Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, tweeted last week: “Use Signal.”
Within a day, the app, called Signal, had reached No.1 on the AppStore and Google Play, with 7.5 million downloads worldwide.
More exaggerated, a company with the same name but no connection to this App, but also because of the old Ma tweet, the stock rose 438%, this mistake…
Much of the reason for Musk’s tweet has to do with Facebook’s recent policy changes.
It follows news that Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp will update its privacy policy on February 8, a new policy that will force new users to share their data with Facebook.
After many users complained and questioned the move, Musk unkindly recommended using Signal, a more secure encrypted messaging service. Musk himself said he has been donating Signal for a year and will continue to do so in the future.
🤨 What is Signal?
Signal is a secure, encrypted messaging app that you can think of as a more private alternative to WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Skype, iMessage and more. Support Android, iPhone and desktop client, and all open-source code on GitHub.
GitHub Treding was also recently dominated by Signal.
On Signal’s website, you can also see recommendations from a number of big names, including Edward Snowden and the CEO of Twitter.
🧑🔧 Who maintains Signal?
Go to Signal’s official website and it says:
Signal is an independent non-profit organization, we are not tied to or acquired by any major tech company, and our growth is supported by grants and donations from people like you.
Signal is therefore relatively trustworthy.
📱 User experience
The author also downloaded and used this App at the first time. I would like to briefly talk about my experience in using this App.
At present, AppStore can be downloaded directly, which can be used normally in China without scientific Internet access.
Signal requires registration with a phone number, and a PIN code is set up for encryption.
The home page is very simple without too many elements. Click the profile picture to make some simple Settings for the App.
Because there is no friend registration, I choose to talk with myself here, and the system recognizes it as a memo by default.
The message sent will show the read status, and the message of the conversation can be long pressed to reply the expression, which is also very early in the domestic feishu and Dingding functions.
Conversations can send pictures, GIFs, videos, and more, and can be easily edited to support instant messaging.
After the overall experience, in fact, it is just a pure chat App, with messages, pictures, video chat and other functions that an IM should have.
✈️ and Telegram
Telegram is also an excellent communication encryption software, in contrast, Telegram function is relatively higher, the Chinese ecosystem is more outstanding.
A table like the one below will be clearer by comparison.
| Features/Software | Signal | Telegram |
|---|---|---|
| End-to-end encryption | Default (including groups) | Secret Chats |
| Registration way | Mobile phone no. | Mobile phone no. |
| platform | cross-platform | cross-platform |
| The data backup | local | Cloud storage |
| Open nature | Open source | Open source |
| Security level | military | Dark net |
| Break the history | There is no | There is no |
Note: Security levels are defined according to Internet groups: military > Dark Web > Ordinary
However, the popularity of Signal and Telegram, combined with the recent extreme events in the United States, is not only due to a tweet by Musk, but also worth thinking about the deep reasons behind 🤔.