Signal as an easy-to-use and probably more secure WA replacement? Sure.
But for #digitalSovereignty we should go for something really free and federated, just like the fediverse. There are various options, of course. Each with pros and cons attached.
(My personal favourite is #Jabber, which exists since 1999 and is extremely easy to use thanks to #Quicksy and its Indian cousin #Prav.)
We are delighted to announce that we are a community partner of the event #LucknowFOSS, organized by @fossunited 
Event details 
fossunited.org/c/lucknow/2025
On the 12th of April, @untrusem will be giving a talk at #LucknowFOSS about how they got into #FreeSoftware and #Prav!
fossunited.org/c/lucknow/2025/…
Be sure to attend!
fossunited.org/c/lucknow/2025
@untrusem will be sharing his experiences in contributing to @prav at #LucknowFOSS. It would serve as a great opportunity for newbies to learn how to contribute to #FreeSoftware in general (and it doesn't require a technical background).
Event details https://fossunited.org/c/lucknow/2025.
Thanks to @fossunited. See you there!
@untrusem will be giving a talk on his contribtions to @prav at #LucknowFOSS
"In this Lighting talk, I will share my little journey on contributing to #Prav, which is a free software. This talk will mostly be centered toward students. I will tell how I contributed to the project as a Non-Cs Student and How can they too regardless of their Background.
This Talk will also inform attendees about #XMPP and #federation."
I agree and I would not even say, that my preferred solutions (mainly #Jabber or other federated systems) would be more secure for the threat models Signal tries to counter.
But, of course I can't recommend Signal to my family or to my friends, because they would not be able to reach me then and would wonder why I don't eat my own cat food 
However, esp. with #Quicksy (which has an Indian variant now, called #Prav), I'ld say it's equally easy to get even non-tech people on board.
Meet us at our stall at #LucknowFOSS on the 12th of April.
Event details fossunited.org/c/lucknow/2025
Thanks to @fossunited
@ravi will be presenting #Prav at #KDE India conference in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. Feel free to join and ask questions about the project and get stickers and flyers.
Event details conf.kde.in/2025/
The story behind finalizing #Prav #Cooperative bye-laws!
The Prav Cooperative, though unregistered, already opens up several doors for us. Besides letting us manage our own funds, the first of these would be allowing us to sign up to an Indian SMS gateway, thereby reducing our message sending fees by 90%! Being formally recognised also means we can hopefully register under our own name on the Google Play Store and other official sources, rather than having to piggyback.
@janvlug The same way, not every user will have to modify #FreeSoftware to benefit from right to modify.
Why should we accept the monopoly of a single organization to make changes on the server ? Especially those of us in the Free Software community who understand Free Software includes the right to modify.
When we can have both a simplified option for masses (#Quicksy and #Prav) AND choices for people who need (Monocles Chat, Snikket, Monal etc), then why give up on choices ? #xmpp
@janvlug We already improved #Quicksy with #Prav for SMS delivery. In countries like Nepal and Brazil, Quicksy SMS was not working. We changed our SMS provider in Prav and Prav SMS works in these countries.
So even if every person can't modify the server, as a collective, we can change the server too. For users this comes as choices. Both Quicksy and Prav are hosted and operated from outside US. So people get a choice of laws applicable to the service as well.
@janvlug #Signal is better than #WhatsApp, but still centralized. The entire world depending on a Single organization is not very sustainable. We have Quicksy and Prav both giving the same convenience of Signal without lock-in. #Quicksy and #Prav users can talk to each other and to any other #XMPP app.
To actually practice the freedom to improve a software, we should be able to self host the server part (not necessarily each person has to self host, but that option can offer real choice).
durare.org community is divided in the ongoing poll - whether to allow direct integration with #Prav app.
If the proposal passes, people who cannot pay for prav.app account will get an option to create a durare.org account.
durare.org accounts are now created manually on request. We could automate that for people verifying their phone number.
https://codema.in/d/m7FIhH2i/provide-phone-number-verification-via-sms-otp-using-prav-app/1
We will try to address the concerns of those who disagree and hope to bring them onboard as well.
I presented #Prav today at #BiharFOSS. The interactive demo suggested by @libreinator and @badrihippo was simple for newbies to understand and made the talk interactive.
The idea was to get two volunteers from the audience, one having #WhatsApp and the other using #Telegram, followed by asking them to send a text from WhatsApp to Telegram. After this, get a volunteer with non-Airtel number to send an SMS to me (as I use Airtel), illustrating federation nicely.
I and @contrapunctus are at IIT Patna to talk about @prav tomorrow in #BiharFOSS. We will also share stickers and flyers. We will be glad to see you there
Event details https://fossunited.org/c/bihar/2025
We have the very first screenshots of #Prav iOS app! Thanks to Vaidik who made it and also thanks to #Monal developers for releasing Monal as #FreeSoftware
https://opencollective.com/prav-ios/updates/initial-screenshots-of-the-prav-ios-app
We identified iOS app as a priority for Prav community through a poll and then raised funds to build the app via Open Collective. https://opencollective.com/prav-ios
This is a new model we are experimenting with Prav - individuals collectively setting priority instead of developers, business or govts.
@bshankar @prav If you have not joined Prav xmpp group yet, you can join https://join.jabber.network/#prav@chat.disroot.org?join
You can also volunteer to introduce Prav at events, distributing leaflets, stickers etc. We had table at FOSS Meet in Kozhikode last week, this week we will be at Patna for #BiharFOSS. We hope to be at #LucknowFOSS as well.
@bshankar I wanted to comment on your blog post https://bshankar.pages.dev/getting-family-on-xmpp/ (saw it on fsci group)
#Quicksy would have been the simpler option for most people. But unfortunately Quicksy is mostly driven by a single person from Germany and mass adoption and publicity seem to be not a priority for them. So we are trying to promote the idea of Quicksy through a cooperative run project called @prav You are welcome to join this effort to take the idea Quicksy to the masses.
