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AlecSchueler06/16/20252 repliesview on HN

Signal seems to be booming right now in the Netherlands. I've been using it for years and never managed to grow my contact list beyond single digits, being a few friends in tech and a few who were very privacy conscious. All of those people were also available on WhatsApp and we'd often forget and message one another there.

But since January the trust in Meta has not only plummeted but it's become a mainstream enough talking point that I now receive invites to join Signal groups from--for want of a better term--normal people. Two of the local parenting groups I'm on are on Signal and no one ever mentions it or questions it, it's just "here's the group link" and the expectation that everyone has it installed.


Replies

ghusto06/16/2025

In the Netherlands, was trying to promote Signal.

I switched phones and lost all my history. Now I’m fairly careful with these things, and make backups, but even I wasn’t able to get it back. Couldn’t recommend it to anyone since.

There’s a line between being secure and being useful, and they’re slightly unbalanced in Signal.

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dakial106/16/2025

Something seems to have happened in NL in March that generated some demand for it, but it seems to have vanished now:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=NL&q=%2Fm%2F012...

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