cross-posted from: https://piefed.ca/c/canada/p/727265/signal-to-ottawa-we-ll-leave-canada-before-we-help-you-spy-on-users
Signal is drawing a hard line on the federal government’s proposed surveillance legislation: comply with Bill C-22 or leave the country. The secure messaging app says it would rather ditch the Canadian market than be forced to weaken the privacy protections it has built its reputation on. In an interview with The Globe and Mail
If they left the Canadian market, what’s preventing Canadians from still using it?
The Canada-region app stores like Apple or Android would be unwilling to let you download the app if the law passes. So without sideloading, it just wouldn’t be accessible.
It’s not sideloading.
Any reason Signal couldn’t offer a web app client?
cuz they dont store msgs on a server. feature, not a bug
Web browsers have a local storage API.
And by side loading you mean installing software on a device you own, like PCs have been forever. Side loading is a 100% bullshit term created by Apple and Google to try and make sure you don’t think you actually own your devices
Ok, I’m on board. So like what do we call installing an app outside of a store?
Installing a downloaded application.
Am I the only one who has app store accounts for multiple regions?
But actually, if this happens (and it won’t, at least this time), the next bill to go through would have to be for the right to sideload. Because all of the politicians use Signal and would need a way to install it.
Or people could just install it from fdroid.
Oh wait, signal isn’t FOSS so it isn’t allowed on fdroid.
Molly is on fdroid I believe
Not the official repo…because they couldn’t meet it’s acceptance criteria. Which is a red flag
I think it used to, but unfortunely Molly is not on Fdroid’s repo. You can download it from the app, but you’d need to add Molly’s repo
Yep and Molly is even better :)
I get it from FDroid cia the Guardian repo. No issues.
Security issues. guardian repo has no acceptances criteria. Closed source blobs? Allowed.
GrapheneOS frowns upon fdroid because of apk security reasons
Well unless they want to add verified APKs of all the apps I do use to their app store, their frowning is useless because every graphene user basically needs f-droid as it stands now.
https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android AGPL
Lol no.
Download the apk. It includes that AGPL and also non free blobs. Just because part of if is Foss does not make if foss
Nothing to laugh at here in my view. It is FOSS. The reason it isn’t on there is sort of procedural. You could easily build signal from source, but signal prefers only their builds connect to their servers. They of course can’t enforce this but fdroid is happy to do so.
what about Molly, then?
Molly is Foss, but it’s not on fdroid for likely other sketchy reasons
You can import the repo into F-Droid.
…and make yourself less secure, sure
Its on Accrescent though
I think they can use the VPN to get access to it. It’s a way to make sure governments doesn’t exert too much pressure to give up data!
True, until VPNs are also banned (like some US states are doing). One anti-privacy law passed will bring up another, then another, then another.