The important thing is even if you are okay with the new WhatsApp Policy Update and will use it no matter what, it is still good to have an alternative so that you are not totally dependent on one tech giant like Facebook for everything related to messaging. When comparing Signal vs WhatsApp just on the number of users, then WhatsApp obviously has an edge but that is not really the point. In this article, we are going to compare Signal vs WhatsApp so that it encourages our readers to try the Signal messenger app as well and get used to it.
The Problem with WhatsApp
The new Privacy Policy from WhatsApp is under controversy already. Why? Well, in very simple words, WhatsApp will now share more data with the parent company Facebook, and you do not have any choice except for deleting your WhatsApp account if you do not agree to the new policy. WhatsApp has always collected and shared data with Facebook but this time they are actually rude about it which is not good. Now let us see what data WhatsApp actually collects:
Phone ModelOSBattery StatusWhatsApp UsagePayments and TransactionsStatus UpdatesProfile PicturesIP AddressAbout InfoGroup DetailsTime ZoneSignal Strength
That’s a lot of data, right? Well yes, it is! And that is the whole problem now with WhatsApp as it has some really high privacy concerns. That is why one should definitely lookout for a good alternative to it, like Signal.
About Signal
Signal is one of the best WhatsApp alternatives as it is very strongly encrypted, and it is available for both Android and iOS. The messenger app is very simple to use and fun. It has voice and video calling like WhatsApp, additionally, you can also run it on your computer.
Signal vs WhatsApp
With the whole thing with WhatsApp, you know that it is quite serious if Tech Entrepreneur Elon Musk himself tweets about it. In a tweet, Elon said, “Use Signal”. We all know that Elon has a good influence on a lot of young people and that is why a lot of people signed up for Signal. And to be honest, Signal is a really great app, and it is one of the best alternatives to WhatsApp and there are a lot of reasons for it.
Privacy
The reason why WhatsApp is in trouble in the first place is because of its privacy concerns. WhatsApp is owned by Facebook. One of the things that we all know that Facebook doesn’t have a really good reputation in terms of privacy. With the new WhatsApp Privacy Policy, it will now share more data with Facebook which raged a lot of people. WhatsApp collects a lot of data from your smartphone and compared to WhatsApp, Signal doesn’t collect any data from your phone. The only thing Signal collects is your phone number, and it doesn’t actually link it to your identity too. In terms of privacy, Signal is way more secure compared to WhatsApp and that is the reason why it is used by a lot of security experts, privacy researchers, and journalists.
Security
Both of the messaging apps have end-to-end encryption so none of your texts, calls can be accessed by anyone else. The key difference is that Signal is open source and WhatsApp is not. Still in terms of security, Signal is better.
Features
When comparing messaging apps, Signal vs WhatsApp in this case, the priority must be how easy it is to chat, send photos, videos, and other stuff using the app, and, in that case, both apps are quite seamless to use. You can easily send photos, videos, have groups on both apps. Both Signal and WhatsApp support audio and video calling. WhatsApp has some good features like in-built UPI to make payments/transactions, location sharing, and other cool stuff too. The good part about Signal is that it can be your default SMS/MMS app too. It also has a Chrome extension through which you can easily access it on your desktop and mirror the messages from your phone and reply to them. Right now, Signal doesn’t have all the features like the ones we got in WhatsApp, but it isn’t the major concern here, we can compromise a little in the features’ part, but we shouldn’t/must not compromise our privacy at all.
Nature of the App
Regarding the nature of the application, we all know that WhatsApp is a trademark property of FACEBOOK Inc, they own every intellectual property of WhatsApp. Now, in the case of Signal, interestingly it is free (actual free, no ads, no trackers) and open source, the whole code of the Signal App is available in Github. You can visit Signal’s Github page and read every line of code. Being open-source means, we, programmers/developers can actually go through the code and check whether they are secretly stealing our data or not.
Final Verdict
Overall, Signal is a very good alternative for WhatsApp, and you should start using it right away, get your friends to use it as well so that you can have a community that uses the Signal app for messaging. So that was all about Signal vs WhatsApp, the only problem as of now is the user base that WhatsApp has, and it will be really hard to make everyone switch to Signal as a lot of users have been using WhatsApp for so long. However, you should definitely try Signal. We already have the WhatsApp vs Telegram Article, check it out. Thanks, Shekhar V
