In a similar boat to you. Is there something out there that:
+ is committed to free software
+ respects the users
+ none of the poisonous big tech giant companies involved
+ is cross-platform
+ does text, calls, videocalls, file-transfers
+ can be set-up "normally" by non-technical friends and family
+ is ideally all the other good things: lightweight, smooth, decentralised, p2p, private, secure
I certainly couldn't find it. I've tried tox, jami, xmpp, irc, matrix, etc. There are things that can be set-up with some effort and messing with servers and verifying devices and so on, but not things you can talk your mother through during a phone call without a great threshold for annoyance (sorry Ma).
Signal maybe comes closest, and is what I use, but they have a few (big) issues too.
+ is committed to free software + respects the users + none of the poisonous big tech giant companies involved + is cross-platform + does text, calls, videocalls, file-transfers + can be set-up "normally" by non-technical friends and family + is ideally all the other good things: lightweight, smooth, decentralised, p2p, private, secure
I certainly couldn't find it. I've tried tox, jami, xmpp, irc, matrix, etc. There are things that can be set-up with some effort and messing with servers and verifying devices and so on, but not things you can talk your mother through during a phone call without a great threshold for annoyance (sorry Ma).
Signal maybe comes closest, and is what I use, but they have a few (big) issues too.
Any tip-offs greatly appreciated.