But it’s not on the main F-Droid repo, apparently because it doesn’t meet F-Droid’s criteria: specifically (from what I can make out) because it includes non-free build dependencies.
MOre information
So not FOSS enough for F-Droid 
I think about where the servers are, this is a big issue I stay away from UK and US servers, I actaully have a second phone just to run whatsapp because my sister is not tech savvy, once you set it up you can just use that phone and wifi, switch the sim to my /e/ phone and setup Threema for that for my Germany communication. As a 3 year user of Threema, it is beyond question worth the purchase. You get what you dont pay for, whatsapp reputation is sinking with FB as it has faced all kinds of violations, like Google and Android, that’s why we use /e/,
So why ruin by putting junk on top? IMHOP 
as it requires to share more and more with FB. Much to my dismay latest Signal 5.0.1 complain because I have no google playstore on my phone. apk installs threaten they will not fully function. Signal, which is less invasive then WhatsApp, alot have to do with wifi s calling and if that is set up with your carrier, Signal and wifi asist drop call, whatsapp is ok, Threema my biased favorite always good.
Of course the best thing is no phone number needed for Threema, Now honestly I’m a bit embarrassed for signal the constant badgering about my security code is just annoying. sending MMS fails often even after adminning the app and resetting etc blah blah. Threema solid secure and no servers in US!
Hi,
Whataspp policy updrage is a great opportunity to change communication software.
The 2 major Signal and Telegram seems to have global attention these days.
But, can we really trust this apps ?
Signal App was created by Whisper Systems, bought in 2011 by… Twitter, and also :
“He (co-founder of Signal) is also a co-author of the Signal Protocol encryption used by Signal, WhatsApp,[3][4] Facebook Messenger,[5] and Skype.”
“On February 21, 2018, Marlinspike and WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton announced the formation of the Signal Foundation.”
Telegram stores everything on servers “encrypted”.
“Pavel (DUROV) joined the World Economic Forum (WEF) Young Global Leaders as a representative of Finland.”
“In May 2020, the WEF and the Prince of Wales’s Sustainable Markets Initiative launched “The Great Reset” project”
I’m just wondering if it is this good. Probably good to avoid Ads analysing, but for real privacy ?
The same can be said about Telegram. The one in F-Droid (Telegram FOSS) is a fork of the original with some removed suspicious or non-free code.
More on their GitHub:
That will change in 2021, confirmed by Moxie.
@petefoth go for Signal. It’s the one with the best ratio Security & Privacy VS usability & mass adoption. Download the APK there: https://signal.org/android/apk/ Telegram server code isn’t open source, so it can’t be trusted (add to this that it is developed in Russia, which may be bad).
Source? OpenWhishperSystems is an NGO, no one is owning it, definitely not Twitter.
Thanks @fla . I outlined in my earlier post why, in this instance, I am going with Telegram. In short, because
AFIK
Twitter bought Whisper Systems who was working on Red Phone.
The Whisper Systems founder, got out and created Open Whisper Systems and continued to develop Red Phone which became Signal around 2015.
Hello ! Element was available in the AppCenter but recently seems to be removed from it : there were 2 instances. But I’m really confident about the availability of this wonderful app in a near futur.
for my point of view, like @petefoth I stay with Telegram which is secured enough for my needs, it’s between whatsapp and signal, convivial like whatsapp but a little more secured… and I used to use Telegram for my RSS newsfeeds with some bots (very handy)
FYI, there is a fork of Signal with a FOSS flavor that seems to be interesting and available on F-Droid: https://github.com/mollyim/mollyim-android
No, Telegram is not more secure than Whatsapp. In some ways it’s actually worse.
In comparison, the main good thing about Telegram is that it is not Facebook, but that’s about it.
If Facebook did what Telegram is doing (storing all of the users data in readable form on their server), it would result in a big shit storm and users would run away en masse.
Big generalisation 
The principal issue for me here is privacy rather than security, and I think in this respect Telegram is significantly “better” than WhatsApp. But all these things involve personal choices about getting an acceptable balance between privacy, security, and usefulness. For my needs, Telegram is significantly “better” than WhatsApp.
That’s a very weird way of looking at things.
Without (proper) security, there is no privacy.
If you only care about privacy regarding Facebook, then you’re right, but that’s about it.
Also, look at it from this perspective: if Telegram has all data about its users chat history, their posted images etc. available, it’s a major target for all sorts of thieves, hackers and institutions.
If someone wants to use personal data from Telegram they will have to hack Telegram’s servers. Has that happened?
If someone wants to use personal data from Facebook, they just need to give Facebook some money. That happens every day and is how Facebook makes money.
Now I’ve probably made my position clear, and I’ll start repeating myself soon, so I’ll be quiet now (probably )
No idea, but that’s not the point. It’s a big honeypot and the bigger it gets (meaning the more users it holds) the more likely it will be.
Basically the point there is just that it’s a very bad idea.
That may be true, but the same may be true for Telegram.
I know they say that they don’t do that, but we have only their word on that and it may change at any time in the future.
And if it changes they still got all of your data.
Anyway, after all it’s your own personal decision whether you want to use Telegram or not. Same for Whatsapp and any other messenger.
However, personally I would never recommend Telegram to anyone for the given reasons and also inform them about why.
Also, I wouldn’t recommend Whatsapp for the reasons you mentioned.
Instead, I’d rather recommend Signal and Threema, both of which are open source and feature proper end-to-end security.
(Threema of course having the downside of requiring a paid license.)
Also, both feature fully secured voice and video calls, the latter of which Telegram still cannot do (afaik). Signal even features properly encrypted group calls since a recent update (never tried it though, so no idea if it actually works well).
Well, I do not recommend Signal anymore :
Both the Signal server and the client are open source and were reviewed (positively) by experts.
So there is not really much of a reason for your claim. That’s why open source is so important when talking about communication security.
btw. Signal is one of the very few cases where also the server is open sourced. This is neither the case for Telegram nor for Threema and of course not for Whatsapp either.
Out of curiosity, data aggregation such as implemented by facebook in case of Wapp has been happening all over the world of mobile applications as well as WWW for more than a decade. So what prompted you to do it now?
Just curious. I also recently started using Signal because it"s the most well known privacy oriented application and an average joe or jane seem to be moving there (and telegram to a lesser extent).
Btw, I am not a huge fan of company run things such as protonmail, or signal since you basixally need to trust them to fulfil their end of the bargain, but Moxie, the creator of Signal, is such a unique individual that I am kind of okay with trusting him. In the worst case US govt has access to my stuff (like it did until now).
In an ideal world i"d use something peer to peer such as jami.
Currently trying out jitsi over the FSF run bridge (they do it for the affiliates) for videoconferencing and it works most of the time.
Used to be excited over Matrix and Element/Riot, but the client seems a bit sluggish to me and those bridges to other apps such as slack not that easy to use. But, Purism is building their comm stack around it so who knows.
