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Comment by jackewiehose | Hacker News Reader

I'm really pissed at Signal because they went the same route as WhatsApp and tied the account to a phone number and it's not possible to use it on more than one (android) device or just on a PC (without phone).

WhatsApp gave us the chance to convert a lot of people to a facebook-free messenger because of their change of terms and we did convert a lot of people.

But meanwhile I have to agree with most people I know: the Signal app is just shitty compared to WhatsApp (often crashes on android, you can't set a custom notify sound, messages arriving late, ...) and now it also lags behind this new feature.

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Before you get mad, realize that Signal is a non profit, with much less budget and much smaller number of employees working at it than WhatsApp/FB. If you're so motivated, can even build something for them in open source.

Being "pissed" is about the phone number requirement which is just a political decision and not about budget.

> If you're so motivated, can even build something for them in open source

No, as far as I know they don't allow alternative clients (at least on their servers). Of course that is their right but IMHO still a dick move (again nothing to do with budget) and we are stuck with the official client. Open source is nice but with this limitation it has lost the biggest advantage.

I don't really use signal, but there is a semi official API client you can use from the cli and integrate everywhere. Renting a throw away phone number costs a few cent (sorrily this reality for many services today)

While you literally can't use WhatsApp without your phone nearby.

Edit:// as for functionality no current IM can beat telegram except WeChat obviously

Doesn't signal and whatsapp let a new user of the same phone number take over the account? Both will in some ways show that the keys have changed, but if you rent a number and then that is returned to the pool of rentable numbers then someone else can effectively stop your access to the account.

Tying accounts to phone numbers is a design decision that is just plain wrong for anything that does not only run on a phone or anything that is supposed to identify a person rather than a phone number.

I don't see anything in this release that says you can use WhatsApp without your account being tied to a phone, just that you can use it without you phone being on (mirroring).

If that is the case, Signal already supports that feature.

Also, I've had no issues with the Signal app on android nor iOS. Neither has any of my friends.

Element [1] is very similar to Signal and doesn't require a phone number :)

It's also got many compatible Matrix clients (Web/iOS/macOS/Linux/terminal) which don't have to dance around the rules like the unofficial Signal clients.

It also syncs message history across clients (all e2e encrypted).

[1]: https://element.io/

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