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Is Signal safe and appropriate to use also as way to sync and retain files?
It seems to be very good as an even easier way to send files like AirDrop but also to keep them in one distributed place in a privacy-affirming and respectful way.
Is there a catch or is it really a free lunch in this regard?
Since everything is kept on the devices themselves and not Signal servers, the only "catch" is size and filetype restrictions. Don't recall what isn't allowed to be sent via it, but I know I've been told "no" on some items. Perhaps just apks... Since they're kept on the devices, it's not a "cloud" backup so you aren't as protected from hardware failure as you would be in those cases.
Yep, I get that part. Anything vital is a little more externally stored but I just love using it as a less ephemeral and possibly more private AirDrop
For that need, it works fine. I've sent others plenty of files that would normally had to have been emailed or sent a link to Drive or similar.
Insanely large files I would def use (not even AirDrop) but something like a private bittorrent/p2p solution like Resilio Sync.
For that use case, you might be interested in toffeeshare as well. Not open source though AFAIK.
I'll check that out but between AirDrop/Signal/Resilio, the itch is just about scratched :)
I don't know if there is a retention period for files, or if it might be different from text. I really like signal for sending messages, pictures and videos to family and friends, but I don't think it's the right tool for the job. If you are concerned about files, maybe a combination of NAS + some cloud backup, or 2 cloud services. Most of them I don't necessarily trust their security (yes I probably border on a little paranoid). I haven't looked into Proton a great deal for file storage, but I know they have something along those lines. Their email service has worked pretty well for me.
Somethings I've sent go back a long ways. It seems after its transmitted it is only locally-stored.
I once had a large backup of Signal chats (and media) fail so many times that the staff on Github just told me to give up. They told me it was corrupted and not recoverable. 4.3GB of archived chats down the drain
Wow, was there a post-mortem on what went wrong?
Sorry, the archive was 3.8GB total. But no, not really: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/11578
I use WhatsApp and the default Google Pixel messages app now.
Isnt this the only one with end to end encryption? (unfortunately at least in my circles very few people actually use it..)
A few others like telegram and jitsi meet are also there, though I don't know how they are doing these days.
Telegram is doing exponentially better than Signal. It always was, given it predates Signal by several years and is a much more mature app with a huge userbase and a much better feature set.
Just going by Google Play Store numbers alone, Signal is above the 100M+ threshold, while Telegram passed the 1000M+ threshold a long time ago (next milestone is 5000M+ I think, which only the likes of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger have reached).
I also end up using Telegram to transfer files between my devices. I've tried other dedicated apps, but I always end up coming back to Telegram because it's just there all the time, one tap/click away on my phone and PC, so I don't have to "remember" to use anything else. The fact that files are stored in the cloud and not on my device means I don't have to worry about losing them, and it's so fast I've never really had a need to switch to anything else.
You might want to reconsider advocating for Telegram - there's good evidence that it's no more "end-to-end" encrypted than Google or Facebook chat clients (i.e. Telegram's employees have the ability to see what users are sharing). It may also be thoroughly infiltrated by the Russian government, in active use for suppressing dissidents and spreading disinformation. And Telegram's API makes broad data harvesting even easier.
Signal is harder to use and has fewer features because it's much harder to do "encrypt everything" properly.
The question was about how Telegram was doing, and in the case of OP, about its usage for file sharing between devices.
Regarding privacy and security, yes, I'm aware Telegram doesn't use E2EE by default, like most other communications services (including email). I'm fine with that, as I believe it introduces more problems than it solves during day to day usage.
I also know about Telegram's API and how powerful it can be. In fact it's one of the reasons it's so widely used in large communities, as bots allow for very effective moderation and administration.
And yeah, I have no doubts the Russian government must have found ways to infiltrate it and spy on people through Telegram, considering how popular it is in Russia. Just like I have no doubts the same thing happens with WhatsApp in Europe and India, FB messenger and iMessage in the US, Line in Japan, WeChat in China, etc. Any platform that becomes popular enough will eventually become too big of a target to pass on for governments, E2EE or not.
For situations where privacy and security are critical, I would certainly not be using any smartphone apps, especially popular ones. If I have reasons to believe I'm being targeted at that level, I would also assume my SIM card is or will be compromised soon, just like my Google/Apple account. SIM swapping and similar exploits require a lot less effort than MITM attacks, so it would be ludicrous to think my conversations are private just because I happen to use an app with E2EE.
But for normal, day to day communication, Telegram takes the lead for me. It just works so much better than everything else, and offers so many little "quality of life" features, using others apps feels like going back a few years.