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For those who used all three of Whatsapp, Signal and Delta Chat in multi-device mode:

Which messenger provides the best multi-device setup and handling for users (UX)?

(question spans setting up a second/linked device, as well as migrating to new device, as well as quality of multi-device synchronizing/bugfree-ness -- all subjectively weighted by each voter according to their subjective experiences)

  • Signal (28%, 46 votes)
  • Whatsapp (5%, 8 votes)
  • Delta Chat (53%, 86 votes)
  • other (please name in reply) (12%, 20 votes)
160 voters. Poll end: 5 months ago

in reply to Delta Chat

Delta Chat is pretty close to Signal, but I find it easier on Signal to see which devices I have paired. Not sure if that is a thing on Delta Chat, as I'm sort of new to it.
in reply to stevejohnson42

ah -- we should have said that we were only looking at end-to-end encrypted messengers. Telegram is a fancy and fast clear-text central database viewer, not a private messenger. It has good messenger UX, and provides messaging, and naturally has a lot less problems with showing everything with just a login to their central database. so pretty easy for multi-device.
This entry was edited (5 months ago)
in reply to Delta Chat

Matrix. It has quite nice new device setup. You just scan a Qr code or verify a set of emojis on new & old device.
in reply to Ville 'cos' R

lmao yeah no I wouldn't put Matrix, or any of its clients, in the top tier of multi device
in reply to rakoo

@rakoo at least Signal and WhatsApp don't even have proper multi device support. They have "primary device" that must connect to central server regularly or other devices stop functioning. IDK about Delta Chat, I hope it does better job.
in reply to Ville 'cos' R

@cos @rakoo delta chat has no primary/linked-device conception. Each delta chat device is fully capable, all other devices can disappear at any time.
in reply to Delta Chat

honestamente, se me hizo fácil con Whatsapp usar la versión de escritorio, incluso web. Con DeltaChat tuve un inconveniente, pero me pareció mejor y baatante más seguro, la opción de cargar el código QR desde una imagen.
in reply to Delta Chat

The multidevice. Delta experience is great except for the moments when you turn on your computer, and if delta notifs are on, past messages will all come streaming in one after the other as the device syncs, creating a stream of unnecessary notifs. I have not experienced this on the other apps
in reply to Delta Chat

i only use Signal. On mac, linux and iphone & ipad. Its fine.
in reply to liberloebi 📖

@liberloebi Which XMPP clients do you use? UX of multi-device setup varies between clients.
in reply to Delta Chat

@fu I know that there is no all-platforms app for #XMPP, but I don't see that as a disadvantage. Every app that you are used to use is 'good'.
My personal setup is #Conversations on my Android machines and #Gajim on Linux and Windows. For iOS (I don't use Apple devices, though) I recommend #Monal, which I see as the most advanced app for XMPP on Apple. On Linux, #Dino is very promising, and I might switch in the future
in reply to Delta Chat

Signal is a nightmare, not because the steps are complicated, but because the transfer almost always failed for me. WhatsApp is kinda painless, apart of the phone number thing. Deltachat was pretty straight forward. Well done!
in reply to Delta Chat

Deltachat’s QR code is hard to scan with non-premium laptop cameras from a modern premium phone. It took me ages … One aspect might be that the screen size isn’t fully utilized on the phone?
in reply to Götz Hoffart

@goetz large display maybe, but also there are better qr-code scanning libraries/activities. It's possible to improve but low prio because setup-second device is a relatively rare event, and a bit of a first-world problem. (>90% of onboarders are single-device according to some rough statistics)
in reply to Delta Chat

Ich nutze Signal problemlos auf vier Geräten (iPhone, iPad, MacBook und DOS-Rechner, Delta Chat habe ich installiert, nutze ich aber nicht. WhatsApp habe ich seit vier Jahren nicht mehr und ansonsten noch Threema auf iPad und iPhone. Signal ist am unkompliziertesten.
in reply to Delta Chat

DC is easily my favorite UX of these 3 because any device can be the primary - needing to create accounts on Whatsapp and Signal with a phone and tie a phone number to the account before creating a quite awkward secondary on a computer is, especially after that WA data leak, pretty unfortunate.

other folks have mentioned some Matrix and XMPP clients, and while I understand why DC does everything with QR codes to mitigate MITM attacks, it does make that standard workflow of scanning a QR code off a phone into the computer a pain in the neck. Matrix's approach to a username/password and then key syncing via emoji checking is really universal and slick.

in reply to Delta Chat

As of now telegram is doing a better job than Delta in case of setting up a desktop device. Showing a qr code from a mobile device to a laptop camera is a bit weird and clunky. Let alone you need to have a web cam on your desktop device which is not always the case.
in reply to Delta Chat

@Delta Chat I would vote Delta, Signal requires your first device to be mobile, and puts a limit on how many devices you can have.

(I'd vote, but Mastodon polls aren't #friendica compatible).

in reply to Delta Chat

with delta the whole “connect to the same network” thing is a big roadblock, it’s not always trivial to get that working
in reply to zivi

@zaire to clarify if someone is reading that out of context:

Delta Chat's multiple devices can be in different networks, and can be indepenently offline

only on setup, existing and to-be-set-up devices needs to be in the same network (which also has some security advantages)

@zivi
This entry was edited (5 months ago)
in reply to bjoern

> only on setup, existing and to-be-set-up devices needs to be in the same network (which also has some security advantages)

👋relay op here. i'm working on a way to negate the need being on the same vlan/lan segment. stay tuned.

in reply to @ᴊᴀᴇ@ʙꜱᴅ.ᴄᴀꜰᴇ[ᴍᴏᴠᴇᴅ]™

@jae @zaire @r10s we could make it work over the Internet (using the same technique as what webxdc.org/docs/spec/joinRealt… offers, using "Iroh" under the hood) but we decided against it for now. It fundamentally prevents exploits like thehackernews.com/2025/02/hack…
Unknown parent

friendica - Link to source
Ji Fu (Domestic Terrorist)

Lol!

basic features
apple watch

One of these is not like the other.

in reply to Delta Chat

I think XMPP is the best since it uses one key pair for end-to-end encryption per device. Delta Chat uses one key pair across all devices, which may be a security risk.
This entry was edited (5 months ago)