It’s 'Signal' that can shift users from WhatsApp
Mumbai : Soon after Elon Musk tweeted 'Signal', people have been looking forward to make a shift from popular messaging application WhatsApp to Signal for better security features.
It all goes in sync to the tunes where people have started looking for an alternative after WhatsApp's parent company Facebook released a notification earlier this week, directing users to agree to the social networks’ renewed privacy policy or stop using the service.
Those who have been using WhatsApp for a long time must be knowing that how the company had shifted to end to end encryption in 2016, but this has been questioned about its efficiency time to time.
The company partnered with Open Whisper Systems, creators of the most reliable form of message encryption available today, the Signal Protocol and the Signal Private Messenger.
The thing got pace after Elon Musk tweeted his 41.6 million followers to go for Signal. Hours later, users reported delay in receiving verification codes due to heavy signups.
Signal is used by journalists, activists, lawyers, researchers, dissidents, politicians, and security experts around the world. Here are some reasons because of which it can be useful for normal users as well.
# No big companies associated
Signal Messenger LLC, which works under a non-profit (like Mozilla) called the Signal Foundation, was formed after Acton left the company and donated $50 million to Signal. The app is widely considered the gold standard for encrypted texting today. It is the only company which has no tie ups with any big coroprations.
# You know what’s inside it
Since the developer code is available to people directly you know the functioning of app.
#Everything is encrypted
Literally everything including your profile photo, GIFs, voice and video calls, are encrypted.
# Secure Backup
Signal also doesn’t send unsecured backups of your messages to the cloud where they can be read by anyone, including Google and WhatsApp. Instead, they are stored in an encrypted database on your phone and only you hold the key.
# Disappearing messages
A feature which has been added in WhatsApp recently is one of the older features of signal in which user can set a time limit of 10 seconds to weeks to disappear the message clearly.
# Incognito Keyboard
This is the only app which offers incognito keyboard that can help you secure what you type in the application.
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