MenelHi <span class="h-card"><a href="https://mastodon.social/users/KileyT" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@KileyT@mastodon.social</a></span> welcome,<br>This is a complicated topic all in all.<br><br>Signal is much much better then any other centalized chat provider out there, well there is threema too, which is comparable and not located in a country that has a fashist coup currently.<br>The main critic on centralized services like signal is, that is is in fact one central entity and you have to trust them and all data of every user goes through that single vendor. Signal does some things to minimize the data they know about you, but in the end they still have data of all connections of every user and it wouldn't be hard to deanonymize users and also who talks to who, if the server were compromised. (still better then whatsapp, since they use the data for marketing <b>now</b> and not hypothetically)<br><br>With xmpp you don't have to trust a single entity. You still have to trust your server operator, but you can choose them yourself (or be them yourself). You also can choose your client (the program you use to interact)<br>That's about it.<br><br>If you want a foot in the door of a federated service like xmpp without the initial friction, you can use quicksy, it is in the apple store too and it is nearly monal, but you register with your phone number and people can find you like the do with whatsapp and signal. But you register again on only one server.<br>But normal monal users or users with other clients (on android the client could be "conversations" for example) can still talk to you from any server.<br><br>If you use monal they need to know your xmpp ID ( name@servername.org ), same as an email address.<br><br>You could find some curated list of recommended servers at <a href="https://joinjabber.org/docs/servers/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://joinjabber.org/docs/servers/</a><br>Selfhosting is an option too, or managed selfhosting, they have some links for that too.<br>If you are already registered you can find some public rooms at <a href="https://search.jabber.network" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://search.jabber.network</a><br><br> It isn't easy to start with this. Signal is still better then many others. But if you want to go on with the xmpp adventure it would be great 👍😀<br><br><a href="https://snikket.de/social?t=xmpp" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#xmpp</a> <a href="https://snikket.de/social?t=jabber" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#jabber</a> <a href="https://snikket.de/social?t=federation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#federation</a> <a href="https://snikket.de/social?t=messenger" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#messenger</a> <a href="https://snikket.de/social?t=conversations" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#conversations</a> <a href="https://snikket.de/social?t=monal" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#monal</a> <a href="https://snikket.de/social?t=quicksy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#quicksy</a> <a href="https://snikket.de/social?t=snikket" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#snikket</a><br>