Signal is a proprietary chat app that ties accounts to phone numbers.
I saw a blog post titled “How To Use Signal Without Giving Out Your Phone Number”. It… said to get new phone number to give out instead.
“How To Drive To Work Without Using Your Car: Get A New Car”
“How To Keep Food Cold Without Using Your Fridge: Get A New Fridge”
I’ve found a super good solution that works for me:
“How To Not Give Out Your Phone Number When Using Signal: Don’t Use Signal”
The blog post said to get a Google Voice number (which requires giving your own phone number to Google 💔, and living in US or Canada) and using that.
And also the method involved buying a whole new $340 laptop and not using that laptop for anything else. It was bizarre.
Signal leaks your phone number to everyone you talk to, and if you want to quit using it, everyone who had you on there can no longer text you, and if, when you get a new phone number, you get the used phone number of someone who used to have signal, you’re SOL. It literally destroys the texting capability of phones.
A phone needs to do three things and it destroys one of them, infects that feature and locks it into its own network. It’s more of a virus than an app.
moddedBear says Signal isn’t proprietary.
But the truth is that they discourage other clients connecting to their servers (so godspeed, users of Punkt MP02 Pigeon) and running other servers. Client: gotta use their version. Server: gotta use their version.
However, Signal has been hampered by Iranian blocking of SMS validation text codes that Signal attempts to send to its users.
No shit. The phone number requirement strikes again.