Simplex chat is a hardened fork that does not require any phone number and can be completely self hosted
You can quickly spin up new identities to give out, I get the network effect with signal is big but simplex is perfect for our use case so I felt like mentioning it
I didn’t realize it was a fork. I just installed it from f-droid!
I’m downloading it right now
Hell yeah. We’ve been using it as our main comms for almost a year and love it
Tried Simplex for a bit, but seemed like there was a lack of channels/groups that were both active and useful.
Can you recommend any resources to get connected with those?
I use it for IRL contacts mostly
There are directories for groups, here is the official one (others contain lots of porn)
https://simplex.chat/docs/directory.html
What kind of group were you thinking of?
I’m not really sure. I think I want to find groups local to my area, specifically those that would be involved in 50501 type organizing. I want to learn about and get involved in (though I think in a limited scope) mutual aid organizing in my area.
I don’t want to say where I am specifically, but groups focused on mid-atlantic of the US would be most relevant to me.
Don’t think any groups like that exist, simplex is mostly known by cybersecurity/opsec nerds. We would have to be the change we want to see.
Almost all 50501 people use discord and reddit, with a small subset on signal. There’s a growing awareness to use better platforms however so I’m spreading the word.
Updated March 2025: Signal has added a few new features since we first ran this story (and removed SMS and MMS text support for Android), which are now reflected below.
That update is a little late. How old is this article???
At least the info is good as of today.
Paywalled.
Can someone provide an archived version?
Not paywalled for me, but this should work: https://12ft.io/https://www.wired.com/story/signal-tips-private-messaging-encryption/