Tag: Signal

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Where’s my media?

A short (I hope) note on where media (and text messages) are stored on WhatsApp and Signal, how to backup and restore messages, and how to “get rid” of them – mainly to save space on your phone. I’m going to rely on the links referred to in the post, rather than repeat their contents, so click on the relevant ones.

First, some important points to remember.

  • The primary device for both apps is the device that your phone number was registered with. Any other device that you access messages from the service are synchronised with the primary device (usually a phone). It follows from this that you should always think of both WhatsApp and Signal as mobile apps, not tablet or desktop applications.
  • If you lose your phone, or change your phone without backing it up in the app first, you will lose your message store, and all the media attached to messages. They will not be accessible from your tablet, or desktop, applications because the link for synchronisation will be broken.
  • This is because … NO MESSAGES OR MEDIA ARE STORED ON A SERVER – really, you must believe me!
  • All media that’s downloaded in WhatsApp will be (by default) saved to your Gallery (Android) or Camera Roll [Photos app] (iOS). This is not the case for Signal (see below).

For Android devices, if you want to switch this off, you should read this article. Media files are automatically saved in your WhatsApp/Media/folder. If you have Internal Storage, the WhatsApp folder is located in your Internal Storage. If you do not have internal storage, the folder will be on your SD Card or External SD Card.

For iOS devices, in the same vein, this article may be helpful if you don’t want WhatsApp to store media to your Camera Roll [Photos app].

  • It follows from the above that if you delete media inside WhatsApp and you haven’t changed the default settings, the media should still be in the Gallery, or Camera Roll of your device. [NB I haven’t checked this out because I no longer use WhatsApp.]

If you want to backup your WhatsApp message store, you can refer to this article to find out how to do it for Android and iOS devices, and for PCs (for downloaded media only).

The situation with iOS for Signal is different from that with Android when it comes to Downloading images. Signal does not save media to your Gallery or Camera Roll [Photos app]. If you want to manage the auto download of media to the app, you should read this article first which covers the situation well for Android users, but will need to have a look at this article to see how to switch-off automatic downloads into the app for iOS users. I’m not going to recommend this as a way forward for iOS. Stick to the default and only store the downloaded media in the app.

If you want to Backup or Restore your Signal message store, you are advised to carefully read this article which applies to Android and iOS devices.

Now some notes on deletion of media.

  • It follows from the note above on media saved outside the app that if you delete in the app, the media will still be in the Gallery or Camera Roll. If you delete in the Gallery, the media should still be in the app.
  • Deletion of a message from a Chat will delete the media attached to it, but will not delete the chat, or the media, from any recipients of any message you’ve sent – unless you’ve put an “automatic delete after”setting on the message (Signal only, I believe).
  • Thus, following from above, if a chat recipient replies to a message you’ve deleted, you may see a thumbnail of the media attached to the original message, in the reply.

For iOS users, to delete media from within WhatsApp chats you should read this article. For Android users, this article should help you.

For iOS and Android users, to delete media from within Signal chats you should read this article, save any media you want, select the items for deletion and press the trash icon.

Finally, and I hope you’ve got this far, I think this link summarises the situation really well for our preferred solution – Signal. Media is stored in the app, you have the option manually to save selected images to Gallery or Camera Roll [Photos app], thus saving on storage space and gaining additional security along the way too.

Phew! That’s taken a good deal longer than I expected it would.

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Notes of Zoom meeting – 23rd June 2022

First off can I thank Sianed for taking over the meeting for the “round the screen” session which enabled me to take notes and have the fun of “lifting my hand” to speak.

There was not much to report back on from the previous meeting. I mentioned that I’d come to a determination that all media and messages in WhatsApp (and Signal) was held on the phone that was registered to WhatsApp (or Signal); the images on the desktop (and the iPad for Signal) were synced to the phone. This it was agreed could cause some phones to easily run out of memory.

As far as News was concerned there were just a couple of items that I’d already added to the Flipboard magazine – one on moving chat histories from an Android phone to an iPhone, and another about new features that were to be added to Apple’s Homekit (for developers), which we might find some use of in our use of Smart devices in the future. [NB We need to give this area much more attention and look at the Smart home more.]

I then thanked everyone who’d replied to the survey about a future venue for our face-to-face meetings. Not unexpectedly, nothing came out as a definite area of agreement for everyone, but some things did come through – no preference for room layout; a desire for a bit of social distancing (and good ventilation) from a couple of members; and no real need for catering. Taking these into consideration, it appeared to me that if we could return to URC that would be a good solution – probably using the Upper Room (rather than Meeting Room 1). I suggested that the meeting after next we should meet at URC and try the venue out – so that’s where we’ll meet on 21st July, our last meeting of the year. [Subsequently, I’ve re-visited URC, have been impressed that they have a new projector system for the Upper Room and I’m now working with them (Bob) to perhaps enhance the WiFi system which they badly want to improve themselves. Watch this space!

We then had a very short break and Sianed took over!

Paul returned to the issue he’d been having with Resources and Chrome; in discussion with Ted it became apparent that there was a need for a comprehensive article on where videos were stored in WhatsApp and I undertook to write such a post. [Following the meeting I did post a few links on Signal, which might be useful in the meantime.]

David reported that his screen sharing from his iPad to the TV was now working well for his Bridge-playing Tutorials [a link to this is on Signal – thanks David].

Ralph thanked Paul for the advice he’d given on driving licence renewal.

Steve recommended investigating the use of iCloud – it’s not very expensive to get 50Gb of cloud storage – if you’re an Apple user.

Christine reported that after a bit of a quiet period, the scams had started again and she’d had ones from Amazon and Paypal [I would recommend everyone consider subscribing to the Which Scam Alert Service] and perhaps one from Welsh Water, but there was some discussion over whether this was the Priority Registration Service – which is worth joining in case there’s a disruption in water supply, or indeed joining the similar registers for our utilities. [We’ve done this.]

Fred had gone to the recent General meeting (Roald Dahl) and learnt a few things, and had also renewed his driving licence following Paul’s advice.

Jim was still not sure about where WhatsApp/Signal stored images etc. and reserved the right to comment later, following my investigations.

Renee reported that the online portal for registering a change in marital status was a nightmare. No further comment – we suspected that very few (if any) of us were likely to be needing to use that portal 🙂

Ann had got into a pickle with downloading photos to her Google account that had then filled up her allotted storage and mail had stopped working. I sent a few links (on Signal) to help her work this one out but again promised to wrire n article on that as soon as possible.

I had nothing to report – I’d been too busy in the garden!

I then gave a brief review on the internet browser and search engine markets, the links I used are on Flipboard, but I will try and write an article about this too.

Just like me, Sianed didn’t report on anything – something I too often forgot to do.

That’s about it. A couple of articles for me to write which I’ll try and do as soon as I can.

Our next meeting will be on July 7th which will be an outdoor social meeting at The Castle Coffee bar, where we met before. Pleas try and come along if you can.

Finally, you’ll remember that I left the WhatsApp group and left Jim as the Admin. I asked him last week whether there had been any relevant activity on it. He reported that there had not. Therefore we agreed that he should close it, and that he’ll do shortly. Anyone not using Signal, I strongly encourage you to download the app and start using it. Let me know and I’ll add you to the Computer Group group on Signal.

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Notes from Zoom meeting – 4th March 2021

Nineteen of us for our Zoom meeting yesterday. Yes! I’ve managed to get the notes done quicker this time.

I introduced the meeting, welcomed Barbara to her first meeting, did a demonstration on how the website worked and encourages members to take part either by writing a post, like Sianed last week, or to use the Forums and Topics. I showed how you could change some personal information under the Profile tab and highlighted the Noticeboard where changes to the site are recorded; the information available under Help and the Guides that are viewable.

I then went on to run through the “latest news” that I had curated in the Flipboard magazine, mainly focussing on Facebook’s problems in Australia and Microsoft’s attempts to get Bing as a preferred search engine over Google. The best experience of Flipboard is on a tablet, so I’d recommend looking on your app store to see if you can install it on your tablet (or smartphone).

Round the screen, not the one above which is a screenshot kindly taken by Jim, but the one I had in front of me …

Mike reported he’d solved his Mouse problem by using a Mouse Mat. Who’d have thought such a simple solution would work. Once he told us, many of us remembered stories of mice not working properly without a mouse mat and as Mike’s table was shiny, it was likely that this has contributed to the battery usage. His keyboard, which I’d previously reported as being a problem too, is working fine as well.

Marie-Christine had nothing to report.

Owen reported that the Beacon Members Portal was playing-up for some members and he’d had to do a fair bit of user-support since renewal of membership started. Of the 780 members the branch had, over 600 had renewed so far.

David H updated us on his Times subscription problem with Safari, Firefox and Chrome, but announced that it was now working with Brave. A really strange one – could it be something to do with the way browsers handled pop-ups. I don’t know. David is going to try Edge next to see if that works! He also reported that M&S Bank was closing – Owen provided this link to assist David find an alternative.

Margaret reported that she’d tried to install LibreOffice on her Android tablet with no success. Owen came to the rescue again with a reference to Collabora for Android and iOS which enables Libra Office to run on those platforms. Refer to your relevant App Store for downloads and installs. She also told us about “the scam that wasn’t” – eBay have enacted their plan to move away from Paypal so an email to that effect wasn’t a scam. On another note a scam to try and phish personal information from a hacked contact list by saying someone was seriously injured in an accident – with links to follow-up – was just as low as you can get! Margaret also told us about an issue with women’s pensions which is highlighted in this BBC News post.

Barbara told us about a disk drive problem she was having with her MacBook. The advice was to get in touch with John Lewis first, because that’s where she got it from, before going to the Apple Store. A phone-call now might be a good idea, to prepare the ground for the enquiry, for when we can visit the shops.

John enquired as to whether the group had a view on whether anti-trust legislation on an international scale might now be more feasible given the number of bad instances of fake news and scams during the Covid pandemic. I certainly felt that something was more likely to happen in the US now and referred to a couple of articles I’d posted to the Flipboard magazine recently on what the new US President’s agenda might include.

Jim had nothing to report. He had finished a video however that I’d be able to watch. I hope he doesn’t mind but here it is …

[He’s added a Comment about the purpose of making the video in a Comment below this post.]

Don told us about some work he’d done as a consequence of looking on the Money Saving Expert (MSE) website in respect of a Power of Attorney application he’d made online. He’d found the process to reclaim quite easy and had recovered £46 (I think). He also reported that following Sianed’s experience he’d purchased a Firestick and got the BT App and YouTube running on it. He had a Gmail project ahead of him as a consequence of his wife’s account having been compromised.

Paul showed us a magnetic USB cable that held together. Awesome! Must have one – I’m afraid I can’t find the website.

Fred advised that he had downloaded Signal and would be installing/joining shortly. He and the rest of his Close in Cregiau were having TalkTalk problems – actually BT OpenReach problems – and after many minutes trying to contact them reported that once he’d found an 0800 number, it was much quicker to contact them than the published 0333 number. There were bow OpenReach vans aplenty in the Close. This gave rise to a discussion on complaining and Barbara was of the opinion that using twitter was the best method of getting something done – she could be right!

Ann asked a question about JPEG files. I was able to state categorically that a native JPEG file was not a bad image. It had just had some information removed from it through a compression algorithm in the camera. Usually this was to remove detail from highlights and shadows. Left at that you would probably not notice any problem. If the camera allowed you to decrease the amount of compression then there would probably be no difference at all. If you edited an image, as long as you saved at 0% compression (100% quality) then there would be no decrease in the quality of the image.

Steve asked a question about Signal and whether it was an issue of privacy alone. I referred him to this blog post. I had also sent an email to the Group about my decision to move away from WhatsApp to Signal.

Stella asked how she could delete an app from her iPhone. I showed her in a practical demonstration. Press down on the app, wait until you see the icon wiggle and the ‘x’ appear. Press the ‘x’ and it will be removed. You can then press on the Home button to stop the app “wiggling”.

Christine announced success with her WiFi problem but she couldn’t be certain how she’d solved it. Barbara suggested that as a VM customer he might qualify for free Wifi extenders and encouraged her to follow that one up.

Renee said that VM appeared to be slow today, I suggested that she (and others) might like to look at their ISP’s status page.

For VM this would be – https://www.virginmedia.com/help/service-status

You would get taken to something like this …

You can also use this website to detect service outages – https://www.downdetector.co.uk – which links to many popular services.

Phil was just so excited by his new M1 MacBook Air that he had very little to say apart from some comment about Bing, the Rhondda and someone singing. It had been a long afternoon.

Finally Sianed introduced her post on LastPass. Anyone using LastPass, or thinking of using this password manager – which I recommend incidentally – should look at this blog post too, and if there are more than one user of the service in a family, you might consider taking out a Families membership which cover up to 6 people and an unlimited number of devices.

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Notes from Zoom meeting – 18th February 2021

I’m afraid the what had become the norm, delayed posting of notes has returned, so apologies for the late publication of these notes.

We welcomed a new member – Steve Jones – and I notice that there are a couple of new members hoping to join us for our next meeting too. So you’ll all have to be on your best behaviour!

I quickly followed up some issues from the previous meeting. Marie-Christine’s problem with Lightroom and Windows I’d dealt with in an email exchange but it might be that a bug-fix update to Lightroom was necessary to get a proper resolution. Jenny was not present at the meeting but Fred reported back on the National Pensioners Convention launch event on Tuesday 9th February. David Hughes had been challenged with his phone switching away from WiFi for calls and pushing his 4G calls bill up – we had advised on settings for WiFi calling and this now appeared to be working fine. Renee reported that her problems with alarm services and TV satellite were now fixed. Sianed was pleased to be able to report that she’d followed up our advice on howe to get her TV SMART once again by purchasing one of the many devices we’d suggested.

I quickly ran through some of the more interesting “news” items I’d posted on the Flipboard magazine.

I also quickly ran through the Thought grazing website, membership options (if people left the group, or if they were non-members but members of Cardiff U3A). I talked briefly about WordPress editing, commenting on posts and encouraged people to use the Bulleting Boards (Forums and Topics).

We seemed to spend a lot of time talking about COVID-19 and Jabs at this meeting – I wonder why. To that end, there were less than normal problems, issues, challenges and questions to discuss.

Marilyn had bitten the bullet and upgraded her iMac to BigSur. All was fine with her Lightroom Classic installation.

Owen gave further information on the Pixel issue mentioned in a Flipboard post and suggested we might like to consider using Pixel Block as a way to prevent information about us to be sent back to marketing departments of shops such as Sainsbury.

Stella was very unhappy about the WiFi service in her house and wondered about signal boosters. As she was using a 4G internet service to her router we felt that the problem should be reported to her ISP – Three – before any additional kit was purchased.

David Hughes reported on his interesting adventure into the world of online paying-in of cheques which was both instructive and interesting. His other query related to shared access to the apartments in his community at Penarth. Several solutions were offered. Whilst the popular option of a Keysafe got a lot of support, the possible insurance aspect of this must be taken into account. An alternative suggested by Fred were using a MasterSuite from Tunstall key set (all locks would have to be changed). Fred suggested contacting the Local Authority as they might have a preferred supplier.

Steve had a strange problem which seemed to involve phonecalls re-booting his WiFi. I’m not sure we really got the bottom of that one.

Jim was using Animatica to create slideshows of images with music coming from audacity. I look forward to watching the outcome of this project.

Paul had been looking at his Google file storage with the intended changes to the way Google was going to charge for what had previously been free high-resolution (ie not original quality) images. As with most of us the world of Backup’n’sync is a bit of mystery too!

Christine was still suffering problems with her WiFi when trying to play online bridge. The devices seem to freeze after 1hr 10mins when using Zoom – and yes it’s a paid-for account! Would Powerline Adapters help? She also commented upon Facebook ownership of Content – I disagreed with her son’s interpretation.

Don Roadblocks – games???? He reported that a grandson was happy to download animation software and create a Lego film in about 3hrs. Incredible!

Mike was having problems with his Bluetooth mouse and keyboard dying. We suggested buying a pair that would share the same USB port on his computer.

Ann was examining the cost of her phone contract and weighing up options. EE against Skynet; 4G vs. Broadband. We await her conclusions.

Me – I’d been mainly working on cataloguing videos and changing them to .MP4 format and archiving them onto the family website.

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Notes from Zoom meeting – 21st January 2021

Apologies (again) for the late arrival of these notes. Covid is certainly slowing me down – is that the same for you!!?? We kicked-off by going round the screen, several members had nothing to raise, no IT-problems is a Critical Success Factor for the group. Am I doing something right? {Don’t answer that.}

Owen described the installation of his Vodafone 5G Broadband service which he’s written up in this post. It’s an interesting development and points to the future of rural broadband as well … maybe. Certainly a more environmentally friendly alternative, but you need to ensure that there’s take-up/adoption, and of course hills can make construction of such a network very costly. But, for rural Pen-y-Lan in a cable desert it’s a winner!

Sianed had been having problems with OpenReach after damage to the cable feeding her property. Hopefully that’s now been resolved.

Ted was experiencing contention issues due to the increased number of devices using his home network with his son now living in the house as well. The same son had improved the performance by disabling one of the channels on the router. This led to a short discussion on wavelengths and channels used by the router and suggests that a repeat session on that topic might be worthwhile. {I’m going to do that at the next meeting on Thu 4th Feb.} He was also having some difficulty with adapting to the new WordPress Block Editor for his Family History blogs. I sympathised, but urger him to stick with it, I’d now made the switch and was finding it SO MUCH better! I suggested that perhaps a “special” extra session on WordPress might be worthwhile and possible?

David Hughes was experiencing problems with getting The Times on his iPad, whilst it was running on his wife’s. We ran through a number of possible solutions, which David had already attempted, so we were left with a puzzle which was not very helpful for David as he had been experiencing language challenges with the offshore IT Support Desk. {Is that me being sufficiently political correct?}

Fred praised the steps that Cardiff County Council had made towards inclusivity for those who were threatened by digital exclusion with the distribution of tablets, and adoption of new policies. He was also having much more pressing difficulties with a kitchen roof which he’d not been able to have fixed until a date in February. We sympathised with the challenges of someone moving to a new area and not having the list of useful contacts. To this end Christine offered me the contact details of a roofer – thanks!

Mike was enjoying his better broadband at reduced price. Great!

Renee had an interesting problem which was she had a satellite receiver dish with no manual and was having difficulty in making it work. I offered to supply a link to a manuals site that I’d used to good effect. Here are a couple – https://www.usermanuals.tech/ and https://www.manualslib.com/ – there are others. Someone (Paul or Phil ??) did suggest perhaps using a laptop with USB, rather than trying to connect to her TV. We await developments with interest. She also wondered whether there was anywhere you could look to find the meaning of emojis, there is – here it is Emojipedia.

Jim reviewed his difficulties with using an additional SD-Card for his new phone and thanked Paul for resolving the problem. He was now saving his photos on the card, and not using it as extended SIM memory. he also told us about his decision to take out a subscription to Google Drive/Photos to ensure that he could save his photos (taken with his phone) on Google at Original Quality. I expressed the view that perhaps this would not be an issue for smartphones as the limit for High Quality was 16Mp {most smartphones being 12Mp}. I sent him this link – Google Photos “High quality” vs “Original”: What’s the difference and should you care – which you might be interested in which compared different compressions with Google Photos.

Christine was still having difficulties with her WiFi still losing service when she was trying to play chess with another user (her husband) in another room in the same house. I suggested that this might be an issue which we could solve with our session on router configuration {see above}.

Phil was revelling in having discovered how good Google Docs is! {He ought to look at LibreOffice as well} It’s good to have a personal recommendation and I concur … why people are still paying money to Microsoft for Office when there’s free and open source alternatives that read .docx formats (and in the case of LibreOffice – write .docx), is a puzzle to me! He was also wondering whether anyone had come across an online version of Cluedo; he had updated his favourite gadget – his Firestick; and showed us how to move Zoom windows. Oh! Bliss!

That means that Marie-Christine, Ann (who had to leave the meeting), Margaret and Marilyn had no issues to raise.

So what have I been up to? The greatest success has been able to get my new Sony Bluetooth headphones working so that I can listen to music and not disturb anyone! Other than that I’ve been in organisation mood. I’ve sorted out my cloud drives – Google, iCloud and Dropbox so that they all have a distinct and different purpose; respectively photos and webwork, documents and archiving/backup. A lengthy job that I couldn’t have managed without dupeGuru, a rapidly favourite bit of Mac software. I then went on to start deleting duplicate (of which there were many) family history records. Duplicates are a pain in the neck – you never know whether you’ve got exactly the right one. That’s where dupeGuru comes in. I did have an anxious moment however when Dropbox informed me I’d deleted over 20,000 files. I restored them just in case, which put me back half-a-day; I hadn’t made a mistake!!! A neighbour across the road stores a backup disk of my photos and so I recovered that and did a backup and returned it to them. I do this every year. I have back-ups on an external disk connected to the computer as well for day-to-day use.I upgraded a few apps; removed Flash – hope you’ve done that too! However most of what I did was connected with my concerns with WhatsApp and it’s changes to it’s Privacy Policy.

We had a discussion on this – or rather I spoke at length of my concerns. They appear in three places – this blog; on the public – Thought grazing and my personal blog – Just thoughts. I won’t say any more at this time, but I will be reviewing my use of WhatsApp (in particular) before the new deadline of May 15th; and will be considering leaving Facebook and instagram after removing my content – a subject for a meeting at a later date when they decide to move away from Ireland.

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Moving to Signal [Updated – Jan 16th]

I hope you’ve managed to read the recent blog posts I’ve written earlier. One sets out my concerns about the Facebook ecosystem, the other on the changes to the WhatsApp Terms and Conditions of Service. I won’t go over the points I make in those posts. I do urge you to look at them however.

I’ve reflected on what might be the best way forward for me, and for us. I accept that for us in the short-term we could accept the new Ts&Cs and wait and see what transpires as we are still, apparently, in the European Region – but for how long! And once we’ve accepted those Ts&Cs what does it mean long-term, after our data is repatriated to the the US from Ireland.

But … we’ve been here before.

The demise of Google+ was a great shame and disappointment to me and I think the group as well. We’d just started to use it in some degree and when Google closed it down in April 2019, I started this private website, with the forums following last year, as the least worst immediately available alternative. We added the WhatsApp group for more instant communication in September 2019. However there is so much that WhatsApp doesn’t have, that we used to have in Google+ – threaded discussions, communities and close links to Google Photos to name but three.

This blog, with its Forums and Topics, addresses a lot of the shortcomings of WhatsApp but its’ main failing is its lack of notifications. I’ve tried to find ways round this limitation – using IFTTT, or installing the WordPress app to provide notifications – but neither of these are truly acceptable. So I cannot suggest we ditch WhatsApp and move to exclusively using this website.

I’ve reviewed the alternatives and have come to the conclusion that moving to using Signal would be the least painful transition if we were to make a move away from WhatsApp for instant messaging. The alternative in my opinion would have been an app called Telegram which has many virtues, but these are outweighed (again imho) by some of the people who have accounts on it – the Presidents of Brazil and Turkey to name but two!

The user interface of Signal is very similar to WhatsApp, so the learning curve should be relatively easy. The functionality is basically the same. The encryption method (end-to-end) is actually the same one that is used by WhatsApp – they adopted it because the code written by Signal’s developers is open-source – and indeed the founder of Signal was one of the founders of WhatsApp.

What makes Signal a really attractive proposition is that it is a publicly funded Foundation. As such, it cannot be taken over by another company, so this could be the last move we have to make. Furthermore, it is open-source which means that the software is supported by its users and its developers, in the same way as this platform (WordPress) is.

So I feel comfortable about making this move. I’m recommending to you that we move to use Signal instead of WhatsApp for instant messaging, but would encourage you also to look at the Forums and Topics on this site to use as a resource for problem-solving. The move is, and must be, a personal decision however.

I won’t abandon WhatsApp just yet, as some people I know won’t move immediately, so I’ll need to accept the Ts&Cs, but I will be on a clear path to move away and encourage others to move as well. To this end, I most certainly will not be “active” on WhatsApp, but just lurk in the same way as I use Facebook, Facebook Messenger and Instagram currently, and if this Group wants to continue using WhatsApp, it would seem sensible to seek someone to take over the administration of that WhatsApp group rather than me.

I will be setting up a U3A Computer Group on Signal later today that you are very welcome to join. I will post a link to the current WhatsApp members to enable them, or any other Group members, to join if they so wish, after they’ve first downloaded the app from this link and created an account – which is surprisingly easy. Once you’ve done that and allowed access to your Contacts – which will pick up others in your Contacts who are Signal users – you’ll probably see me. Please feel free to drop me a message to ask any questions about using Signal, and I suggest you also look at this useful article that explains how Signal works. I will be writing another article on a public blog later today which follows on from the earlier articles mentioned at the top of this article but will go into more detail of my reasons for moving away from WhatsApp.

In the course of time, probably at the time that Facebook data is moved from Ireland to the US, I will almost certainly cancel my accounts connected to Facebook Inc. That will be a hard decision to take as I will lose connections to many long-term friends who I dip in occasionally to see what they’re up to, and I will miss the annual “Happy Birthday” messages from many of them. Still the time is approaching when I should make that move.

Update

Further to this post yesterday it appears WhatsApp have realised they have not communicated the reasons for their proposed changes well enough citing “misinformation”, I would say poor communication. So read this …

https://blog.whatsapp.com/giving-more-time-for-our-recent-update

… you all have more time to make your own personal decisions. I would still advise not AGREEing just yet, you may not be able to change your mind! I will reflect and report back later. Meanwhile Signal is struggling under the pressure of a huge influx of new users – teething problems one hopes.