No need to ban what will, by default, become an unsustainable business model.
Beeper’s business model is actually based on people wanting all their messaging services in one app so they’re not always separated.
I don’t like Beeper personally, but this kind of misunderstands what Beeper intends to do, which is bigger and more thoughtful than what Sunbird is doing, which is just iMessage.
I prefer Beeper because I don’t need multiple other chat apps installed and grabbing my data.
Yes, you have to trust Beeper.
I personally found it when I was forced to use WhatsApp with my landlord, and refuse to install any meta apps on my phone. I’ve since linked Telegram and Discord.
Not to mention many of those apps require permissions to work, but I can easily deny them on Beeper and Beeper doesn’t care.
It’s not just that you have to trust them, it’s that you have to trust them loads more than any other company.
So instead of having WhatsApp on your phone, Beeper now has your WhatsApp messages… You trade a lot of privacy for a little convenience.
I’d rather they have my messages vs WhatsApp, Discord, Telegram, etc. all having individual access to my photos, location, all of my phone sensor data, etc.
Like I said, many apps refuse to work properly if you deny them permissions, but Beeper doesn’t.
Hope they don’t get pwned.
I don’t use any of the services I mentioned to send any private or personal info. They could all be public tweets for all I care. I care more about my location data and other data these individual apps would get access to, over the messages I send through them.
Like Telegram is used strictly for unraid notifications, WhatsApp with my landlord, and Discord is public servers.
Nothing private at all.
Permissions management should prevent all of those things from ever happening. And if you’re still not sure (eg, needing to temporarily provide storage access), you can use an app like Shelter to further prevent them from accessing sensitive (ie almost all) files on your phone.
ETA: Telegram has access to almost all your messages to begin with, unless you go through a very specific and inconvenient route… WhatsApp at least tries to maintain some form of to E2EE encryption; it shouldn’t be able to see anything you send or received.
It’s just easier to use a single app. I don’t use any of the services I mention to send any private info. Like I said in a different reply, Telegram is for unraid notifications, WhatsApp is for my landlord to yell at me, and Discord is public servers.
All already public info or basic alerts. I’d prefer just not having a bunch of apps installed.
That’s fair enough. I just know what I like, and how to get it (and in the off chance anybody else happens to be curious, well, hopefully that helps them out some).
Data’s worth a lot of money, after all, make sure you don’t give it away in exchange for too little convenience 😉
I appreciate you sharing this information. I didn’t know about Shelter
Sunbird is more than iMessage isn’t it? I had the beta installed for a little bit and it was messenger, sms, iMessage, and a few others that haven’t used.
Beeper sounds cool, if I still had android I would use it.
If only my fucking iPhone would let me use real Firefox and not a safari skin.
I mean, it’s still useful even if you have an apple device, it still let’s you use 10+ messaging apps in one place
Once RCS support rolls out on the iPhone, any cross-platform chat will have all the same advantages and features as iMessage, including read receipts, typing indicators, and high-res image sharing. Why bother jumping through loopholes when you can get the same experience using the native chat app?
We will see if RCS brings the same features of iMessage (it’s not going to be 1:1) and without E2EE I’ll continue to talk to my Android friends on another platform anyway.
