zlacker

I actually like Signal, and would use it a lot more, but don't because of one feature - link previews. I understand the technical reasoning why are they so slow to adopt it, but I (and a group of people I communicate on a daily basis) would probably accept even a half-baked solution like the one on WhatsApp.

>>salex8+(OP)
Why do you find WhatsApp's solution half baked?

>>salex8+(OP)
You want your encrypted chat application to emit DNS queries to your ISP. As another Signal user, I do not want that. Nor do I want the bloat of this and other features that will make the core functionality worse. Next we'll want Memoji's and animated drawings and fireworks.

My point is, there is already an app for that. Signal has a completely different purpose.

>>salex8+(OP)
I never found link previews useful. I always try to disable them when I can, and take care to not post a link with a preview (where I can) so as not to polute the visual space of the chat. The only case where I enjoy them is in Wikipedia.

>>pacemk+l3
You can generate a preview on the sender side. I think WhatsApp does it like that. Since you're the one sending the link, you've already opened it/know what's behind it. The receiver would basically get a thumbnail, with no egress traffic.

As for the DNS, if you're concerned with the DNS of your ISP, you shouldn't be using it anyway (I don't).

Don't extrapolate what I said. I like link previews and don't like Memojis and bloatware. But more often than not I like to know what's behind the URL. Maybe I don't wan't to open the site, or already seen the article, or the preview is enough to get information (like weather?).

If we're on the road to proliferate privacy-conscious behaviour, we need to give something to "the masses", so they can enjoy the experience. And I want my mom and dad using products such as Signal, so I can use it with them. I have no use of it if my friends are not using it, and I'm all alone on the whole network. I don't support bloatware, but some sugar is needed.

>>oblio+p
Even though it's generated sender-side, AFAIK, you wound't even know it is there as a feature. You paste a link, wait some time, and a preview appears. If you send it immediately, there is no preview. Which is acceptable, but at least give some kind of indication that the preview is being generated. Or for some links there is just no preview, and you stay there like an idiot waiting for a preview to appear without any notice it failed. Sometimes the preview is just not that good, although it's also up to the link optimisation.

>>salex8+(OP)
It's already there, but there are only a few websites supported:

https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/blob/0ef01cc620c...

If you opened a PR with the websites you're missing, I'm sure they'd be open to it.

I see sibling comments mentioning that they wouldn't want this feature (which is already there) because of its privacy implications, but I think that it basically works like gifs, with a proxy controlled by Signal.