I am really fed up with WhatsApp (closed source, jurisdiction that may impose backdoors soon)

I would even try to convince friends and family to move to something else but to what?

Signal so far has been the obvious choice but the fear that they may impose backdoors becomes more and more concrete.

Threema seems great! But they want 3€ and there is no chance in hell that my friends and family would pay it.

I saw a bunch of options on https://european-alternatives.eu/category/instant-messaging-apps but I would like to gather experiences and opinions

  • passepartout@feddit.org
    121·
    5 days ago

    I’d go for Matrix, with Element or Schildichat (not the next gen versions for now) as clients. It’s federated, which means you can choose which instance you want your account to reside on, end to end encrypted, has (video) calls, and some other features you wouldn’t necessarily expect from others like spaces for groups with several group chats, prioritizing conversations (low, normal, high / favorite) and threads inside a conversation.

    • adry@piefed.socialEnglish
      2·
      5 days ago

      In the past there was some “Identity Management” server that was centralizing the accounts of matrix.org or any other instances, and it was managed by Vector which was an ONG or Company… Nowadays, I see no mention to it in documentation (at least from my quick overview) and vector.im redirects to element (matrix client). Did anything change? Do anyone know? The lack of transparency over Vector.im made me reluctant to recommend Matrix as a really federated alternative to messaging.

      • blackfire@lemmy.world
        1·
        4 days ago

        As far as I am aware the accounts for other servers were never centralised it was just part of the federation. If you search for a user the lookup queries your server then matrix or other servers it knows of. Unless thats just user search and not identity initially.