A further advantage is the limitless, large-scale file sharing. Their WhatsApp alternative has been developed even further: the service is cloud-based, meaning that Telegram users can access their messages and content on a variety of mobile devices as well as on their computer. Telegram is a company run by the Russian brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov, famous for founding the Russian alternative to Facebook, VKontakte. The advantage is that the chance of the backup landing in the wrong hands is a lot slimmer. This means it is possible to back up content manually to another device, but this takes significantly longer and requires much more effort than a typical backup. Threema allow the export of chats on all operating systems, Signal only offers an export function for Android. And while some of the alternatives to WhatsApp we’ve discussed i.e. The only thing the app can store is whether someone uses the service.įor security reasons, Signal offers no backup function, unlike many other apps like WhatsApp. Signal hardly stores any metadata, especially no information about who communicates with whom. In contrast, users are required to share their contact list with Signal when they sign up. Both private and group chats are secured with end-to-end encryption, and telephone numbers are transmitted anonymously (“hashed”) to the server. Open Whisper Systems is financed entirely by scholarship grants and donations, so it doesn’t rely on any advertising.Īs might be expected from the developers of the most famous encryption technology available for messengers, security is at the forefront of everything Signal does.

Edward Snowden uses Signal, and the team around cryptographer Moxie Marlinspike, the founder of Open Whisper Systems, enjoys an excellent reputation among IT security experts. The Signal creators’ Open Whisper Systems have delivered end-to-end encryption software with open source code and have been used by WhatsApp, Telegram, and more, to develop their own encryption. Signal is, like most alternatives to WhatsApp, relatively unknown, and its developers even more so.

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