No, he just doesn’t respond to any kind of message and never has. He can’t be bothered.
Well then, either you give them a call to talk and ask him why, or meet him, or stop messaging him.
Life used to be simple before the internet, we talked or we didn’t. Why it is so complicated now? 
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When I install Whatsapp in SFOS, I can use it but I can also uninstall it or even reflash at any time to have a clean, ‘untainted’ system again.
The much bigger devel in my eyes is to use the OS already tainted with spyware all over.
I am happy to have a Linux OS on my daily driver without sending data to US every 4 min.
Whatsapp is running in Waydroid if needed and I switch it off, silent most of the time.
Many uneducated players in my environment completely oversee the basic role of the OS in this privacy shattering game, and if they realize, they have no clue how to avoid the evil duopoly…
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Thankfully we all live in the same area because I dislike using my phone too. I make the effort to visit everyone multiple times a week. When I stopped carrying a phone it took several months before they stopped assuming I was dead if they didn’t get a response. Usually someone will come to check if I don’t reply by midnight and they know I’ve been traveling. I was serious about blocking their numbers if we didn’t switch to Signal. But they were equally stubborn so I had to explain how it made me feel that our messages were unencrypted. Eventually they relented. In a practical sense nothing changed since Signal works like any other messaging app. It was a controversy over nothing.
I explained and made it clear to them. But nothing’s changed. I decided to just delete all socials anyway and use signal alone with 0 contacts. If they need me, then they know where to look. I won’t bother explaining anymore. I guess I am not important enough for them to make a switch.
Well said. If I am important and matter enough, they will make an effort for me. Or else I’m showing them the door.
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Just relax and give the THEM some time. Most of the blablah in groups is worth nothing and personal contacts will come back.
Enjoy a few calm weeks, take your time while they take theirs.
Happy new year.
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Yeah, that is my experience too, so I do not use Signal but Threema with my family and friends.
I have Telegram (or better to say Fernschreiber) for some Groups and WhatsApp for some people who are in that old habbit train too. But it really is only for emergencies and people I can not convince to switch more or less. This limits my whatsapp use to maybe once a month or less and since it is containerised, the privacy problems should be much smaller than with an Android phone.
Best regards
*Fuchur*
PS: Is your family from China or at least Asia or why the heck does anybody in their right mind use WeChat in Europe? What would be the benefit of that app?
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I wanted to chat with my china friends but their entire country is locked down. There is zero alternatives too. We are fortunate to live in a free world whereby we could chose Therma or Signal. In order for my china friends to communicate with me outside of China, it is either VPN or China apps.
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I see, so they are forced to and live in China. That makes sense.
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Some years ago (at least 7) at Christmas when the complete family was at one table, I put 2.5€ in everyones place and told them to install Threema. Now. It did work
Afterwards, same evening I messaged the top ten last chats in WhatsApp that I will only be available in threema and signal from exactly now on and deleted WhatsApp.
Most people who cared about me migrated to signal / threema or had it anyway and the rest… either call, SMS or email. Some people refused to contact me or answer me on anything else than WhatsApp and these contacts died for me.
I have never regretted it ever since.
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That sounds like good situation, I also like very much that with AAS whatsapp will be containerized. Perfection is the worst enemy of good…
Probably good search would give me answer also, but is there native client for Threema?
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Sadly no, but Threema Libre is FOSS and available by the developer from their website or bei F-Droid. This makes it great for the iOS or Android users who will at least use better privacy respecting software (which is from Europe, does not need you to put in your telephone number, etc) then before and for us it is a compromise we can take because it is still better than most alternatives to use a google-free FOSS software available to everybody we want to chat or do calls.
I’d highly like a native client too, but till a dev is willing to have a look at that, the next best thing is a FOSS apk client.
The only small drawback is the initial price, but it is very fair and you can use your licences for a lifetime with even the possibility to regain it using an pretty nice e-mail forum on there website.
(you can use any email you want to buy and it will not be attached to your threema account if you do not want to, but it is used to recover your lic key if you lost it. So it should be a real one, but creating a new one only for this if you want to is fine.)
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Thank you for detailed answer! I think the initial cost of Threema is very reasonable. Of course I probably won’t be able to get my friends move over as it cost that tiny bit, but for my close family I could pay even myself.
When I am finally moving to daily drive SailfishOS, I would love to use as much as possible native apps. This would direct me to stay in Signal, but have to consider. Would love to move messaging with close family to European based company
Just out of curiosity, what’s the advantage of Threema over, for example, Signal?
I stopped using the native Threema client because the last person I knew who was using Threema switched to Signal at some point.
Well for me biggest reason would be to use European platform. But for some it sounds like it is more private as it doesn’t even know your phone number. I think their main selling point is to be even more private
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Threema was developed or at least widely used before Signal came around. So it is at least a parallel developement. Encryption and privacy is at least on par or even slightly above (because you do not need a telephone number to use it for instance)
Anyway the most important thing: It is based in Switzerland instead of being effectively based in the US. (Signal uses servers in the US)
At least in DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) and in the EU it is pretty common and known and it is a great alternative to Signal if you want to have a European tech independency from US or Chinese companies. (I see it as a big problem, that close to any app that is used in the main stream is based on Silicon Valley or China and both governments are able to receive (and possibily manipulate if there are holes in the encryption process or back doors, which are mandatory in some countries by law…) data from the users of the services.
In general, if I can use a European based service, I will use that one. I do not say, that there are not problems with governments in the EU neighter, but the big difference is: In Europe there is a stronger data protection in place and you can more or less easily sue whoever does not respect it, while if you try to sue an US or China bases company as a EU citizien, you can really just throw the paper used for that into your garbage can.
Best regards
*Fuchur*
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I don’t know if this not a bit overstated: Swiss Crypto AG spying scandal shakes reputation for neutrality - BBC News
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I am aware of that arguement / that it is not as great as it used to be. Still I do not buy that as an argument for using Signal in this case.
In the absence of better alternatives, it still is better to host in Europe and support a European company, since we can at least do something about a potential miss-use (just in case we can sue or a official data protection officer from one of the many countries in the EU can do that, etc.) which we can not do with US based companies / services as a non-US-citizen.
And since the encryption seems to be very good in both cases (at least based on the audits of external companies done on threema and what we can see from the Open Source Code of the client side) this still is for me the superior thing compared to a service which can be very easily overrun / forced to give out anything with the national security reasoning in the US, more or less under the control / mercy of Trump or the US government.
Best regards
*Fuchur*
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Yes, this is exactly, why its netter to use decenrlized services like Matrix or XMPP user can chois trusted server, rent instance or host complet own server.
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