SIGNAL MESSAGING APP FULL
SIGNAL MESSAGING APP ANDROID
SIGNAL MESSAGING APP CODE

Within the Signal app on either platform, tap your profile, then Privacy, then toggle the Screen Lock option to on. Signal also has a Screen Lock feature that requires your password-or FaceID or TouchID, whatever you use to get into your phone-to view the app’s contents. Google says it keeps smart replies private by processing them locally on your device, but the safest bet is to limit Signal’s interactions with the rest of the operating system.

SIGNAL MESSAGING APP ANDROID

If you’re on Android and want to enable Signal notifications, you may want to disable smart replies by going to Settings > Apps & Notifications > Notifications > Advanced and making sure “ Suggested actions and replies” are turned off. You can silence a contact’s notifications for an hour, a day, a week, or a year. You can also mute notifications for a specific conversation for a set amount of time by tapping on a message thread, then the contact header, and then Mute. Tap your profile, then Notifications, then Show, where you can choose whether to display the name, content, and actions for an incoming text just the name or nothing at all. If you need more granular control, you can find that in the Signal app itself, where the steps are the same no matter what platform you’re on. From your home screen, head to Settings, then Apps & Notifications, where you can turn off all notifications. To turn off Signal lock screen notifications on iOS, go to your phone’s Settings > Notifications, then scroll down and tap Signal > Show Previews > Never. There’s not much point in having an app for sensitive messages if they just pop up on your display whenever you receive one. This means keeping people from seeing what you’re doing there from a lock screen or when switching apps. It’s important to make sure that what happens in Signal stays in Signal. (iOS still doesn’t let you change the default messaging app, sorry!) Just remember that not everyone you text has it installed and that an iOS user you’re texting with might check their Signal app less often than they do iMessage. On Android, you can make Signal your default messaging app by going to Settings > Apps & notifications > Advanced > Default Apps > SMS app, and picking Signal.

SIGNAL MESSAGING APP FULL

iOS users will need to tap their profile icon and then Settings to access the full menu.) (Note: Android users can access Signal’s Settings menu either by tapping their profile icon or selecting the menu under the three dots in the upper-right corner, then tapping Settings.

The app does periodically send truncated, hashed phone numbers back to Signal’s servers, which is how it checks if any of your contacts are also using it, but the company also says it discards that information “ immediately.” That way, the app can alert you when one of your contacts signs up for Signal if you’d rather not get those updates, tap Settings, then Notifications, and toggle off Contact Joined Signal. You should feel comfortable letting Signal access your device’s contacts it stores that information on your phone, not in the cloud.

SIGNAL MESSAGING APP CODE

But Signal stands apart, both for its rich features and the fact that its code has been open source for years, meaning cryptographers have had plenty of opportunities to poke and prod it for flaws. Signal is not the only messaging app to offer end-to-end encryption iMessage has it, as do stand-alone apps like Telegram. All of those people can take advantage of end-to-end encryption, which means that no one-not the government, their phone company, or Signal itself-can read the contents of messages as they pass between devices. Apptopia now estimates Signal has more than 600 million active monthly users. It saw another surge in January 2021 after WhatsApp, which end-to-end encrypts personal chats using the Signal Protocol, botched the messaging around a privacy policy update. In May 2020, as police brutality protests swept US cities, daily Signal downloads nearly tripled from their average, according to analytics company Apptopia. Signal’s popularity often spikes in times of strife or when alternatives seem more precarious. And thanks in part to a $50 million infusion in 2018 from Brian Acton, the former WhatsApp CEO and current interim Signal Foundation CEO, the once niche app is more accessible than ever. Wade, Signal represents most people’s best way to communicate safely. Whether it’s to protect sensitive conversations amid social unrest or to keep your communications private after the fall of Roe v. In times of uncertainty, people rightly often turn to the encrypted messaging app Signal.

Signal messaging app