In the last few months, there have been many speculations that well-known social media and messaging apps have privacy concerns and biases. People have grown skeptical of them, and some have even switched to conventional SMS services. Their fears seem justifiable because of several cases of possible collusions of major social media sites. But recently, one app has been benefited because of the growing mistrust between people and social media giants. The Signal app is a very secure way of sending texts, audios, and videos to groups and individuals. Since the messages are going to be encrypted, your privacy concerns can be put to rest. The app is experiencing a sudden growth in its user base, so let’s look at the app and its features to see what makes it so unique.
Origins of Signal
In 2010, two apps were launched by a company called Whisper Systems. Text Secure was one of the apps, which was made to send encrypted messages to groups or an individual. There was another app that did the same for voice calls, which was called RedPhone. Twitter bought the company in 2011, and apps were then made free to use.
Moxie Marlinspike, who is the founder of Whisper Systems, left Twitter in 2013. He wanted to work on another startup, which he called Open Whisper Systems. The company continued working on android apps – TextSecure and RedPhone. In 2014, it decided that both the apps will be merged into one. The new app that will come out of their amalgamation will be called Signal. The Signal Foundation, which is a non-profit organization started by WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton and Marlinspike, focused on keeping the app free and open-source while they continue developing it.
How It Works
The app lets its users send end-to-end encrypted messages between its users. You can send group chats, voice messages, photos, videos, and text. Since everything will be encrypted, you won’t have to worry about your privacy concerns. The app can also be used as a phone’s SMS app, but you must remember that the phone messages won’t be encrypted. The Signal app is available for PCs (Windows, Linux, and Mac), Android, and iOS devices. The company is reportedly working on its video and voice call for PC, so you will have much more flexibility as you can use the app not just from your phones but PC as well.
Since all the metadata in messages is also hidden and encrypted, Signal is, without a doubt, the best app out there for addressing privacy concerns. There is no way that anyone will be able to access your private data or messages. Since a non-profit corporation is funding the app’s development, there is no incentive for the company to sell any data for financial reasons. The app is so secure that even the army has recommended it to the Task Force positioned in the Middle East.
The Signal app nor the non-profit corporation funding it has ever made an official statement regarding the number of daily or monthly users. So, there is little information, but on the Play Store, the app is downloaded more than 10 million times, which means it is reasonably popular. As the privacy concerns increase in the future, people will want to switch to much safer apps where their private data is secure. There is a good possibility that the Signal app can turn out to be the next WhatsApp.
Mia Watson is an avid technical blogger, a magazine contributor, a publisher of guides at Blogs Book, and a professional cyber security analyst. Through her writing, she aims to educate people about the dangers and threats lurking in the digital world. Visit My Site, ratemeas.com
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