What is SIGNAL, the application that is the MOST POPULAR in the world these days
Vocap (WhatsApp) rivals received a huge boost after the messaging app announced it was introducing new rules that force users to share data with parent company Facebook.
By accepting the new contract, Vocap users will provide Facebook with a large number of authorizations that do not go hand in hand with an application for encrypted messaging, such as phone numbers and locations. Users who do not accept the new rules by February 8 will lose their Vocap account.
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Due to concerns, Vocap explained at the time that this only affects users outside the European Union and the United Kingdom, and said that the change “does not in any way affect the privacy of your messages with friends or family.”
Data from the application analysis company Sensor Tower shows that Signal, a rival application for sending encrypted messages, recorded a huge increase in the number of users after the announcement of Vocap.
“From January 6 to January 10, Signal globally recorded about 7.5 million downloads across the Apple and Google App Store,” said a Sensor Tower spokesman. This represents an increase of as much as 4,200% compared to the previous week.
The signal received significant publicity after the announcement of Vocap, and public figures, including Ilona Maska, supported this application. On Twitter, Musk recommended that users use Signal, which had the unexpected side effect of a jump in shares of the wrong company Signal Advance by 11,700%.
Use Signal
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 7, 2021
The Telegram encrypted messaging service recorded an even greater increase in the number of users. In the same period, Telegram received 9 million new users, which is 91% more than the previous week.
For both Signal and Telegram, the market with the highest growth was India. The signal recorded 2.3 million downloads in India – more than 30% of the total number of new downloads. The Telegram app has been downloaded 1.5 million times in India which is 16% of all downloads.
For Signal, the second largest market was the United States, where users installed it about a million times.
Vocap has been trying since Wednesday to alleviate public concerns about possible privacy breaches. “We want to address some rumors and be 100% clear that we continue to protect your private messages by encrypting messages from start to finish,” the company said Monday.
“We want to make it clear that updating the terms used in any way does not affect the privacy of your messages with friends or family. Instead, this update includes changes to company messages on Vocap, which is optional, and provides further transparency on how we collect and use data, ”the statement added.
What is a Signal?
The signal is the most common choice of all who want maximum security. It is a non-profit, open-source platform, which is considered more secure than most other messaging systems.
All conversations are fully encrypted automatically, as is the metadata of your messages, which means that even authorities that have access to the account cannot get a contact list from your device, nor can they see who and when you are talking to. So no one can see your messages.
Messages can be set to self-destruct and can be sent anonymously.
This application is in the second place of the most popular free applications on the Google Play store in Serbia, while Telegram is in the sixth place.
You can use it on Apple and Android smartphones and via PC. All you need is a phone number. You can send SMS, voice or video calls with friends, either individually or in groups, and use emojis and stickers as in other applications. But there is one big difference: The signal is actually really safe.
Is the Signal safe?
Communications on the Signal are encrypted from start to finish, which means that only people in the messages can see the content of those messages – not even the company itself.
In addition to encrypting the content of messages, you can set messages to disappear after a while. In addition, Signal practically does not collect data about its users. The only information you give to the app is your phone number, and the company is even working on a way to separate that from using Signal by creating encrypted contact servers. If the police “knock on the door of the Signal” for information about the users, they will have nothing to find.
One of the reasons it does not collect data is that Signal is a non-profit organization, not a for-profit company. There is no advertising, so there is no reason to track users. Instead, it is funded through donations and private investment.
Although a small group of privacy activists created Signal in 2013, it has grown in recent years. What is interesting is that the founder of Vocap, Brian Acton, donated 50 million dollars in 2018 to create the Signal Foundation, which now runs Signal. Acton embarked on a mission to create a truly private messaging service after Facebook took over Vocap, and Acton allegedly left the company amid a conflict with Facebook over Vocap’s privacy violation.
Source: BIZLife
Photo: screenshot
Source: BIZlife by www.bizlife.rs.
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