As you may have noticed, I added a Signal account in the contacts section. Mike Kuketz wrote on his blog how to use a second Signal account on ones phone. This is the link to the relevant article.

Anyway: I already use Signal for my “real life” identity. Even though Signal offers user names, and the ability to hide ones phone number: I don’t trust that. And secondly, you can only set one username. If I wanted to be active under myreallifename.11111, I couldn’t use my furry nick (uvok) anymore, and vice versa. This sucks. The article proposes to use the alternative client Molly on mobile. Since I don’t use Signal on desktop much anyway, this is an okay-ish solution. I have a second SIM card with a different number, so registering a second account provides the separation I desire. Yeah, I’m quite aware Signal could cut off this client anytime, with its “no third party clients” policy (???), though. I’ll deal with it when that happens.

I’d still prefer to use messengers without the need for a phone number. For simple use cases, XMPP still works “good enough” for me. But eh, just in case someone has something sensitive to tell me, I now have this as a contact method.

Also, I recently vented about Discord requiring a phone number when you want to join a chat / group, or at least if you appear “suspicious” for whatever reason (I refuse to use the Discord lingo “server”, since this is a blatant lie). What’s the difference between giving the phone number to Signal vs Telegram vs Discord? Well, that is a valid question, I’m not even sure myself. Back when I started using Signal, it was touted as an alternative to SMS, even still handled SMS itself. It seemed “trustworthy enough”. Telegram wasn’t really trustworthy to me, so I got a second SIM card. I didn’t want my IRL contacts who have my phone number to find my furry Telegram account. At the same time, if you want to communicate with other furries, there seems to be no way around it (even though I bemoan that fact, and agree with soatok).

Now with Discord it’s a kind of “enough is enough” situation. Also, I have no really use for Discord, save for this one instance where I would have needed to join for a specific con staffing meeting. (Intro to tools, I had that last year already, so not a huge disadvantage).

My overall opinion is still “all messengers suck (one way or another)”. But hey, maybe this is still useful for some people.