Downloads of chat app Signal recently jumped 4,200 percent after WhatsApp announced it will share data with parent company Facebook. Is Signal a good alternative to WhatsApp?
signal and whatsapp are both chat services that allow users to chat with text messages. However, there are some important differences.
Encrypted data
Unlike messages sent over a mobile network, such as text messages, Signal and Whatsapp use so-called ‘end-to-end encryption’. Messages can therefore only be read by the sender or receiver. Both apps are free. The big differences are in user safety and convenience. Facebook owns WhatsApp. Facebook acquired the company in 2014 for $22 billion. Faceboo’s reputation is not so good: in 2018, the company reported another major hack, involving 50 million accounts. That the protection was not watertight, was known at Facebook for a long time, according to insiders. At the time of the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal, Facebook said it may have accessed the data of up to 87 million people.
Signal is owned by a non-profit organization: the Signal Foundation. WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton invested $50 million in the chat app and now sits on the foundation’s board. The reason Acton no longer has faith in WhatsApp, his own creation? Facebook’s use of customer data and targeted advertising. “Signal’s goal is to make technology as normal as possible… without sharing data with other parties,” CEO Moxie Marlinspike told Business Insider last year.
How secure is WhatsApp?
Facebook cannot access WhatsApp users’ conversations because of its end-to-end encryption. The social media giant does have access to the data of those users. According to technology site WIRED, Facebook can view the following user data: telephone numbers, IP addresses, mobile network, how long the app has been in use, payment data, cookies and location data.
WhatsApp and Facebook are now going to share data. There are no major consequences for European users: these apps fall under the privacy conditions of the subsidiary WhatsApp Ireland. Under these terms, user data may be shared with Facebook, but not used by any business units of the social media giant. And that doesn’t change. But for Americans and other WhatsApp users, among others, this can be a big reason to leave WhatsApp and give Signal a chance.
How secure is Signal?
The software behind Signal is ‘open source’ as it is called. This way everyone can see what goes on behind the scenes at the messaging service. Signal has been praised by multiple security experts, including whistleblower Edward Snowden. Journalists from news and entertainment company Vice and news site The Intercept also recommend using Signal instead of WhatsApp to keep your messages private.
Yet Signal also stores data. Signal made a PIN mandatory last year to prevent malicious people from stealing someone’s account. At the same time, an encrypted backup of the contact list was automatically created on Signal’s servers. Security experts were critical of the decision. “The problem is that most people choose weak PINs,” cryptographer Matthew Green told Vice. The automatic backup of contacts also met with resistance from users. Signal then decided to reverse this. Both the PIN code and backup can now be disabled via the settings menu.
Another point is that Signal, like WhatsApp, asks for the user’s phone number and links the account to it. That is not the case with another chat service called Threema.
How user-friendly is WhatsApp?
WhatsApp appeals to more than two billion users with its ease of use and the fact that many people already have it. Available on both iOS and Android, the chat app automatically takes over the people in your contact list as users are identified by their phone number. Users can make group calls, make (video) calls, and make free international calls. Also, appers can share their location, documents or other files, and set a PIN as two-step verification to access the app.
How user-friendly is Signal?
Signal is now even less popular than WhatsApp. The app is available on iOS, Android and desktop. Users can of course send each other photos, videos, links and other files. Similar to WhatsApp, users can set an expiration date so that messages or photos disappear after a certain amount of time. But this time can only be adjusted on Signal! As with the competitor, Signal users can make (video) calls, and it is possible to hold group conversations of up to 150 people. However, with a group limit of 256 people, it’s best to stick with WhatsApp for mass conversations.
The nice thing is that with Signal you can also provide chat messages from other people with an emoticon, “like” as it were (or not!). If someone compliments you, you can tap it and place a Heart emoticon. If you think a comment is stupid, you can of course also use an angry, surprised or annoyed emoticon.
Signal has a few standard sticker packs, but you can also just import your stickers from WhatsApp into Signal. You do need the desktop app. If you then log in to WhatsApp Web, you can save the stickers from previous conversations in a folder on your desktop. Then go to File and Create/Upload Sticker Package.
Source: Business Insider
