Signal - Private Messenger 12+

My new default communication app

The front end of Signal, and its user interface, is absolutely wonderful. It is as smooth and pleasant to use as iMessage for sure. Knowing that my messages and calls are end to end encrypted brings a great peace of mind to one’s day to day conversations. But it’s not just pretty and functional on the front end, the technical details and workings of the back end as revealed in Signal’s documentation really shows, in my humble opinion, that this app does what it’s makers say it does, and that the developers do not make false or exaggerated claims about their work.

Most importantly, again in my humble opinion, it shows that the beautiful and functional front end, the technically impressive back end, and the resulting full stack of this app was developed by engineers that really care for, and have passion for, the privacy and security of their end users as well as privacy and security overall. It is a rare thing indeed, in this day and age, for a business to back up and follow through on their promises regarding their product. I will use Signal until the day I die unless things somehow dramatically change for the worse. I’m not normally a review writer, and when I do I could never be described as being verbose in what I have to say about something I’m reviewing but Signal and the developers behind it deserve all the praise we can muster! Thank you for the fruits of your labor enhancing my quality of life and peace of mind :)

Nightmare editing messages on my iPhone XR

I don’t know if this disfunction is related to the particular phone (iPhone XR) that I am using Signal on now or if it is the same on other phones, but the “cursor” control on Signal is a disaster now. It is a nightmare trying to move the cursor to where you want it, or to highlight a specific section of your message. I am completely unable to move the cursor more than a couple lines away from its current location at a time (and the text window doesn’t extend to more than 4 lines tall), so i have to scroll a couple lines away, click somewhere to move the cursor in the direction of where i want it to go, and repeat over and over again until it finally gets there. If i try to move it further than that, the window just jumps back to the area where it is currently located and moves it to some random location nearby.
Highlighting a portion of your message is impossible; it jumps from one end of the message to the other and will not allow you to scroll slowly to where you want to stop highlighting. It is so stupid ~ I recommend typing messages in another app and then pasting it into signal when you are done.
Also, FYI, if you want to copy text from a signal message, hold your finger on the message and then click on the little icon at the bottom of the screen that looks like two pieces of paper - nothing will ever appear that says “copy”.

Developer Response ,

This bug is resolved in the most recent version of the application.

Critical 21st-Century App

Hackers can get a hold of text logs and gather bits of identifying information about you. The world’s leading governments are aiming for a state of omniscience on every citizen’s activity and thoughts. Advertising companies want everything you’ve ever said so they can feed their predictive algorithms and sell their ever more detailed profile of your personal psychology to scammers and politicians who want to manipulate you. Our conversations can be used against us in ways that are hard to predict or even imagine. The right to communicate securely and privately is #1 in the Information Age. That’s why Signal messenger, which has proven time and time again to be the cutting edge of practical, user-friendly communications encryption, is my favorite app ever. Its also just a well-featured app better than any text msg app I’ve ever used. IMHO there’s no functional advantage the FAR less secure and private WhatsApp has other than its user base (lots of ppl use whatsapp to bc its a popular app others are on across the world). Signal’s use is growing and will only grow bc the developers have done an amazing job making a smooth job that keeps people safer at a time that we all should jealously guard our information.