The spotlight beamed on the app on Thursday after Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, who doubles as the world’s richest man, recommended it for people.
“Use Signal,” he had written in a terse post, which has garnered nearly 50,000 retweets, 15,000 comments and over 310,000 likes as of the time this report was filed.
The post elicited more reactions and pulled weight when Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO, shared it and thereafter reiterated his support for the app in a follow-up post.
The app saw a surge in downloads after WhatsApp’s infamous terms of service started showing up on people’s notifications. It has so far secured over 10 million downloads and 615,000 reviews on Google play store.
Shortly after Musk’s endorsement, Signal tweeted that it was working to handle the surge of new users.
What is Signal?
Signal is a typical one-tap install app which works like other usual text messaging app. It’s an open-source initiative which is provided for free of charge by Signal Foundation, a non-profit organisation.
Signal allows users to send end-to-end encrypted group, text, picture as well as audio and video messages. The messaging app also allows encrypted audio and video calls.
Why the buzz over Signal?
Discussions about Signal in recent times have largely been about its ability to protect the privacy of users.
This is largely not unconnected to the dust trailing a new policy introduced by WhatsApp which many believe would breach people’s privacy.
Some people have already started ditching WhatsApp amid the ensuing drama while Signal has become the go-to-messaging app for privacy-savvy individuals.
In a post on its Twitter page, Signal called out Facebook for risking people’s privacy for ads.
“Facebook is probably more comfortable selling ads than buying them, but they’ll do what they have to do in order to be the top result when some people search for ‘Signal’ in the App Store. P.S. There will never be ads in Signal, because your data belongs in your hands not ours,” it wrote.
Features of Signal
Signal can be used across several platforms including Android, iOS, iPad, Mac, Windows and Linux.
It has end-to-end encryption based on the Signal protocol, built by Moxie Marlinspike, an American cryptographer Moxie, who is also the CEO of Signal. The implication of this is that no third-party or even Signal can read users’ messages.
Similarly, the app has a screen lock feature while users can also set a pin to the Signal account to ensure the safety of privacy. There is also a feature called message requests which gives users the option to block, delete, or accept messages from an unknown person.
In the same vein, the app has an incognito keyboard option, which prevents your keyboard from saving what you are typing. Other features include fingerprint lock, read receipts, location sharing, relay calls, archive chats, and more.
Source: TheCable Lifestyle
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