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Signal messenger came out a long time ago, but since January 2021, the popularity of the app has skyrocketed. Millions of former users of WhatsApp and other apps are switching to it. It is also being compared to Telegram. So, what is service, its features and how can you sign up Signal service without a phone number?
The “fall” of WhatsApp.
In early January 2021, WhatsApp announced an update to its privacy policy. As of February 8, the app was to officially hand over user data to its parent company, Facebook. The list included users’ own phone numbers, address books, status data, profile names and photos, other app information, location, dates and shopping lists, and more.
Such official impudence angered millions of messenger users and they began to switch en masse to competitors. Often the choice fell on the main protagonist of the material – the messenger Signal. Millions also left for Telegram. In just one week in January, Signal recorded an influx of nearly 9 million people. Telegram reported 11 million or more.
Naturally, WhatsApp representatives said they would not hand over any data to Facebook, and the privacy policy update has been delayed and with major changes. But this has only made things worse and users continue to “flee” from the app. Tens of millions are nothing compared to two billion, which is how many the popular messenger had in February 2020. So there was no real decline. But it gave a tangible boost to competitors, especially Signal, which is only known in narrow circles.
Reasons why people chose Signal
The app was created in 2013 and is open source. Money to develop the app comes from private donations. You can help here. You can download the messenger at this link.
Signal was praised by Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk and Edward Snowden. The latter has been using the messenger since 2015 and assures us that even the FBI has no access to his correspondence.
A feature of the messenger is encrypted messages from device to device (E2EE). This means that no one but the participants of the conversation have access to the information. Even the developers can’t read the correspondence. The messenger does not collect data about users and does not show advertisements.
The features of Signal
Signal is a classic messenger. The program allows you to write messages, create single and group chats (up to 1000 participants maximum), make voice or video calls (up to 8 users at a time), share photos, emoji and videos, share your location and contacts. The application can be used instead of the standard one for SMS.
As for the additional features, there are photo and video messages that disappear in a couple of seconds after you read them. Signal also checks and confirms the user’s contacts so that everyone knows for sure that it is this person and not a scammer who corresponds with them. For this purpose the application sometimes asks for a pin-code which was set while registering or allows the interlocutors to exchange QR-codes.
All correspondence is always encrypted and hidden by strong E2EE encryption. This means that the above data is not stored on the messenger servers, but on users’ devices. That is why even the developers of the application do not have access to them.
The messenger has its own Signal Protocol encryption protocol. It encrypts all types of information exchange, except for classic SMS. And only those that are sent to contacts not registered in the messenger.
Sign up Signal
- The app asks you to confirm the privacy policy and allow notifications the first time you run it
- Then you need to enter your phone number
- Use our sms-man.com service to get your phone number for signal without phone number.
- Choose the country and service you need and press buy
- After that your number will appear at the top of the page
- Enter the number into the application
- Signal will ask for a confirmation code for the phone number
- The next step is to go to the sms activation site and press get sms
- After we received the code, you should go back to the application and enter signal sms
- After confirming the phone number, you will need to enter your name and photo
- Next step need create and confrim PIN
- Here we have sign up Signal
Dadosha is author of articles about SMS verification process and virtual phone numbers of the SMS-man blog