If this will allow me to find contacts in Signal that would be great. The biggest roadblock to getting people to move from WhatsApp to Signal has been not being able to find them via phone number. It seems to affect about 1 in 7 users.

ETA: Oddly extreme downvotes to this, but okay.

This has literally zero correlation with whether you can search your contacts by phone number, it is in fact the exact opposite

This is creating a signal account that has no phone number associated with it.

From the article:

“The ability to register for Signal without a phone number is a frequently requested feature. While Signal hides phone numbers by default and gives users control over who can discover them, some users would still like the option to create an account without using a phone number.”

They added a username feature a long time ago that makes finding each other very reliable.

People dont WANT to you to find them by phone number. Its not a bug and its not happening randomly, people are just enabling the very good setting that prevents others from finding them by their phone number.

Whether or not you can find someone based on their phone number is based on a user setting. Each person chooses whether or not they can be found by their phone number.
Go to Settings - Privacy - Phone number.

Really though, this is an excuse more than a roadblock.

I find people oddly resistant to an additional message app, yet they gleefully download a new app at every carpark they visit. People are odd.

We had an encrypted chat for a bit before I realized it was completely pointless with literally everyone in it but one or two having entirely stock phones with in-built Ai and tracking mechanisms. We used XMPP.

Since it was for a Jellyfin server, it basically meant anyone on an unmodified Google or Apple phone was basically a door to a seach of that data from either company for the text logged into each chatroom by each user, and displayed. Unless everyone is secure, no one is.

Another W for Signal

I guess if they optionally required some crypto payment instead of phone number it would made some people happy. Will be interesting to see where does this go.

Ten years too late.

This could have had a far greater impact when whatsapp exodus or controversy happend in 2021. I bet they have reached a stall in the number of new accounts and donations are drying out.

I have also read rumors about them thinking about tying this to a one time payment to prevent bot registration

Will this allow people to install it on multiple devices? Right now I can’t have it on my phone AND tablet and it sucks…

Check out a fork named Molly.

Not my experience:

• Signal (Android) on my phone
• alternative client (SfOS) on the same phone
• Signal desktop on my Linux laptop

All work with the same number/registration, i.e. they’re in sync.

I’m on beta (testflight) on IOS and the latest version now allows adding a second phone. But I think previously you could already link an iPad or a laptop.

I have no idea if this is true or not. But I heard the government has an app called “Pegasus 2”that can read all of your signal messages as long as they know your phone number.

While the capabilities of Pegasus may vary over time due to software updates, Pegasus is generally capable of reading text messages, call snooping, collecting passwords, location tracking, accessing the target device’s microphone and camera, and harvesting information from apps.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware)

Once installed, Pegasus has been reported to be able to run arbitrary code, extract contacts, call logs, messages, photos, web browsing history, settings, as well as gather information from apps including but not limited to communications apps iMessage, Gmail, Viber, Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Skype.

“Once installed” is operative here. Pegasus isnt a magic wand that you can swish to read all text messages on every phone. It needs to be deployed.

“Once installed” is operative here. Pegasus isnt a magic wand that you can swish to read all text messages on every phone. It needs to be deployed.

indeed, unless you’re a target for a state or a company that cares to spend money to spy on you, you don’t need to worry about pegasus

If your phone has been compromised, nothing is safe. That’s not a signal problem.

Throw the phone away and get another one.

You can never be sure if your phone has been compromised or not…. Hell, after the patriot act, how can you feel safe?

Like I said, that has nothing to do with signal or how secure it is.

In theory everything is possible because only Apple/Google+OEMs are running root on your device.

They say they need to figure out how to counter/avoid spam/abuse first. And that makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, just look at Telegram (which is ironically going the opposite route nowadays).

Headline:

Signal is working on registration without a phone number. But what form will it take?

30 July 2026 10:30 CEST

Signal is working on a way to optionally sign up without a phone number. The feature has not yet been officially confirmed, and it is not yet known whether it will be available to all users or in what form.

Thank you!

I’ve always said it. Best form to prevent spam is to have allow list as a default. You should only be able to receive messages from pre-approved people.

I have allow listed my email for ages and it’s great.

But obviously advertisers and business hate it because then they need your true consent to send you shit.

And in the case of Telegram, if they did that why would anyone sign up for their premium account?

I tried using Telegram and the amount of spam I would receive was annoying, but what was even more annoying was finding out that the ‘Restrict messages from users not in your contacts’ setting is paywalled. Telegram profits off of the spammers on their network.

yep, i had that feature on, but then they paywalled it and now I’m getting some spam.

I don’t really use telegram and I will dump it soon.

Just use SimpleX

Honestly in an effort to avoid american tools I went for ot then I found out the guy behind SimpleX is a climate change denier Maga supporter and all around lunatic and regardless that the project is open source I don’t want to be found near that thing.

Sessions seems to be a decent alternative though but if I want a chance to convert people to try to use more privacy respecting chat tools Signal is the best compromise.

simplex is European. it’s developed in the UK, though has had funding from American technofascists.

I suggest you read up on the software.

Russia is big mad about it, and likely will be banned in the US soon for similar reasons.

I have already done enough research on it. I am not touching that software with a 10ft pole. I even sat through the whole techlore interview and was somewhat into the project. But then when I discorvered his socials it came crashing down. I also have to admit that I find it odd that it’s in the UK with shit privacy laws.

your fervent rejection only makes me want to use it more.

This is the main reason I don’t use Signal, so depending on if and how it gets implemented, I may finally use it. Getting other people on board will be its own fight of course.

I’ll be happy if it happens but I need to see it. It would be significant to use Signal without phone number but one option they are considering to combat scam is to use bank card payment… Signal’s issue still remains the centralisaion

It would be good if true, for a privacy first chat, asking for your phone number is the first and biggest red flag.

Someone knows how Delta Chat handles the Spam problem? Or spam is only a problem that comes with wider adoption?

Haven’t they been working on this for months? I could have sworn I heard of this well over a year ago.

My biggest issue with Signal is that it doesn’t reliably work. I’ll message back and forth with a friend on there and then receive a text message a week later asking why I’m not responding on Signal. And it’s because I didn’t receive the messages.

Never had that myself. My family and i have been using it exclusively for years now.the only tine we fallback is when someone is in an area without data or wifi. Maybe once a year.

Ive had this issue as well. I find it happens when i leave my wifi and go to cell signal. Not sure if its the same for you. I dont think ive had it be almost a week later but its been a few hours or maybe a day

That’s really weird. I use it for my out-of-band chat for work since we all mute our Teams after hours. It’s been reliable the entire 3 years we’ve been using it. Maybe I’m just really lucky?

Works on my machine. :P

Do you have google play services installed? If not, your power optimisation settings might prevent signal from running in the background, which it needs to to receive messages

Weird I have never experienced this (or it was so long ago I don’t remember). We’ve been using Signal absolutely reliably for our family Chat for many years now, and also with other friends.

I don’t think Google Play Services are required, but

your power optimisation settings might prevent signal from running in the background

could have sth to do with it. And that’s accessible through Settings, an App Permissions thing IIRC (although I never needed to do that manually either).

PS: I sent you a dm on a different matter.

Yeah happens to me from time to time. I think it’s special treatment by Android OEMs. I think Samsung really likes to kill background apps even if explicitly told not to. see here.

Maybe It’s expected behavior if Signal is not being used that often. Still weird WhatsApp never has that problem

They already lost users in authoritarian countries like Russia or China, where Signal is blocked and you can’t get an SMS via a VPN, so registration or logging in with 2FA becomes impossible.

Sooo instead you will be required to pay by card and thus have your identity proven by financial institutions behind? Big ooof.

I think you’re jumping the gun a bit. They’re just saying that requiring a phone number added a barrier against spammers and they want to be sure this change doesn’t open the flood gates.

From the article:

"We gotta figure out some way to induce a cost for signing up without a phone number”, Kret said.

It’s unclear whether this means that registration without a phone number will become a paid feature.

However, “cost” does not necessarily mean a monetary fee; it could also refer to another barrier designed to prevent abuse.

Even if it was a card, privacy.com for the win as it allows for any address and name to be used with their debit cards!

For the low, low price of the transaction fee and all data about the transaction!

Is there a system in the US that doesn’t need an overhaul at this point?

There’s no transaction fees and the payment data can be anything you’d like… But I’m on the same page about an overhaul for sure