Interesting test. Obviously only applies when you use Signal without priviledged push notifications via FCM through Google servers.
If you use the Molly fork with UnifiedPush support and set up a tiny mollysocket instance on a VPS or always-on server (no need for exposed ports), this problem can be patched. You can use the Conversations XMPP client or ntfy to redirect UnifiedPush notifications into Molly, and it won’t need to use Signal’s normal costly notification scheme. I have no idea why Signal has not implemented UnifiedPush support directly yet; it’s a very active pain point for most users: one, two, three.
I’d also be curious how it scales as you add more contacts. I don’t think Signal does presence monitoring, does it?
When I installed Signal it complained that I didn’t have Google Play Services and fell back to websockets. But my phone is boring, I do have Google services. Could I have something in a firewall config that made it pick wrong? Is it using a different checking mechanism from all my other apps that go through FCM?
No idea. Why not use XMPP? It’s better anyways 😜
i do have. and my ‘sms’ goes over it. but i can’t make everyone come to me. (i did abandon the ones who are whatsapp-only tho)
😔