No. Meta is a data harvesting company. Any points of data you give them is bad, privacy-wise.
And don’t believe the claptrap that WhatsApp is “safe” from prying eyes or truly E2EE. Meta is not and has never been trustworthy, and they have been caught lying on countless occasions.
I believe whats app is ‘true’ e2ee, as its easy to audit. Meta couldnt really give a shit about your messages. However, having access to your device is a Goldmine
I spontaneously deleted my WhatsApp account a few years ago and haven’t regretted it once. When people suddenly can’t contact you through WhatsApp anymore, they can still use SMS (which is horrible as well but still better than any services by Meta) or hopefully give in at some point and also use Signal.
Also, do those friends of yours know that you don’t have to immediately abandon WhatsApp to use Signal? Both can be used simultaneously, like many of my family and relatives do, and I see almost no logical reason to refuse that.
It’s not “fanboyism”, I already wrote that SMS is horrible. And what makes you so sure that WhatsApp really is really properly encrypted and not doing some shenanigans? Proprietary apps can claim all kinds of things. So call me naive, but I’ll take minimal non-sensitive unencrypted SMS through a somewhat trustworthy service provider over basically spyware on my phone any day, although that may of course be because I live somewhere with relatively decent data protection laws (not that one should put too much trust in those either, but eh, still better than trusting fucking Meta imho).
People install all kinds of crap on their phones, but a single more private messenger is suddenly too much to ask for? Some people really are beyond saving… Though I can kinda relate, my brother is just as stubborn. Any way, I’d still advise to just quit WA and tell them you’ll only communicate through Signal (or SimpleX, Session, etc.) in the future, which should help as an incentive. If you’re willing to do that is of course up to yo
The bigger question is why are your so-called friends not respecting your privacy? Anyone who wouldn’t switch to signal for me is not someone I would want to call a friend.
But as the other person said, no it’s not safe to use WhatsApp.
because they don’t care about privacy and I also need business associates on there…
how am I their friend if I’m forcing them to care about something they don’t care about.
also they “want to give meta their data so that the algorithm keeps them on the app as long as possible”, since they got nothing to do. also these friends are more like colleagues than anything else, but I need to keep up with them because of work
You wouldn’t be forcing them to care about something they don’t care about. You don’t have to care about privacy to use signal.
I have friends from all walks of life that message me on signal because that’s all I use, most of them don’t care about privacy. To them it’s just another messaging app like WhatsApp, messenger, discord, etc.
But I guess that’s unfortunately not an option in your particular circumstance
No. Meta is a data harvesting company. Any points of data you give them is bad, privacy-wise.
And don’t believe the claptrap that WhatsApp is “safe” from prying eyes or truly E2EE. Meta is not and has never been trustworthy, and they have been caught lying on countless occasions.
Use their products at your own peril.
I believe whats app is ‘true’ e2ee, as its easy to audit. Meta couldnt really give a shit about your messages. However, having access to your device is a Goldmine
but everyone I know uses them and no, they’re not switching to signal…
Well, then y’all can enjoy your loss of privacy. I’m not telling you what to do, but that is the consequence of using their products.
I know, but they don’t give a fuck, and I need to keep up with my friends somehow.
Not with that attitude (like, unironically speaking, you have to be more insistent)
they just said no, I respect that
EVERYONE IN MY COUNTRY USES WHATSAPP, YOU CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT WA HERE YK…
Same thing probably could have been said about my country (Germany) 10 years ago, and look where we’re at now.
I spontaneously deleted my WhatsApp account a few years ago and haven’t regretted it once. When people suddenly can’t contact you through WhatsApp anymore, they can still use SMS (which is horrible as well but still better than any services by Meta) or hopefully give in at some point and also use Signal.
Also, do those friends of yours know that you don’t have to immediately abandon WhatsApp to use Signal? Both can be used simultaneously, like many of my family and relatives do, and I see almost no logical reason to refuse that.
BRO SMS AIN’T BETTER THAN WHATSAPP IT HAS NO ENCRYPTION, PURE FANBOYISM
They just don’t want another chat app on their phone, they just use wa for almost everything
It’s not “fanboyism”, I already wrote that SMS is horrible. And what makes you so sure that WhatsApp really is really properly encrypted and not doing some shenanigans? Proprietary apps can claim all kinds of things. So call me naive, but I’ll take minimal non-sensitive unencrypted SMS through a somewhat trustworthy service provider over basically spyware on my phone any day, although that may of course be because I live somewhere with relatively decent data protection laws (not that one should put too much trust in those either, but eh, still better than trusting fucking Meta imho).
People install all kinds of crap on their phones, but a single more private messenger is suddenly too much to ask for? Some people really are beyond saving… Though I can kinda relate, my brother is just as stubborn. Any way, I’d still advise to just quit WA and tell them you’ll only communicate through Signal (or SimpleX, Session, etc.) in the future, which should help as an incentive. If you’re willing to do that is of course up to yo
The bigger question is why are your so-called friends not respecting your privacy? Anyone who wouldn’t switch to signal for me is not someone I would want to call a friend.
But as the other person said, no it’s not safe to use WhatsApp.
because they don’t care about privacy and I also need business associates on there…
how am I their friend if I’m forcing them to care about something they don’t care about.
also they “want to give meta their data so that the algorithm keeps them on the app as long as possible”, since they got nothing to do. also these friends are more like colleagues than anything else, but I need to keep up with them because of work
You wouldn’t be forcing them to care about something they don’t care about. You don’t have to care about privacy to use signal.
I have friends from all walks of life that message me on signal because that’s all I use, most of them don’t care about privacy. To them it’s just another messaging app like WhatsApp, messenger, discord, etc.
But I guess that’s unfortunately not an option in your particular circumstance
yup sadly it ain’t