’s supposed to interoperate with different applications.
I’d like to argue that using AP is an inconsistent rule for membership. For example, Diaspora has been considered to be part of the fediverse from early on, but it doesn’t use AP.
I don’t really know where to draw the line. AP simply isn’t suitable for some applications, but it makes sense to include it for branding
Matrix is federated, Signal is not.
although it is federated, it isn’t apart of the fediverse, as it doesn’t use activitypub.
I’d argue it’s part of “the fediverse” but not “The Fediverse”.
Fair point, definitely still apart of the same style of platform but not the same protocol.
Anyone on Loops? I tried signing up a few days ago, but the sign up page wasn’t working. Now the landing page says they aren’t accepting new users.
It took a day before I got my activation email. There was no indication on the website it was gonna take that long, but I’m guessing it’s early enough that it might still require manual approval.
That said it’s still very much a ghost town
Unpopular Opinion Lemmy and PeerTube logo look ugly.
I like the Lemmy one, but peertubes logo looks like it’s gonna stab my eyeballs in my sleep
The colors in the peertube logo are pretty hideous.
Unpopular opinion: your opinion is not unpopular at all.
The Lemmy logo always looks so sad or angry to me. Wished he could look happier.
The only ones on the right I really like are signal and friendica. (I had never seen the friendica logo before. This is really well done whoever designed that. Good job.)
All the big guys of course can afford graphic design teams and marketing/PR research.
The notable exception for me is mastodon. While I’m still not a big fan of that logo either, it certainly looks better than the X logo. I’m guessing Musk DOGE’d his design teams in favor of some yes-men.
I think it’s just the colours for the peertube one. I like that it’s three individual play icons to signify the federation aspect, but the colours are just dull.
Yeah it’s an easy fix to update the colors, logo shape can remain.
For the avid readers out there, bookwyrm is a fantastic alternative to goodreads.
Yes it’s excellent! Also noting for those that aren’t aware: Goodreads is owned by Amazon.
It could be but I find the android app buggy (this month I’ve been using bookwyrm, GR, Open Reads, and The Story Graph to compare them all and still nothing is as smooth as GR. Plus bookwyrm has no apple app. I love where Bookwyrm is going but right now the switch is not the best
It doesn’t have an app, how is it buggy?
Might be talking about the Bookwyrm client on F-Droid?
I went back to check. This is correct. It’s the un official one in f-droid.
My bad!
A LinkedIn alternative, anyone?
Mastodon seems to be filling this niche (professional networking and job seeking) at the moment. I’m curious if something more targeted is emerging yet as well.
Good to hear. Just yesterday I decided to remove my LinkedIn account!
Ah. I see…
Don’t worry, your successor isn’t offering anything big. You’ll still be around for many more days to come.
Hi, I think too many people are focusing too much on the type of software included in this chart. I don’t think the goal of the person that created the chart was to create the ultimate guide to move to the Fediverse or FOSS apps with all the options available for them. I believe it prioritizes simplicity, and it’s clearly directed towards people unaware that these alternatives exist.
Most people I know don’t even know what the Fediverse is, and I think this initiative is for them.
I know that debating which FOSS/Fedi apps are the best is a big matter of concern for people that are already aware of the problems some platform have. But focusing too much on this debate not only creates more division among supporters of FOSS/Fedi, but it is also drawing attention from the main point: Bringing more people to the Fediverse.
Thank you for this! Bookmarked this post, downloaded the image, sent it to all my friends. Love you!
Yeah. This guide is going to make some rounds in my peer group. I’ve got a lot of dissatisfied friends who just need an easy guide to remind them what to try. Very cool!
Agreed!
Signal isn’t federated [1][2][3.1]; it’s decentralized [1][2][3.2]. Though, for all practical purposes, I would generally argue that it’s centralized.
References
- Signal-Server. signalapp. Github. Published: 2025-01-31T15:34:14.000Z. Accessed: 2025-02-01T09:24Z. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server.
- This is the source code for the server that Signal uses.
- “Signal (software)”. Wikipedia. Published: 2025-01-06T09:34Z. Accessed: 2025-02-1T09:30Z. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_(software).
- ¶“Architecture”. ¶“Servers”.
Signal relies on centralized servers that are maintained by Signal Messenger. In addition to routing Signal’s messages, the servers also facilitate the discovery of contacts who are also registered Signal users and the automatic exchange of users’ public keys. […]
- ¶“Architecture”. ¶“Servers”.
- “Reflections: The ecosystem is moving”. moxie0. Signal Blog. Published: 2016-05-10. Accessed: 2025-02-01T09:40Z. https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/.
- ¶5. to ¶“Stuck in time”. ¶3-6
One of the controversial things we did with Signal early on was to build it as an unfederated service. Nothing about any of the protocols we’ve developed requires centralization; it’s entirely possible to build a federated Signal Protocol-based messenger, but I no longer believe that it is possible to build a competitive federated messenger at all. […] [interoperable protocols] [have] taken us pretty far, but it’s undeniable that once you federate your protocol, it becomes very difficult to make changes. And right now, at the application level, things that stand still don’t fare very well in a world where the ecosystem is moving. […] Early on, I thought we’d federate Signal once its velocity had subsided. Now I realize that things will probably never slow down, and if anything the velocity of the entire landscape seems to be steadily increasing.
- ¶“Stuck in time”. “Federation and control”. ¶6.
An open source infrastructure for a centralized network now provides almost the same level of control as federated protocols, without giving up the ability to adapt. If a centralized provider with an open source infrastructure ever makes horrible changes, those that disagree have the software they need to run their own alternative instead. It may not be as beautiful as federation, but at this point it seems that it will have to do.
- ¶5. to ¶“Stuck in time”. ¶3-6
Yeah, Moxie has openly shot down the idea of adding federation to Signal, and I’ve never heard them claim Signal was decentralized.
Matrix is federated, distributed, and decentralized.
XMPP is federated and decentralized.
but I no longer believe that it is possible to build a competitive federated messenger at all.
The fact that we have a telephone system that works with separate providers contradicts this sentiment. If I want to pick up the phone and talk to my cousin’s puppy in New Zealand, I can do that without creating an account on his provider’s service.
I don’t understand why we’ve forgotten this as a society. Yes, it was difficult to upgrade the phone systems over the past century, but it’s worth it in my opinion. I really wish we’d start seeing government regulation that says “you should be able to talk to someone on a service without having to create an account on said service.” I thought the DMA would do this, but sadly, Whatsapp still requires an account to talk to people using that service. Very disappointing.
Bro put citations in his lemmy comment 💀
That person isn’t fucking around.
I wish more people did that ngl 💀
I wish Boost understood the collapsible spoilers.
On my client, it’s all expanded and I see all the formatting characters. It looks/works great in a browser though.
Same with Sync, unfortunately.
Yeah. I love Signal but it doesn’t belong in that list. Dansup (creator of loops and pixelfed) is apparently working on “Sup” that will be a decentralized alternative to whatsapp.
To me this person sounds like they have too many big projects at once. I wish them success tho
Yeah… I’m bit afraid of “kbin Ernest Effect” (not sure what a proper term is) where personal issues pile up and the sole head developer just disappears.
Haven’t followed dansup much but from what I understand he is much more open to pull requests and listening to the community, but time will tell. Right now I appreciate and love his effort, giving, and the impact on fediverse he is brining.
The kickstarter was a good idea.
XMPP is an established federated messaging app with encryption.
There isn’t much information about “Sup”, but if I had to guess it could be that dansup is making sup app with XMPP(rotocol) as the messaging protocol.
That would be rad if true ^^
Let’s hope so! :)
sup is how I update my FreeBSD /usr/src tree! Twenty years ago.
Delta.chat already exists
Matrix?
SimpleX?
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good
My comment wasn’t protesting the use of Signal; it was rather clarifying the misinformation in OP’s post — ie misinformation that Signal is a federated service.
Signal is hostile to third party clients like Molly.im as well
it’s decentralized
No it’s not. From literally your own comment:
Signal relies on centralized servers
For a decentralized messenger use https://delta.chat/
it’s decentralized
No it’s not. From literally your own comment:
Signal relies on centralized servers
I was using “decentralized” to mean that there isn’t centralized control over ownership of the service in general — eg anyone can spin up their own server (impractical, imo, pushing it more towards being centralized) and people can use it (making it decentralized, imo (Please correct me if I am wrong, but I do think my usage of the term is appropriate in this way.)), but people who use that server can only communicate with that server (making it not federated). But yes it could still be said to be centralized in that it operates on a client-server model [1].
This is more an argument of definitions, though. I’m not trying to claim anything in bad faith.
References
- Signal-Server. signalapp. Github. Published: 2025-01-31T15:34:14.000Z. Accessed: 2025-02-01T09:24Z. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server.
- This is the source code for the server that Signal uses.
That’s just open source, not decentralized. I can’t find a definition of decentralization that would even make it vague. From Wikipedia:
Decentralization is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those related to planning and decision-making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group and given to smaller factions within it.
Signal has a central authoritative server and to use it with any other server you have to modify the source code.
Decentralization is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those related to planning and decision-making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group and given to smaller factions within
Imo this fits my usage of the term — Signal can be broken up into many isolated servers all offering the same service.
That’s just open source, not decentralized.
Depending on exactly how said open source development is occuring, I could argue that open source development is an example of decentralization. It may even be an example of federation (all depending on licensing and development medium imo).
- Signal-Server. signalapp. Github. Published: 2025-01-31T15:34:14.000Z. Accessed: 2025-02-01T09:24Z. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server.
- Signal-Server. signalapp. Github. Published: 2025-01-31T15:34:14.000Z. Accessed: 2025-02-01T09:24Z. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server.
Unfortunately, I don’t know a single person who uses Friendica, and that is also, unfortunately, self-defeating because there’s no way I could convince them to go without more than just me using it.
Apparently it makes a good RSS feed aggregator if nothing else.
And that makes it a Facebook replacement how? Facebook is terrible and the only reason I ever go there is to check in on people I know. I don’t understand Friendica at all. I can get all the social interaction I need from Mastodon, BlueSky and Lemmy if my goal isn’t people I know and just like minded people.
What does signal have to do with anything?
The post is really about abandoning the tech oligarchy more than specifically using federated technology.
technically nothing but it serves as a privacy respecting alternative to meta/google controlled messengers.
things like mastodon and pixelfed are rather easy to wrap your head around and replace their big tech counterparts with if you are the average user.
there is no real replacement for an instant messaging/sms like experience. matrix is at the moment still a bit too complicated to get into if you have come to expect a workflow like: download an app -> write your phone contacts a message.
so although it is not federated it is the best we have got at the moment in my opinion
I get that but the image is referring to it as part of the “fediverse” which it is not as it doesn’t use ActivityPub.
There’s also SimpleX, though it’s much less popular. (not like Signal is used everywhere though, it’s just a matter of what you switch your group to.)
SimpleX chat is pretty wild and untraditional (no user IDs), people should give it try.
It’s cool, thought people should still be wary of it since it’s new and backed by VC.
I’d give it a little more until i switch fully to it, but it 100% is better than WA.
