Not specific to Signal. I believe he was referring to places where Twilio doesn’t serve, for example because of sanctions.

I wish I could, but desktop application is limited in functionality and I don’t know how to make the mobile app function properly (Waydroid doesn’t allow bluetooth use). I don’t have a mobile device I can make as private as my desktop, so I would not want to have my chats there.

I mean, my full plan with more internet and minutes than I need is around $4. Paying $6 for something you don’t even fully use is a ripoff.

I tried on an Android VM in a browser, but stopped at the phone number requirement. So does it need to be in a Google app specifically?

$6 a month is much more than my actual phone plan holy shit, that is a shit ton of money for such a subscription.

For some reason, adding a desktop client didn’t work for me, so I am stuck with Signal-cli. Good thing I don’t have to use Signal that much. Anyway, I think not having an option to register right in the desktop client is absolutely unacceptable.

A Pixel! The one that’s often recommended for custom OSs!

I download them either from Youtube or from the podcasts’ RSS feeds.

The major clients now do have OMEMO. Yea, I agree it’s flawed but that’s so far it’s the one I settled on. Do you know other, more refined selfhostable solutions? I am now looking for development there but doubt I’d get few people that I already got there to switch again.

When it comes to clients being not fully compatible - I understand where there might be a problem, but I personally never encountered it. Conversations covers Android, and Gajim is on both Windows and Linux. In my experience, they work just fine with each other, and Android+Windows+Linux covers the majority.

I do use Signal with a few people who refused to use XMPP, but I’d disagree they have good clients for every platform. Because the desktop one essentially doesn’t work without a smartphone. Registering in something like Waydroid doesn’t allow binding a desktop client because it wants to scan a QR code, and Signal-Cli just didn’t work with binding a regular client. So I am stuck using the inconvenient Signal-cli, because the only alternative I saw so far would be using it on Waydroid, which is even less convenient. Not to mention that the client itself is on Electron.

I don’t see a big difference, the hardest thing by itself is convincing someone to install one more program or app. Also Conversations does not suck.

Signal is not the best choice, it’s just a somewhat aceptable middle ground. I prefer something that doesn’t require a phone number and something you can self-host, like XMPP.

Not just Matrix. The one major XMPP clients use now, OMEMO, does that too.

You can still have more certainty or less. If it’s open-source - it doesn’t guarantee safety by any means, sure, but if it’s proprietary like this one - you don’t even get a chance to check what’s going on.

Except children DO walk by themselves if they’re at least in primary school. You don’t accompany your kid from doorstep to doorstep every time they go to the school, store or extracurricular. You teach the kid how to be on the street safely, where they can and cannot go, and periodically call them on the phone to check if everything’s alright. Same with the internet: the parent’s job is to TEACH and let the child know for sure where the potential danger is.

Cool, I just don’t have patience to scan through a 1000-page book prior to reading) Do you upload these for others to use? And again - what software?

Yes, but far from all mistakes are like this. You’d need to manually scan through a potentially long book. Fine if you do it occasionally for some books to contribute to Libgen, but you’d go insane if you try to do it to your whole library for personal use.

Edit: I meant not repeated and more or less obvious mistakes like these, rather those like “one term got mistaken for another real word”, which you won’t catch automatically.

“Do a light editing” you mean read through a huge book? I have downloaded automatically-converted versions like this and they’re unreadable at times. Also would that work well on complex math formulas?

Edit: might try doing so to upload for others, but looking through the whole book must be long, tedious work, definitely not something I’d do for every book.

Most of the books I have on my reader are not available in epub or formats like it, rather as pdf/djvu scans. So I’d add it might be absolutely worth it to pay more for a big screen.

Also the device never ever connects to the internet. Gives you more freedom.

What about an Android VM then? I use it for Steam, and it’s far more convenient. Not to mention doesn’t require spending money on a smartphone.