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Comment by Vibgyor5 | Hacker News Reader

The fact that you are getting so many response arguing that "its just your social circle/just one anecdotal data", when the parent pro-iPhone comment is exactly the same anecdotal evidence speaks volume about pro-iPhone bias that plenty of North American users may have.

Some of the arguments are straight up bonkers for me - for instance, "iMessage is more secure." Is it? Apple is a US-based firm and subject to the whims of US laws and governmental intrusion.

In my circle - and I have lived in both Europe and Asia - we heavily use Telegram. I find it to be far more favorable experience than iMessage. UX and interoperatibility between platforms is far more superior and it runs flawlessly - doesn't matter whether it is a flagship Apple/Samsung device or a cheap Xiaomi phone. Or PC/Mac/Linux for that matter.

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You realize that by citing your “circle uses Telegram” when even a cursory internet search will show you and your friends are in the minority, will quickly reveal how small your bubble is?

My cursory internet search shows me that it has 700 Million active users worldwide - that number is not "small" in my opinion. One of the most popular messaging apps in Asia, Europe, CIS countries, LatAm etc. I think you just prove my point of there being an North American bias against other messaging platforms fwiw

iMessage is more secure at least if both ends have iCloud backups off.

iMessage and iPhones being 'more secure' is simply not true. I know it's being thrown around a lot, but e.g. Pegasus famously had zero-click exploits for iMessage.

iMessage is (at least somewhat) end to end encrypted and SMS is not.

SMS is very uncommon in much of Europe.

I'm feeling you are assuming that the alternative to iMessages in Europe is SMS. It's not. The alternative is WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Facebook Messenger, etc.

Signal > WhatsApp > iMessage > Telegram > Facebook Messenger > SMS

>WhatsApp > ... > Facebook Messenger

why? They're both end to end encrypted but owned by meta.

Signal, WhatsApp, and iMessage frame privacy from the service operator as the norm, while the others relegate it to some “I’m being sneaky now” switch.

Framing fundamental privacy measures as sneaky mode is actively harmful to their broader adoption, paints a target on the few people who do have dire need for protection, and makes us all vulnerable to efforts to legislate against what progress we’ve made.

> Signal, WhatsApp, and iMessage make E2EE the norm

E2E. yes; explicit key management, no.

So basically you are getting encryption on your device, but do not know, who can decrypt.

About the only messaging app that makes some effort on key verification and keys cannot be changed randomly is Threema.

(?) You’re replying under a thread about the ranking of WhatsApp vs. Facebook Messenger in a list that doesn’t even include Threema.

The thread developed into E2EE. Threema was an example how to do it more correctly, and to show what the others are doing wrong, giving an incorrect sense of security when there is none.

Is this how you estimate people in Europe do rank alternatives, or just how you think they should?

That's just how I rank alternatives.

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