Trust me, I push Signal hard and even donate to it monthly. As I’m sure many of you know, there are always a few contacts who unfortunately refuse to use it.
In this case: do you prefer to use insecure SMS in something like QUIK SMS or Fossify Messages, or do you prefer to bite the Google bullet to get end-to-end encrypted messages (even if the metadata isn’t encrypted)?
I can see good arguments for both sides, so I am curious what Lemmy’s take is.
What are you more worried about, third party, MitM interception (e.g. IMSI catcher) or Google knowing who you are communicating with? The former is technically harder for an attacker, but the use of such devices is well documented and poorly controlled. Google is, well Google. And you can expect them to monitize any bit of data they have on you. Also, that data will almost certainly be handed over to local law enforcement, especially if they have whatever the local equivalent of a warrant is.
As with most security, there are trade-offs. You have to decided what risks you are willing to accept and what you are not.
Personally, mostly concerned about surveillance capitalism and mass surveillance. But I pose this more as a hypothetical for what “you” (the average lemmy user) would think is the lesser of two evils