Maybe all your contacts also value their privacy and therefore have not set signal to allow them to be discovered by their phone number
If that’s the case, then i would be more happier to get their usernames atleast. But the situation is way worse than that. They are deeply into whatsapp.
Do they have a need to communicate with you?
If so, you can just not install WhatsApp. Smartphones allow them to install multiple communicating apps, so your friends could remember to use signal when talking to you.
Actually, deletion of whatsapp and instagram drastically decreased my friend circle. Now i have more time for myself. I don’t think they have a reason to communicate with me. Anyway, am not installing whatsapp anymore.
Supreme privacy. Two can only keep a secret if one of them is dead.
I got all my friends to switch to signal!
I’m still working on that, but progress is happening
I just don’t have any friends
At least i got 3 people to install Signal just for me.
I started when it was still called TextSecure, I had precisely 1 contact (just my nerdy friend from uni) for the first 3 years. I then convinced my partner to install it, had 2 contacts for the next few years.
When it became Signal, a few more jumped on. Once I had kids; I bullied my family onto it, by refusing to send photos any other way.
I have 62 contacts now, the bulk of my digital communication is through either Signal, phone, email or Lemmy. There is a little SMS/RCS.
It has been a 15 year journey so far, for me. You will get there.
Your communications can’t be compromised if you don’t communicate lol
When I switched to Signal I enforced it hard. Refused to talk to anyone on another platform. If they texted me, I’d responed, but always add “I’d prefer if we discussed this over Signal.”
I had more success than I’d anticipated. About 90% of my family and 80% of my friends moved over.
My best piece of advice for this is to start new group chats - people want to be in the group chats, and if they believe Signal is where it’s all happening, they’ll join.
All the more motivation to encourage your friends to get on signal. I’ve had a discussion this week with someone, on fedi, who just can’t conceive of getting off Meta products, like WhatSapp, because it has so much usage in Europe. Our work isn’t done; not yet.
That person doesn’t need to leave WhatsApp completely right away. They can just talk to some people on Signal and others on WhatsApp.
Why do people use signal? It has one centralized server and phone number registration. There are many better alternatives.
Which ones are you thinking of? Out of the options I am aware of, Signal seems to be the most secure, most reliable, and most privacy respecting messaging app in this category.
Session, simplex, deltachat
You can contact me on signal. I mean, I probably won’t respond. But you can.
I have two contacts. My wife, who I text/communicate with more than anyone else, and a long distance friend.
It took begging and pleading for years to get my wife to agree to it. She finally agreed after it came out that the phone network was likely hacked by China.
I tried to get another friend to use it, at whick point he asked if that was the app at the center of whiskey leaks. He never installed it.
after it came out that the phone network was likely hacked by China.
You’re referring to the phone network in the USA, right? It blows my mind that more people don’t know about it. China (specifically, Salt Typhoon) infiltrated the USA phone network in 2022. The infiltration was only discovered in 2024, and China still has not been evicted. Apparently the eviction will not be complete until compromised Huawei network hardware is extirpated.
Considering that PRISM is a thing, I think people already assume that all usage of the phone network is non-private. What difference does it make if China is reading my messages, when the USA already is, and the USA can actually arrest or murder me unlike China.
