[landcruiser123]

The new changes in WhatsApp has made it very easy to ditch WhatsApp from my primary phone. It is now in my 5 year old LG phone which has no SIM and a battery life of 3 hours.
Time for a facebook-free phone.

[warrioraks]

Originally Posted by Saanil

There was a strange process happening wherein even though I was talking to many people and coming in contact with old friends, I never felt connected to them in a meaningful way.

+1. This was my reason to un-install whatsapp an year back, and I am a happy soul!

The initial few weeks were very difficult because not only did I lose important chat history with my connections, I was also losing on new office updates. People mostly forgot that I was no longer on whatsapp and this led to a few situations where I turned up for early morning casual meetings but no one else did because the notice for cancellation was sent over whatsapp
Folks around were also initially confused on how to reach out to me once I exited WA. Seems calling and texting are no longer the default ways to interact with near ones.

There was also a funny rumour one fine day in office that I had resigned. Why? Because after 3 or 4 months of un-installing the application, whatsapp deleted my profile and which generated a ‘ABC has left this chat’ notification on all office groups simultaneously

The last few months have been much easier though. People who are genuinely interested in talking to me text or call. Most of the important people in my life have moved to Apple eco-system so iMessage fills in the gap for Multi-media exchange. For Android contacts, it does become a pain and I still do not have a seamless solution to it, except uploading files to a shared location and sharing links via sms.

Overall it has been a mixed experience. The biggest downside has been losing touch with a few people, especially the ones not in India.
On the other hand, the biggest benefit being the quality of communication time I spend on my phone. My conversations nowadays are with far fewer individuals but seem to be more engaging and connected.

[sagarpadaki]

Originally Posted by landcruiser123

The new changes in WhatsApp has made it very easy to ditch WhatsApp from my primary phone. It is now in my 5 year old LG phone which has no SIM and a battery life of 3 hours.
Time for a facebook-free phone.

Can you please elaborate on how to do this?

[landcruiser123]

Originally Posted by sagarpadaki

Can you please elaborate on how to do this?

Not sure I understood your question. I’ve backed up my app data in my Pixel 3a and installed the app in my old LG K10. The messages were automatically restored.

Facebook free phone - uninstalled FB, Instagram (never used it much anyway), and WhatsApp. I think there maybe some secondary tracking though.

Google, the lesser of two evils, still has a lot of my data.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by warrioraks

+1. This was my reason to un-install whatsapp an year back, and I am a happy soul!
... ... ...
On the other hand, the biggest benefit being the quality of communication time I spend on my phone. My conversations nowadays are with far fewer individuals but seem to be more engaging and connected.

Whatsapp is just a tool. How you use it is up to you. I can see how it might be possible to get involved in numerous groups, but that is up to us. I have some group usage of Whatsapp, but so little it is not even an every-day thing. Mostly, to me, it is just a messaging system that I prefer to simple SMS because of its multi-media capability.

I do hate this stuff like perpetual good-mornings. Even I have one or two good-morningers: I do not reply daily, and when I do, it is not with pictures, but with a simple namaste.

I suppose the difference is between using it as a messaging system and using it as another social-networking platform.

[swissknife]

Originally Posted by sagarpadaki

Can you please elaborate on how to do this?

Install WhatsApp on your non regular phone. Punch the otp from your regular phone on the phone that you have installed WhatsApp afresh. Use Wifi to connect the phone that has WhatsApp. The sim does not need to be on the same phone as WhatsApp.

[nagarjun]

There is a new entrant which seem to be advertising privacy and being endorsed by some of the noted privacy advocates.

https://signal.org/en/

But the real problem comes when they want money to sustain the service as the popularity and user base grows. I don't know how many of us remember it, but Whatsapp started with a yearly payment plan and in fact I had paid once and was willing to pay. After Facebook acquired it they have to find a way to monetize it and here we are.

[Hayek]

Have had a number of friends and family suggesting we abandon WhatsApp for Telegram or Signal. They seem to forget that Telegram messages are NOT private (except one to one messages)- the rest are stored on Russian servers. Signal seems to be private but is clunky. But unless every group you use and every contact of yours moves from WhatsApp to Signal, you will need to retain WhatsApp. And in that case, you provide Facebook with access to everything. So don’t see the logic for these moves. So far just 1 (out of 20+ groups I am a member of, and 10+ that I use regularly) has moved to Signal. Let’s see how long that lasts

[Thad E Ginathom]

My information on this is sub-quick-google <Blush> but it appears that Signal is end-to-end encrypted; Telegram is not. Signal cannot read your messages; Telegram could. Telegram has the option for end-to-end encryption.

The worst thing about Whatsapp is its backup routine. It stores our backups unencrypted.

[Sankar]

Originally Posted by nagarjun

There is a new entrant which seem to be advertising privacy and being endorsed by some of the noted privacy advocates.

https://signal.org/en/.

Signal isn't new as I'm using it since 2016 and it existed probably even before that.

I first started using WhatsApp since 2008 on & off along with bbm and finally got rid of it in a phased manner after Facebook's acquisition.

Edit: And I am very happy to read that Facebook is selling their users out

[Turbanator]

I find Telegram better, easier to use and comes with lot of privacy, one can simple share the ID instead of phone number. Any shortcomings that I am missing?

Maybe we should get the thread title change to options instead of whatsapp

[voldemort]

Originally Posted by nagarjun

There is a new entrant which seem to be advertising privacy and being endorsed by some of the noted privacy advocates.

https://signal.org/en/

Signal is not a new entrant. I've used it since 2016. And, they had end-to-end encryption even before WhatsApp came up with it.

But the real problem comes when they want money to sustain the service as the popularity and user base grows. I don't know how many of us remember it, but Whatsapp started with a yearly payment plan and in fact I had paid once and was willing to pay. After Facebook acquired it they have to find a way to monetize it and here we are.

Unlikely. It's open-source, and has already gained enough traction to keep things rolling. Their business model (or the lack of it?) is different. And it's unlikely to ever go up for sale. Kind of (but probably not very similar to) how Linux, their different distributions, Mozilla Firefox etc operates.

Originally Posted by Turbanator

Maybe we should get the thread title change to options instead of whatsapp

Perhaps mods can start a poll to guage what platform bhpians are moving to, or if they're moving at all.

While I don't think the vast majority of casual WhatsApp users understand the significance of WhatsApp policy changes, a chunk of people are moving to Signal, and another chunk is moving to Telegram I guess.

I don't use WhatsApp that often to begin with. But I have decided to quit WhatsApp for good and move to Signal. Partly because I've been following Signal's work for some time and like it. Also I want to support their mission. People not on Signal can directly call or SMS me (yes I understand there's no privacy guarantee for these).

Because not everyone who were in my contacts in WhatsApp would be on Signal (because they didn't migrate at all/moved to Telegram or some other platform instead), there'll be less clutter in my life .

[avdhesh15]

I have uninstalled Facebook and Instagram etc from my primary phone. Only kept them on my spare phone to take care of this pandemic!

In my opinion, they should simply charge annual fees rather than this underhanded trick.

[warrioraks]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Whatsapp is just a tool. How you use it is up to you. I can see how it might be possible to get involved in numerous groups, but that is up to us. I have some group usage of Whatsapp, but so little it is not even an every-day thing. Mostly, to me, it is just a messaging system that I prefer to simple SMS because of its multi-media capability.

———

I suppose the difference is between using it as a messaging system and using it as another social-networking platform.

Call me old-school but Whatsapp is an overkill for messaging. It’s a classic Quantity vs Quality conundrum. Not because the way it is designed, but primarily because the way most people end up using it. Office chatter on weekends/holidays, getting added to random groups, excessive spamming became irritating for me after one point of time. I have found it to be too much effort for relatively very less meaningful conversations. Might be all this is specific to my experience and would not hold true for others. So consider this opinion based on a sample of one!

Also I agree with you, whatsapp is just a tool at the end of the day. Some would be good at using it, others might not. Some might prefer to use it, others won’t. In my case, I have observed whatsapp draining my juice as fast as it drains my phone’s battery
Haven’t seen much harm (atleast till now) of leading a life without whatsapp. I don’t intend to go back to it unless there is a very good reason for it’s re-entry.

[nagarjun]

Originally Posted by voldemort

Signal is not a new entrant. I've used it since 2016. And, they had end-to-end encryption even before WhatsApp came up with it.

Unlikely. It's open-source, and has already gained enough traction to keep things rolling. Their business model (or the lack of it?) is different. And it's unlikely to ever go up for sale. Kind of (but probably not very similar to) how Linux, their different distributions, Mozilla Firefox etc operates.

Sorry, I didn't know that Signal was existing from long back. Should have checked before writing.

Unlike Linux, Firefox and other open source software, Signal or any other messaging tool needs lot of backend/cloud servers and resources to encrypt, store, forward and route your messages across the internet. This requires money. In case of former its just the software that user downloads and uses it without any continuous expense per user.

As I mentioned in my original post, personally I don't mind paying something for this service and I feel without they need to find some other source of income to even sustain the service, if not to gain profit from it.