c4countdown

Last night, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram were all down for several hours, meaning that many people couldn't communicate using their usual means. Should people actually be moving away from such centralised systems for their day-to-day communication?

Obviously there's good old-fashioned e-mail. You're still relying on your e-mail provider to be up, but the e-mail system itself is more decentralised, and you could easily have accounts with different providers and always copy yourself into all communications so only one of them needs to be up for you to be able to continue as normal.

Are there any good apps / programs that you can download that allow you to communicate with people with just an internet connection and don't require any central system to be up? I will look into this.

I've generally accepted that I should be using Signal instead of WhatsApp now, for a handful of reasons. It's a struggle when you have lots of group-based WhatsApp chats as you're requiring everyone to migrate, and most people simply don't care about security, encryption, or The Big Zuck or any of that jazz. I say it's a struggle, I haven't ever tried to move anyone over. But the few contacts I do have on both I try and remind myself to contact through Signal now.

Matt Morrison wrote: ↑Tue Oct 05, 2021 11:29 am I've generally accepted that I should be using Signal instead of WhatsApp now, for a handful of reasons. It's a struggle when you have lots of group-based WhatsApp chats as you're requiring everyone to migrate, and most people simply don't care about security, encryption, or The Big Zuck or any of that jazz. I say it's a struggle, I haven't ever tried to move anyone over. But the few contacts I do have on both I try and remind myself to contact through Signal now.

You have Alexa running your house.

Edit - I will investigate Signal though.

I use Signal too, was handy yesterday.

I do miss Trillian, which included all my chats on MSN, Yahoo, ICQ and something else that I've forgotten. Was dead good.

More widely though, it was probably useful yesterday for people to see the folly of relying on one company for all their stuff.

Geezer discusses a few options in this video, including Signal.

Ian Volante wrote: ↑Tue Oct 05, 2021 12:20 pm I do miss Trillian, which included all my chats on MSN, Yahoo, ICQ and something else that I've forgotten. Was dead good.

AOL Instant Messenger? Trillian was pretty cool.

I wish Twatter would suffer a similar fate

Very interesting.
I thought SIGNAL was one of the go-to Apps for the alt-right Capitol-stormin' Trumpites.
But I suppose the App isn't to blame for which groups like it.

What elevates SIGNAL above the pack for you?

Jon O'Neill wrote: ↑Tue Oct 05, 2021 1:20 pm

Ian Volante wrote: ↑Tue Oct 05, 2021 12:20 pm I do miss Trillian, which included all my chats on MSN, Yahoo, ICQ and something else that I've forgotten. Was dead good.

AOL Instant Messenger? Trillian was pretty cool.

That's the one.

Relevant article.