Facebook’s WhatsApp will change its privacy policy on February 8, when it starts sharing user information with Facebook, including location, phone numbers, profile names and photos, when you were last logged in online and more. People are now flocking to an alternative text messaging app called Signal that doesn’t collect your data.
Daily downloads have increased 18x since WhatsApp changed its privacy policy, according to Reuters, with more than 800,000 downloads per day. That was likely spurred in part by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who tweeted “ use Signal ” earlier this month.
Signal, like WhatsApp, is a chat app that allows you to send messages and call friends and family with end-to-end encryption, which means your messages are better protected and cannot be easily read by anyone, including Signal itself . It supports group messaging and other fun features you may already be using in chat apps, such as GIFs, videos, and images. It even has encrypted group video calls, although support is currently limited to five people. It’s completely free and you can use it on iPhones, Android phones, Macs, Windows PCs and Linux.
Also, Signal isn’t a huge technology company looking to make money from your information. It is a registered non-profit organization and relies on donations to operate. The free app does not collect private data and has no ads.
Here’s how to use it.
How you use Signal
The Signal Messenger app is displayed on a smartphone in Hong Kong, China.
Roy Liu | Bloomberg | Getty Images
- Download Signal for iPhone or Android.
- Enter your phone number. This is so Signal can text you and verify that you are the one using the app.
- Enter the code you received via SMS.
- Tap “Register without transfer”. If you’ve used Signal before, you can choose “Transfer from iOS Device” to download your old conversations, but for the sake of this guide, we’ll assume you haven’t used Signal yet.
- Now you are on the Signal home screen.
- Tap the pencil icon in the top right corner to create a message.
- You can start sending messages to people who are already using Signal. But you may also need to tap “Invite friends to alert” if your contact doesn’t already have the app. It allows you to create an email or text message to friends and family with a link to download the app.
- Once they sign up, you can start chats with the same pencil icon or create groups just like you would in WhatsApp. You can even see read receipts, links to send audio messages, stickers, photos and more.
That is it! Now you are working with Signal. If you want to use it instead of WhatsApp, you can delete your WhatsApp chats by tapping “edit” at the top left of the chat page. Select your messages and tap “delete”. A copy of your messages may remain in chats that you have joined for other users until they delete the chats as well.