WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

I found the solution by convincing all my friends and family, one by one, to move to Signal. I still use Whatsapp for people who did not migrate, but it's surprisingly possible (if not easy) to convince people to use another app

Same here. The trick is to never mention "privacy", "no ads", or anything similar (which has negative perceived value).

If you talk about that stuff, people will dilly-dally with the usual "well I already have too many apps, I'm not sure I want to install one more"

I tell people that the video calls are better (which was true in my experience, back when I still used WA). Instant install

That's amazing, I'm still trying to move our family group chat to Signal... I've moved exact zero family members.

I moved my family over to Signal years ago.

Anyone new who wants to message me, I simply say "I'm on Signal" and if it's important enough, they go and install it; it's been fairly frictionless, after all how hard is it to download an app and go through the fairly minimal registration process; and for someone already using WhatsApp, "one more account" probably isn't a major concern.

I tried various steps in the past to retain access to WhatsApp for a couple of people who didn't move, by having a work account on my phone, with a second SIM, but a one-click mistake one time gave WhatsApp my entire contact list from the "Personal" sandbox account, and I've decided not to even bother again.

I mean, I try every now and then to get someone to write me on Signal, because they won't find me on Whatsapp, but even once close friends don't seem to find it necessary and continue to use Whatsapp. Guess I am not important enough in their life. Others are a little misinformed, they think using Signal is just a German thing, but are willing to try. Others have their entrenched messenger being Whatsapp and they will take that to their grave with them, before they try anything else for a person they don't know well yet.

With some people it worked though and we are using Signal for some time now. Maybe it is too much to expect a 100% success rate for switching.

For me the "one more account" is really a problem. WhatsApp is the standard messenger in most of the EU.

And I don't want to go to signal because it's only marginally better. It's still American and still a walled garden (no third party apps allowed, no federation). It's a slightly less smelly walled garden.

I don't get this. Everyone is used to juggling between multiple apps, many of which allow to send messages. People are fine talking over Discord AND WhatsApp AND three others, but somehow "it's unbearable to add Signal". And it's not exactly "yet another app", it's pretty much a clone of WhatsApp. So if everybody moved to Signal, we could just get rid of WhatsApp. Which gets us to your second point:

> And I don't want to go to signal because it's only marginally better. It's still American and still a walled garden (no third party apps allowed, no federation). It's a slightly less smelly walled garden.

This, to me, is downright irrational. "Less smelly" is better, especially if it takes zero effort (you don't even need to create an account with a password, it just sends you an SMS).

If there was a non-American alternative to Signal, surely I would go for it. But there isn't. In the meantime, Signal is by far the best alternative to WhatsApp in terms of privacy.

Not to mention that there is actually a valid reason to not allow third party apps (spoiler: security). Last time I heard a fork of Signal making the news, it was pretty bad.

I was pleasantly surprised one evening, out with friends, as for some reason the entire group decided they ought to mutually verify on Signal. I'm not certain that "Very drunk people" are the best possible to perform the verification step in Signal, but it's certainly true that you'd have to be a very determined and skilled imposter to show up to somebody's birthday, drink and smoke for several hours in that company and then go through this elaborate verification ritual.

Over time such verification "decays". People buy a new phone, that sort of thing, but it was a healthy boost in one inexplicable moment.

The fun fact is that those people have 100+ apps on their phones, which run in the background, draining their batteries, tracking the sh*t out of them, never actually use them (get value out of them) and they think zero about their privacy (probably use gmail or the sorts). Someone asked me to install Viber and it had 30 pages of advertisers/data brokers. I won't share a bowl of poop with them (WhatsApp, Viber, etc.) "Meet them where they are" doesn't work if they are in a pool of privacy-poop.

> I simply say "I'm on Signal" and if it's important enough, they go and install it; it's been fairly frictionless, after all how hard is it to download an app and go through the fairly minimal registration process

Genuinely curious. I am in WhatsApp groups for my kids soccer teams (who will be there at the game, can my kid drive together with you to the match), my kids school classes (Johnny lost his headphones did anyone see them), my work teams "social chat" (happy birthday, I am at conference XYZ) etc. etc. In your situation, which of the three scenarios applies?

1 - You are not in such groups

2 - You were in such groups, and the entire group moved over to Signal

3 - You were in such groups, but the entire group did not move over to Signal and now you are not in these groups anymore

This is not about Signal. This about being spread too thin. To be able to keep up with all the work projects I'm involved in, I need to use Slack, Discord, Matrix at the same time. Add WhatsApp on top of that. That's 4, but not all. Add e-mail and ordinary phone calls.

6 methods to just keep up with work. I also have at least three ways to reach required documents and meeting notes. I really don't want to jump like a platformer character from point to point to be able to communicate and get things done.

In my personal life, I prefer "1 task, 1 application" model. Communications, one application. Personal information storage? Everything in one place, etc.

Application hopping has a very big mental overhead, and kills my flow. Many colleagues are in the same boat.

It's not Signal, it's any app, account, for any reason.

Is there no way to transfer verification in Signal when changing devices?

It's scenario 1. My children are still young, pre-school and reception so no such groups have come up yet. The odd parent that wanted to contact me has installed Signal or sent me SMS (RCS). For anything else, my wife is still on WhatsApp so she relays messages if/when they come up.

EDIT: re: Work, my colleagues are all on Signal, we have lots of Signal groups to communicate.

I don't know about iOS but a modern Android will periodically delete permissions from apps you aren't using, the app stays installed but it's now just a harmless icon and wasted storage space as I understand it.

I disagree wholeheartedly that it's "only marginally better". It's not Meta, and that's a huge improvement.

A European alternative would be excellent (I'm in the UK), but no such thing exists, that said, Signal's server and clients are open-source and can be self-hosted, or even deployed at scale by a European government/entity if they so wish.

I work in the "secure comms" space, and I have reviewed every line of code in the open-source server (as of the revision I last worked on), and built products on it, and though I can't prove they run the same code they publish, I'm "happy enough" with what I see that I'd use it over anything owned by Meta any day.

In an ideal world, I'd host it myself for everyone I communicate with to use, but without federation that's not a possibility, so given a choice between Signal and WhatsApp, the decision is hands-down Signal.

You also have the ability to easily setup a "Work profile" that's functionally like a second user with its own apps that don't talk to your normal profile apps, and you can shut the whole work profile off when you don't need it so the apps can't even run until you turn it back on. My preferred way of setting it up is with Shelter installed via FDroid.

So in a nutshell "I have someone else on WhatsApp who keeps me in the loop"

Expect this to scale, in my experience you can move your family over to another service. Groups of families your kid is somehow in contact with, not so much...

You are preaching to the choir here :) My point is not for "us, the techies" and privacy-oriented people. My point is clearly for the 50%-60% that think that "we are trying to take their precious WhatsApp from them" and they don't understand that their car insurance is gradually 20% more expensive than others because they keep posting photos from bars on FB.

I keep 'lean' devices, the apps that I actually use, battery lasts from days to weeks (phone, tablet respectively) and NoRoot Firewall (on Android) makes sure that my phone stays 'silent' to the apps and target IP-addresses of my choosing.

I only use viber because it is the only alternative for using TrueCaller in my country (India) that I know of.

I don't use the others you mention. Only telegram because many communities are there (it's the only chat app with good group chat functionality)

But it's exactly because I already have to deal with too many of them that I don't want to add more.

Also I don't like moxie's attitude but that's more of a personal concern that won't apply to most. Like not allowing third party clients or federation and shooting many suggestions down on github. It's his right to do that but it's also mine to not want to use it. For a "just a little bit better" experience I'm not moving to that.

I use matrix a lot and I think this is by far the best and most open option but most people don't know it. I bridge all the other apps through it now. Also, arathorn is a much nicer person who responds much better to criticism.

> If there was a non-American alternative to Signal, surely I would go for it. But there isn't. In the meantime, Signal is by far the best alternative to WhatsApp in terms of privacy.

But I wouldn't be able to actually move. It would just be yet another one. Not even much better in any way than whatsapp.

> Not to mention that there is actually a valid reason to not allow third party apps (spoiler: security). Last time I heard a fork of Signal making the news, it was pretty bad.

I don't care so much about that (and I work in cybersec). What matters more to me is being in control of my data. Being able to export them wherever I want etc.

I had an issue recently with whatsapp where they locked my account because of "spam". I wasn't spamming but they probably thought my matrix bridge was suspicious. However because of that bridge I could still access my chat data. I couldn't in whatsapp itself. Signal could do the same to me. So I would only use it bridged to Matrix anyway, like I do whatsapp.

And in terms of security: I don't believe neither WhatsApp nor Signal is good enough to prevent a state actor from reading my messages. Even if they can't get in the app they can compromise an endpoint. And even a bad third-party app will be sufficient to prevent drive-by hackers with a pineapple from reading my messages. So I don't see much difference there.

If only signal had a proper (electron is not proper) desktop client…

> In an ideal world, I'd host it myself for everyone I communicate with to use, but without federation that's not a possibility, so given a choice between Signal and WhatsApp, the decision is hands-down Signal.

If that's the only choice, maybe yes. Though the installed base of whatsapp is so big I could not leave it right now anyway. So Signal would only be extra.

But for me to voluntarily promote an app it has to be a lot more open than Signal. Even if other people around me start using it I'll probably be the last to move.

> The fun fact is that those people have 100+ apps on their phones, which run in the background, draining their batteries, tracking the sh*t out of them,

This is wildly untrue on iOS. Perhaps people have 100+ apps. But the rest, not so much.

I've managed to go a very long time - living in both the UK and the US - using only iMessage and (as of around 2017) Signal.

I finally had to install WhatsApp on a trip recently for group coordination, but ensured it didn't get things like contact access, and removed it afterwards.

Kids school may well be an outlier (US), but they send formal communication by email (with an SMS notification or call for emergencies), and the parent group is all on iMessage.

Option 1 mostly. I think it's also worth taking into consideration one thing.

People on Signal tend to have much less volume of overall messages and groups. For someone on WhatsApp to forward you the invite is a hassle for them, sure, but it is an infinitesimal unnoticeable increment on how many in/out messages they deal with in a day.

As I mention in another thread, people will complain that they "have too many apps" if you pitch Signal as a privacy app. They would install it instantly if you told them the emojis are funnier or whatever. Because they already installed 300+ apps and one more is actually .3% increment ; whereas for your typical GrapheneOS F-droid person, adding whatsapp would be a +15% increase of apps on their homepage.

It's kind of the same with those WhatsApp groups. There will be 1,000 messages in the group this week/month. 3 of those are the actual invite you need, and if you have actual human connections with folks, someone will send you those.

The fact that this didn’t work seamlessly for my chat history is why I stopped using Signal

Are you still on WhatsApp? If yes, then that's the reason. Trying to move a whole group over when you're willing to compromise is a recipe for failure because everybody would get inconvenienced for something that's only somewhat important to you.

It's like: should we all go to a vegan restaurant instead of the usual steakhouse because you decided you want to "try" being vegan this Friday night, of all nights. Just try it out another day and let us have our fun, Fred.

If you were not on WhatsApp at all, then it becomes a balance of : tiny per-person inconvenience versus 100% clear-cut decision on your part. Oh you've converted to whatever religion and can't have pork anymore? Now we have a choice between not inviting you at all, or trying the restaurant next door.

You're saying that having all the apps open at the same time won't drain the iPhone's battery?

Because normal people just never close apps. Are they silently shut down/paused after a while?

  > But I wouldn't be able to actually move. It would just be yet another one.

Actually, you would. A few months ago WhatsApp had a huge downtime in my country, and lots of people move to Telegram. It turns out, just telling people that you're moving to Telegram, that's enough to get them to move with you. I was already on Telegram, but I saw it happen enough times to be surprised myself.

Just don't keep a backup WhatsApp account around, because then people will use it.

Yes - on iOS only a few things can be done in the background but most apps are frozen eventually when the are no longer in the foreground.

> Are you still on WhatsApp?

That would actually be marginally better. No everyone is on f-ing Snapchat. I'm in Denmark, which like the US is pretty big on iMessage, so originally we where using that. Then my sister got an Android phone, and the group chat obviously broken, because no RCS back then.

Everyone has SMS, Snapchat, Facebook Messenger and Instagram (except me for Meta products). So no one is really keen on adding a fifth app, where for me it would remove Snapchat, bringing me down to just SMS and Signal.

it's a challenge for sure, however, I've managed to get my extended family all on Signal which is about as much reach as I could hope/expect to achieve.

That's my household, my parents, my grandparents, my parents-in-law, my sibling(s), cousins, aunts/uncles, sibling(s)-in-law, friends, and my colleagues.

Some of my children's' friends' parents who I'm friendly enough with also began using Signal so we can communicate. Those who are school friends but not outside-of-school-friends, we can communicate with via the school's app.

Almost anyone I could want to communicate with is on Signal, all of the family is directly or indirectly because of me, and friends and colleagues has been a combination.

Anyone I don't know well enough to have a conversation about privacy and Meta being the antithesis of it, is not likely someone I need to communicate with.

All in, my wife, on WhatsApp, isn't really "keep[ing] me in the loop", unless we're messaging a trades-person or similar, but that's infrequent enough to not be an issue.

> I need to use Slack, Discord, Matrix

Sounds like a perfect way to ghost people. “You send the update on Matrix? Oh, yeah I was stuck arguing with people in Slack all day, I must have missed it.”

I don't think that will work with the massive whatsapp userbase we have here. Literally everyone I know is on whatsapp.

It's really not worth the hassle for me especially since signal is only marginally better.

Yeah that's exactly what happens. Especially because not every app allows per-user notification control on android so I just disable notifications altogether for the apps I don't use so much. I only want to be notified for the most important stuff, I don't have time to constantly tend to my phone every time someone says something. So I tend to look at it just at the end of the day.

One thing that's nice about matrix is that you can select keywords to trigger notifications. Most of the other apps don't have that. So I tell people to say PRIO or PRORITY if their message is really important, so they can force a notification. Any other messages just get looked at when I get around to it and don't notify. If they abuse the priority I simply remove their right to do that.

But none of the other apps seems to be able to do these keywords or (even better) have an option to mark a message as urgent or something.

For someone who "works in cybersec", you have surprising opinions...

Like you seem to care about your messages not being entirely public ("And even a bad third-party app will be sufficient to prevent drive-by hackers with a pineapple from reading my messages") but at the same time you're fine with Telegram not being E2EE.

And then you seem to consider that a state actor being able to read the messages in transit is the same as them hacking into the phones?

And it all suggests that somehow the only reasonable threat model is "not caring about a state actor targetting oneself specifically and not caring about anything more than 'drive-by hackers with a pineapple'"?

I don't get that. I also must use Slack, Discord, Matrix, WhatsApp and I don't see a problem in having Signal on top. When I receive a message from someone, all it takes is clicking on the notification and answering there.

To the point where sometimes I can't remember on which app I was having which discussion.

What is "the hassle"? Do you mean the few seconds required to install Signal on your phone? Or do you mean converting all your friends to Signal?

I understand the latter, but for the former... it's probably faster to install Signal than to answer to a message on HN.

If everybody just installed Signal (because it's better, even if marginally), then eventually everybody would be on Signal and it would be easy to switch.

I just don't believe in this signal evangelism. I'm not going to use it. Once something comes that's really open like Matrix I'll support it. RCS isn't it either as you need to be part of the mobile service provider in-crowd to run your own.

But the hassle is dealing with all these different apps and their separate notifications. I have real app fatigue lately and turn them off for mostly everything.

I work in cybersec, not saying I'm a good one :) I hate my job (moving into cyber was a mistake) but I'm currently staying in it for mortgage reasons. And I don't ascribe to the regular security dogma.

I think third-party signal apps are just too thin a target for anyone intermediate to bother. Signal itself hardly is. Also, most of the stuff I discuss on these is just banter and stupid memes that people send me.

> I just don't believe in this signal evangelism.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Signal fanatic. I'm just quick at moving to better alternatives. If a better alternative than Signal gets announced in 10min, I'll be on it in 11min and I'll be telling you to try it in 12min :-).

The fact is that Signal is probably the best messaging app we have right now. I get the app fatigue, I don't get why the result of it should be to fight precisely the better alternative. "I hate that we're locked in WhatsApp, but I am actively fighting for keeping us locked in".

It's more like passive resistance, not active. I just won't bother constantly moving to alternatives unless they are substantially better.

If everyone starts using signal I'll go along. But they won't so they're isn't any point. I'll still need WhatsApp so they'll keep tracking me. Signal also has poorer group chats (no subtopics for example) which I use a lot.

And if they get big quickly they'll run out of funds and will have to make similar decisions. They're not going to continue being funded by big tech bros like Brian Acton's 50M$ if their costs balloon. For me to actively promote it and use it without a big userbase, it will have to be so open that I can run my own server, like email. I do run matrix for that reason. I like ownership of my services and I'd rather contribute to the network than donating.

Ps: if he really wanted to help accessible safe communications he shouldn't have sold WhatsApp.

I see more in solutions to thwart their tracking. Such as using a matrix bridge, which I do. I do the same with search, I use a meta-search engine to remove tracking and ads. I can also customise it to my wishes that way.

> I just won't bother constantly moving to alternatives

Well moving from WhatsApp to Signal was one move in the last 10 years. I wouldn't call that "constantly moving". We'd be lucky if there was an alternative worth moving every year, but that's by far not the case.

> I'll still need WhatsApp so they'll keep tracking me.

... you say you're in cybersec, so I would expect you to do better than that. What does WhatsApp track? Metadata. Who writes to whom, when. If you move half of your conversations away from WhatsApp, they lost the metadata from half those conversations. So they effectively track you less. It's not "all or nothing".

> They're not going to continue being funded by big tech bros like Brian Acton's 50M$

Are you sure they've been running on 50M in the last 10 years? They take donations, I would expect this helps quite a bit. 50M doesn't really sound like a lot of money when you have 70 millions active users.

> I do run matrix for that reason.

Matrix is inferior to Signal in many ways, though. And it's not like Matrix is super diverse: most people use Element, right? Federation sounds good, but power laws etc.

> Ps: if he really wanted to help accessible safe communications he shouldn't have sold WhatsApp.

Can you imagine anyone in the world who would not sell WhatsApp for 19 Billions? :-)

> Such as using a matrix bridge

How is that reducing the metadata?

> Well moving from WhatsApp to Signal was one move in the last 10 years. I wouldn't call that "constantly moving"

No but the last year I've been asked to go to:

- Telegram for a group chat

- Discord for a support community

- Snapchat by someone who wanted to share pics with me

- Instagram chat by a tattoo artist

- RCS / Google Messages by a friend in America who wants to use iMessage with me (I don't use Apple)

- Signal by a family member

- One person keeps chatting to me on LinkedIn and is annoyed I only reply once a month or so when I happen to log in to it (I have all notifications off and don't use the app of course)

All by different people. I keep saying no more more keep cropping up. Signal isn't the only one. I'm honestly very tired of all that crap. If I promote something new it should not be the same thing, slightly less flawed. It should be a real way forward.

I bridge to matrix now and if a network is not supported there then I won't use it. But I don't actually care about those chat networks. The bridges are just a way to forget they exist. Also, I'm not rolling out a bridge just for one person who wants to talk to me on a new network.

> ... you say you're in cybersec, so I would expect you to do better than that. What does WhatsApp track? Metadata. Who writes to whom, when. If you move half of your conversations away from WhatsApp, they lost the metadata from half those conversations. So they effectively track you less. It's not "all or nothing".

I am but privacy and security issues are very different things. The metadata is not really something I care about. My phone provider knows who I call and what I say, my mail provider knows who I email and what I say. Whatsapp was an improvement over those. It's not ideal but metadata is not a dealbreaker for me. And the thing is, I can't do without Whatsapp. I don't like it, but I'm stuck with it. I do shield it from my phone by using matrix so there is little the app itself can collect.

By the way at work the situation is much worse. My employer uses Microsoft 365 where all our data is on Microsoft servers (sharepoint et al) and they can access literally everything. Every document, every email, every chat, even the ones I deleted. It's all there and not end to end encrypted so Microsoft can see it too. Of course they sign legalese that they won't look at it but we all know how much that means post-Snowden. My employer is a company that's supposedly cybersecurity-aware. Clearly not enough. I don't have input in such strategic decisions. Still, a whole team of cybersec specialists is OK with this situation. I'm not, which is one of the reasons I don't like my job :) We spend time on stupid little things while freely giving up our entire data.

> Matrix is inferior to Signal in many ways, though.

I don't agree, it is superior for me. I can use whatever client I want, I can use it on any PC or web or mobile device, 20 of them if I want, I can set up my own home server, I can run my own integrations and bots (like a transcription bot running on a local whisper instance, nothing leaked to the cloud). I don't need a phone number to sign up so I can make different accounts for different purposes, just like email addresses on my domain. It is this flexibility I need. I don't want my chats to be locked up in someone else's server. My chats are my data and I should be able to do with it what I want.

Signal doesn't let me sign up without a phone number. It doesn't even have a web version, I have to install their desktop client (which isn't available on BSD). Also Signal misses so much functionality especially for group chats and integrations/bots.

Anyway, we're not going to agree here. I'm not going to help promote Signal and I don't think it's a train worth riding. That's my opinion. It's not the direction I want to move into, I'm truly sick of these walled gardens.

> Are you sure they've been running on 50M in the last 10 years? They take donations, I would expect this helps quite a bit. 50M doesn't really sound like a lot of money when you have 70 millions active users.

No but it is by far the biggest donation they've had. Most people are not going to pay for it, and if they grow the "normies" will rapidly outgrow the evangelists who would be inclined to donate. They'll end up having to get capital, which will come with strings attached, and the enshittification will start.

The thing is that with something federated that can't really happen. If the main matrix instances enshittify, I'll just run my own (and in my case this is exactly what I do anyway). Or someone else might start one. Having an open network is the only way I see out of the enshittification spiral.

> No but the last year I've been asked to go to:

To be clear, I'm not installing those things either. Everybody has WhatsApp, so that's my fallback, it's a common denominator. Signal is superior, so that's my preference. For personal conversations, I don't use anything else.

Then for work, I have to use the tools we get (be it Slack or Discord or Teams). And when a community is on Slack or Discord or IRC or discourse or whatever they use, well I have to go there to talk to them.

> My employer uses Microsoft 365 where all our data is on Microsoft servers

Yes I agree, that's a problem. Slack, Discord, same thing everywhere. Companies should self-host e.g. a matrix server, or at least use a provider from their own country. But I believe that self-hosted Matrix would be better than Slack for companies.

> I don't agree, [Matrix] is superior for me.

Out of curiosity, why not Telegram then, if you don't care about privacy and encryption?

> if they grow the "normies" will rapidly outgrow the evangelists who would be inclined to donate

They currently have 70M active users. Those are not evangelists.

> If the main matrix instances enshittify, I'll just run my own

Which is more complicated for approximately everybody than "if Signal enshittify, I'll move back to WhatsApp or to the next alternative to Signal".

Matrix brings its lot of issues. For instance, startups obviously wouldn't care, but corporations would never accept "any Matrix client" to connect. So they would somehow want to make sure that their employees use approved clients. I don't think this is currently a thing in Matrix. But even if it was, it means that corporations wouldn't benefit from "I can use any client I want", and chances are that they would self-host and not federate. Better than giving their data to third-parties, but still not the dream of federation or freedom.

For personal use? Normies use the main Matrix server, it's not really federated. And Matrix servers collect a lot of metadata. Wasn't there also security issues, where a Matrix server could inject ghost users into rooms?

All that to say, Matrix does not solve the problems that Signal solves. Matrix solves other problems (well, mostly "I want to self-host a chat and I want something cooler than IRC"), but then it makes sense that Matrix is not a replacement for Signal and Signal is not a replacement for those Matrix use-cases.

Bridging is a weird hack. I have only been confronted to Matrix bridges to IRC channels, and it was making everything worse for IRC users (essentially forcing the IRC users to either move to Matrix or ban the bridges).

Regarding telegram: I do use that actually, but not on my phone. I just use it on the PC in a webbrowser (which is one of the things I like about telegram, they're not so phone-centric and you can connect wherever you want and from however many clients you want at the same time). I only use it for group chats though. With notifications off, so it's like 'whenever I get around to reading it' service level :)

> Yes I agree, that's a problem. Slack, Discord, same thing everywhere. Companies should self-host e.g. a matrix server, or at least use a provider from their own country. But I believe that self-hosted Matrix would be better than Slack for companies.

Yes or at least use something that's verifiably E2EE. It's totally possible to use someone else's cloud without giving them any way to read the information stored on it. It's just not really offered by the big names. I think part of the reason is that they love running analysis. Especially Microsoft loves "data-driven" everything.

> For personal use? Normies use the main Matrix server, it's not really federated. And Matrix servers collect a lot of metadata. Wasn't there also security issues, where a Matrix server could inject ghost users into rooms?

Yes but those can be resolved. It's still being developed. And once it gets big there will be more servers, I'm sure. Popular sites and services can host their own and direct their existing users to it.

> Bridging is a weird hack. I have only been confronted to Matrix bridges to IRC channels, and it was making everything worse for IRC users (essentially forcing the IRC users to either move to Matrix or ban the bridges).

Well that's for IRC channels, that bridge multiple users on both sides, yes. But this is for 2 reasons: IRC is more limited than matrix so some stuff has to be crammed in a text field somehow, and many IRC servers don't allow full bridging where the bridge can pretend to be multiple users. Libera is an example, they had some personal conflicts with the matrix team and turned it off. Since then it's difficult because the bot puts the username of the matrix user in the body of each message instead of making it appear to come from the username.

If you bridge 1:1 chats or things like whatsapp groups with one user on the matrix side (which is the case for personal bridges), there is no issue. The whatsapp users don't see anything different. Your messages just show up under your regular name. On the matrix side everyone also shows up as a matrix user, the bridge creates a user for everyone in the group chat (called a 'puppet'). It's quite good. The only thing is that if I run a transcribe bot, its output gets bridged back to the other party I'm talking to, so I redirect those to a separate chat. It would be nice if there was a "don't bridge" flag for messages. Whatsapp has transcribe functionality now, but it only works on the phone, not web. And the quality is awful. Whisper-large which I run a server for, blows it out of the water.

The biggest issue with the whatsapp bridge is that it doesn't do voice or video calls. The telegram bridge works even better because it uses the regular telegram protocol (whatsapp doesn't support third-party clients or bots so it uses a hack through whatsapp web).

> Are they silently shut down/paused after a while?

Yes. This has been the case since 2008 when the first version of iOS supporting third-party apps was released. Background refresh allows some quanta of work do be done when an app is not in the foreground, but only limited things.