I’ll explain the Signal and Standard Notes programs on Mint
Giordano Alborghetti's article (LibreItalia and The Document Foundation)
In the last issue I started to describe the programs that I think are important in the internet section, in addition to those that you already find by default in the Mint distribution. Today I'll tell you about Signal, and Standard Notes.
There is a constant in all these programs the almost spasmodic attention to the privacy and security of our data, because we often forget how important these aspects are, for this reason, thanks to the suggestion of the Director, in one of the next episodes I will speak more in detail of the aspects related to privacy and data security. Let's start with Signal, a program that is in fact the state of the art of cryptography for text messages, videos and audio. You don't need to be a secret agent or hacker to use it, but I am convinced that if people had more awareness as I wrote above, they would use it regularly. It is a multi-platform program so it can be installed on any operating system and on any smartphone. Simple, intuitive, easy to use. As with all open source software, it needs donations to support itself. So if in the end, after you have tried it, you find it valid, I suggest you make a small donation. To install it on Mint proceed as follows: open the terminal and copy / paste or to practice typing, give these commands individually first curl -s https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt/keys.asc then sudo apt-key add -echo "deb [arch = amd64] https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt xenial main" then sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/signal-xenial.list and finally sudo apt update && sudo apt install signal-desktop.
Before installing it on Mint, install it on your smartphone, so that when you start it for the first time from your pc, a QR code will appear you will go to the Signal settings from smartphone, connected devices, add device, the camera will open in Signal, we will go to frame the QR code and at this point it will be synchronized. So, as for Telegram, you can use it indifferently with your smartphone, tablet or desktop. It may seem trivial but remember that you have to install the program, and the people you want to talk to.
If you are used to taking notes on your pc, tablet or smartphone, Standard Notes is the right program for you. As for Signal, it is multiplatform, it synchronizes the notes on the various devices, you will have to create a name and password, and everything you write will be strictly encrypted. Nor is there a free and a paid version that adds extra features. As I have written other times open source does not mean only free, you can do very well business but in an ethical way also to finance and continue to develop the program. You will realize with time that many valid programs have been abandoned by those who had written them for lack, not only of time but of funding, because if you work in the IT field as a freelancer you must be able to support yourself and it is not always easy and simple especially if you follow the open source way.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/vi-spiego-i-programmi-signal-e-standard-notes-su-mint/ on Sun, 18 Oct 2020 05:20:07 +0000.