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Signal is American
Opt for a Matrix or XMPP provider in Europe (magicbroccoli.de is a genuinely great XMPP provider)
While Signal's home base is the US, they are a non profit org that doesn't operate in the same way as for-profit corporations. Also, Signal collects basically zero data so there's no incentive to sell out, and who would want to buy them anyway when they have no data and the server and client are open source.
Matrix is great, but I wouldn't compare it to Signal. I use both for very different purposes.
XMPP is more comparable to Signal, yes.
Signal does need (yes, need) a phone number, and most people only have one so that is identifiable info.
This puts it at mostly the same level as some competitors, including WhatsApp which is often advised against.
Signal will operate until Elon Musk decides that everyone has to use X to communicate.
Also simplex is a good alternative, it's decentralized:)
This? https://https/://simplex.chat/
FWIW Matrix and XMPP are also decentralised, much like e-mail is, which is why I recommended it. I'm immediately skeptic about SimpleX's premise of having no user IDs; they'll likely need some unique field for each user, this might as well be a UUID or something like that... So what's the benefit?
Since it's related, here's a good comparison:
https://eylenburg.github.io/im_comparison.htm
I think the other person here explained the thing about user ids. Matrix and xmpp are good too, they're just different.
Simplex is more of a messenger, while xmpp/matrix are more of discord alternatives.
Also simplex works with nodes. I can host a simplex server and it will be added to the network. In matrix/xmpp if I host a server it will be a new instance, like in lemmy (if I get it right). Simplex's approach is like tor's approach, each server added contributes to the whole network (they arent a separate instance).
If you check their page they have some bery good features, to me it seems like its signal, done (somewhat) right. Signal doesnt even have a proper way to migrate accounts across devices.. not to mention the phone number requirement which might scare people who aren't gonna waste time hearing my explanation as to why it's not an issue or the fact that until recently signal would notify everyone in your contacts who had a signal account that you made an account, bruh
There's also this comment here that throws some shade to matrix, havent looked much into that tho.
Oh that is a great explanation, thanks a bunch!
Each convo gets its own UUID, and the convos can be spread across different servers/companies too.
That said the notifications don’t work consistently for me on iOS, so that’s a dealbreaker. Hopefully they fix that soon.