I’ve tried to split the Signal chat out to this topic, but I fear we might need a generic “instant messenger comparison” thread!
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Well, it took over 24 hours but Signal is back online! 
I do worry though just how many new users this major disruption might have cost them.
I’ve read some interesting speculative analysis over on the Signal forum that this was likely caused by a perfect storm of a huge surge in new users over the past week and a bug in Android beta 5.2.0 that essentially caused the service to DDOS itself. I’m sure a blog post or something will be published soon explaining what caused such a big outage.
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Indeed
The Venn diagram of the folk who will actually read that blog post and those new to Signal who have found it fail for a day in their first week might well be two circles next to one another though!
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Sadly you’re absolutely right. Although I’ll try to spread it to the more skeptical relatives who are considering relapsing back to the dark side!
Service wasn’t fully down for everyone since the problems began, but it - for me and those I’ve been speaking with over on the Signal forum at least - has been consistently temperamental (if that isn’t too much of an oxymoron!) right up until an hour or two ago. The more crucial elements of the app seemed to resume rather early on, but delivery indicators and read receipts have been a mess all evening. The speculation regarding a beta app causing DDOSing is based off the Signal team’s urgent request for debug logs of the Android app earlier, and some people who know more about this than me’s analysis of said logs. Signal also urgently pushed out an update to replace that troublesome beta this evening.
Edit: this post on Reddit explains things way better than me: Reddit - Dive into anything
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Having used it for a week, I still prefer Telegram for its features, cloud backup and uniform accessibility from any device.
Ideally I would like to use Signal, but ultimate security and privacy aren’t my only priorities.
I’ve got to say @ravipatel, the cloud syncing functionality of Telegram is absolutely awesome! It feels just like what the messaging experience in this day and age should be like. However I personally just can’t take a step backwards from WhatsApp (E2E encryption → all of my data being stored on Telegram’s servers in a format that is accessible by them) in terms of privacy (…yes FB can see metadata, but at least they can’t see chat contents). And for those who say that you can use E2EE with Telegram via their Secret Chats, Signal’s chats are far more useable than Secret Chats for day-to-day messaging (multi-device sync, can forward messages, can delete things only for you and not automatically for both parties, can take screenshots if you need…). As an added bonus, I’m actually finding Signal more convenient than WhatsApp due to your PC/Mac and iPad not having to be constantly connected to your phone to send and receive messages; it’s a huge improvement!
But different horses for different courses of course! I think it’s great that there are two, such fully-featured, free alternatives to WhatsApp, despite its seeming monopoly on the global IM market.
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I’ve noticed some of my contacts popping up on Signal over the last week. I convinced all my family to move over last year.
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I’m calling bullshit. Just checked the App Store charts. WhatsApp is third, Telegram 23 and Signal 30.
My work moved their team group chats to Telegram and the operations group to Signal. I have to use both 
I use WhatsApp for personal stuff so I don’t have to look at work groups after hours 
I’ve been reading the Guardian for over 25 years. There’s still some quality journalism but there are far too many puff pieces and liberal diatribes nowadays. And I say this as someone that can’t stand the modern day right.
Unfortunately I’d say the Guardian is about the only free “quality” UK newspaper remaining.
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We would never be allowed to use everyday messaging apps for work. That sounds like a problem waiting to happen.
It’s definitely not, far more secure than using Workplace Chat by Facebook
We have a key ring that generates a code every 30 seconds to log into anything that is above confidential levels so it’s very safe
Plus the messaging is encrypted anyway 
The good thing with Signal is if you log in to your account on different devices the messages don’t transfer because they are never stored anywhere
I’m thinking more about who you can message and send confidential files too.
When you’re posting on a work Slack theres never a risk of sending info externally.
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Oh I see what you mean
The messaging groups are only for day to day work talk, nothing else is allowed on them
That stuff is kept to using internal systems
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Signal have apparently doubled their userbase in the space of a month, from 20m to 40m. But seems there’s some concern internally over the possible effects of such rapid growth:
Employees worry that, should Signal fail to build policies and enforcement mechanisms to identify and remove bad actors, the fallout could bring more negative attention to encryption technologies from regulators at a time when their existence is threatened around the world.
Read this a few weeks back. I think there’s a big difference between extremist groups on social media and messaging platforms. By their very nature the former end up promoting this content and increasing its visibility whilst on the latter you have to specifically go hunting for it. I’d also say there are much clearer free speech issues at play here in stopping people having private group chats about whatever they want.
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I think it’s unfair to suggest Nicholas Cage shouldn’t be allowed to use Signal
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