This particular change on private contact discovery looks like a great initiative, like many others by Signal.
I'm all for privacy and security. That said, I like the idea of Signal, but don't use it at all. The reasons are straightforward. It's not as good as Telegram in UX/UI/features. It is not multi-platform (I don't like installing Chrome/Chromium just to add Signal). Worst of all, it doesn't have multi-device message sync (like Wire does, even with end-to-end encryption).
Ok, fine, I could learn to live with those limitations and quirkiness. But far worse than all of the above is the fact that if you change devices (at least on iOS), you start with a blank slate [1] because Signal's developers refuse to allow data backups and restores (encrypted ones through iTunes on a computer or plain backups on iCloud). [2] The application does not allow backups of the data because the developers have actively restricted it! Not everyone is capable of creating a PR or forking it. The people who did take the time to file it as an issue or a request have been told it won't be done or the issues left unresponded to or locked for further commenting. Anyone interested in what's been happening on this particular issue can visit https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-iOS/issues , search for "backup" and look at the open and closed issues over the past few years.
I feel bad to say this, but without a minimally decent UX, which Signal does not provide IMO, I can't recommend it to anyone. People don't expect to lose all previous chats and conversations when they buy a new phone. Quoting a line from the blog post, albeit out of context, that's not "We want to enable online social interactions that are rich and expressive in all the ways that people desire" means - not to me personally.
I'm all for privacy and security. That said, I like the idea of Signal, but don't use it at all. The reasons are straightforward. It's not as good as Telegram in UX/UI/features. It is not multi-platform (I don't like installing Chrome/Chromium just to add Signal). Worst of all, it doesn't have multi-device message sync (like Wire does, even with end-to-end encryption).
Ok, fine, I could learn to live with those limitations and quirkiness. But far worse than all of the above is the fact that if you change devices (at least on iOS), you start with a blank slate [1] because Signal's developers refuse to allow data backups and restores (encrypted ones through iTunes on a computer or plain backups on iCloud). [2] The application does not allow backups of the data because the developers have actively restricted it! Not everyone is capable of creating a PR or forking it. The people who did take the time to file it as an issue or a request have been told it won't be done or the issues left unresponded to or locked for further commenting. Anyone interested in what's been happening on this particular issue can visit https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-iOS/issues , search for "backup" and look at the open and closed issues over the past few years.
I feel bad to say this, but without a minimally decent UX, which Signal does not provide IMO, I can't recommend it to anyone. People don't expect to lose all previous chats and conversations when they buy a new phone. Quoting a line from the blog post, albeit out of context, that's not "We want to enable online social interactions that are rich and expressive in all the ways that people desire" means - not to me personally.
[1]: https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/212476798
[2]: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-iOS/issues/2290