We have collected data and statistics on Signal. WhatsApp co-founder and Signal investor Brian Acton took over as CEO. This move was criticized by some for shifting focus away from privacy and security, and into areas which may cause the app to be targeted by authorities.Ī few months after the announcement, founder and CEO Moxie Marlinspike confirmed he was leaving the company.

In 2021, Signal announced it would be launching a “privacy-focused” cryptocurrency, integrating MobileCoin to the platform. Edward Snowden and Elon Musk have both endrosed the app, and Black Lives Matter organizers also called for protesters to use the app during the summer protests. Signal offers a bunch of security features, including the ability to block screenshots, which is meant to conversations even more secure. The user experience of Signal is just like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and other popular chat apps. Many celebrities have endorsed Signal as a messaging tool to avoid snooping governments and other bad actors. It those few weeks, Signal did shoot past it in global downloads on both stores, however that has subsided in late 2021 and it is at normal levels of downloads in 2022. The volume of new users caused Signal servers to crash on January 15 2021, and access was limited for two days afterwards.Įven with this influx, Signal is still quite a niche messaging platform, with much less usage than its end-to-end competitor, Telegram. In response to a WhatsApp privacy update, which informed users that it would share data with its parent Facebook, millions of users shifted to Signal, considered best-in-class for encrypted messaging.

Signal instant messaging app