What are the advantages of Signal compared with WhatsApp and Telegram?
Is Signal the best choice at the moment?
Signal is a messaging app co-founded by former Facebook employee Brian Acton and Moxie Marlinspike, but it has fewer users compared to popular messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. Prior to the WhatsApp privacy policy discussion, Signal was considered a niche messaging app. However, the situation changed when Elon Musk recommended it to users, resulting in a five-fold increase in its userbase in just one day.
Signal’s popularity has also been bolstered by endorsements from notable figures, such as Edward Snowden and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Many users are drawn to Signal because of its end-to-end encryption feature, which ensures that only the sender and recipient can read a message. Signal also takes privacy very seriously, and the app does not collect any user data or share it with third parties.
Despite its smaller userbase, Signal has gained a reputation as a secure and privacy-focused messaging app. It has become an attractive option for users who are concerned about the privacy of their conversations and who want to avoid the data-sharing practices of other messaging apps. As its userbase continues to grow, it is likely that Signal will become a more mainstream messaging app choice for users who value privacy and security in their messaging.
Signal offers broadly similar features to WhatsApp and a similar interface, but the difference is that it’s an open source platform (which means it can be checked for vulnerabilities by security researchers) that’s not run for profit.
Interestingly, Signal’s encryption protocol is actually used in WhatsApp, so there’s no difference in the security you get when sending messages to individuals or groups in either app.
Unlike WhatsApp, however, Signal does not have a cloud backup feature which means that chat history would be lost if your phone was stolen or damaged. It is possible to use the ‘chats backup’ feature to transfer them to a new phone but this must the same type as your current phone: Android to Android or iOS to iOS.
Plus, WhatsApp recently announced that its backups will now include end-to-end encryption. Previously, this was only available when transferred to Google Drive or iCloud but now the end-to-end encryption will be available during the transfer too. This is something Signal doesn’t have.
There’s another difference: Signal collects only the contact information it needs, but doesn’t link it to you. By contrast WhatsApp collects a lot and does link it to you. You can see the difference in the image below.
Signal vs. Whatsapp?
1. Security/encryption method
Signal uses state-of-the-art high-end encryption to keep everyone’s conversations safe. In addition, Signal has a double security function. At the same time, users can set up a screen lock in the App. When opening Signal, they must enter the password again, and protect the communication content with the phone’s PIN code, password, or biometric authentication such as fingerprint, TouchID, or FaceID.
2. Privacy
WhatsApp has attracted everyone’s attention because it announced earlier that it will force the sharing of user information on Facebook. Although WhatsApp will not share the content of the conversation, its data, including your phone model, IP address, and other personal information, will be shared with Facebook to analyze the conversation content data and pop up relative advertisements. However, Signal does not have any data connection, so it has a high degree of privacy.
3. Source of income
The signal does not have any advertising revenue and will not be associated with any company. It mainly relies on user donations as its source of income. Compared with WhatsApp, it relies on Facebook’s advertisements as its operating capital, so it needs to use user information to pop up various advertisements shortly.
4. Number of users and downloads
Last year, WhatsApp announced that its global users exceeded 2 billion, indicating that a quarter of the world’s population uses WhatsApp. This time, the wave of transfers caused by WhatsApp’s forced sharing of personal information caused Signal to record as many as 100,000 downloads in a few days, making it onto the download list, and the number of users increased rapidly.
5. Hide user traces
Both Signal and WhatsApp can turn off the last online time and read functions, but Signal can even hide the “typing…” notification, which is better than WhatsApp in hiding user traces. In addition, Signal can send ephemeral messages and receive auto-destroy messages. The timer starts counting when you read it. After the message expires, it disappears from the device and is directly deleted from the storage space.
We explain the differences between WhatsApp and Signal, and whether one is more secure than the other.