We can’t imagine how life was before we have the internet-based messaging apps but since these apps came into our existence and made connecting with friends and families so easy and these apps are always on the Top charts of apps on Play Store and App Store.
The Instant Messaging apps are now big business as of July 2019 Whatsapp has about 1.6 billion users worldwide and Facebook Messenger has about 1.3 billion users around the world. Both of these apps are owned by one company named Facebook meaning one company has access to personal data of a quarter of the world. Facebook has suffered major data breaches in all of its apps which have raised major privacy concerns around the world.
But there are some other apps too which are also used by more than one billion people in some countries like WeChat in China, Viber in Korea, Line in Japan. One of these apps is Signal which even the well-known EX-CIA agent Edward Snowden uses and if you are concerned about your privacy you must join Signal.
I use Signal every day. #notesforFBI (Spoiler: they already know) https://t.co/KNy0xppsN0
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) November 2, 2015
Why Signal?
First, Signal is not owned by Facebook so you’re aware that your data is not under control of just one company which is often named in data breaches. In its data breach investigations have found that it mines everything on the app including your address book for ad marketing and much more.
Multiple Professional sports league players and workers are using Signal to reduce “tampering,” or contact between players, their representatives and teams about contracts or transactions outside of the approved periods.
Signal is a cross-platform and it doesn’t mine your data for ad marketing and since Apple’s iMessage doesn’t work on Android Signal must be your preference for choosing a more secure peer-to-peer encryption on which Whatsapp is also built but Facebook mines its metadata. Facebook Messenger and Google’s hangouts do not use encryption on its apps as default.
Signal not only just secures your data it virtually hides all your metadata including the senders who sent you the message so your messages remain only between you and your sender even Signal has no way of finding who sent you the message and what was the message sent.
Signal is developed by Brian Acton (Co-founder of Whatsapp) it’s an open-source app that means all its code is available for everyone to see and verify that the app is more secure than all other apps.
Signal is now developed and maintained by the Signal Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that was co-founded by Brian Acton, disagreement on the future of Whatsapp between Acton and Mark Zuckerberg was the reason he left the Whatsapp in 2017.
Signal Features:
Signal is packed with all the features that you will find in major leading messaging apps like Whatsapp and Facebook Messgenger.
- Private Instant Messaging (works well even in low-speed networks)
- Contact syncing
- Custom alerts for each contact
- Built-in Image editor with photo blur
- Voice and Video calls
- Group Chats
- Dark Mode if you hate the light
- Auto delete messages option
- Regular updates
