Meredith WhittakerNov 11, 2024

Tired of zoom, meet, w/e video conferencing software collecting your data?

Signal's got youโค๏ธ

NEW: call links let you start a video call with your fave Signal users easily, no group needed. Announcing these, and other improvements to calling here๐Ÿ‘‡

https://signal.org/blog/call-links/

Improving Private Signal Calls: Call Links & More

If you love group calls on Signal, but donโ€™t want to create a group chat for every combination of your friends or colleagues, youโ€™re in luck. Today weโ€™re launching call links: Share a link with anyone on Signal and in just a tap or click they can join the call. No group chat required.

Signal Messenger
Show threadMeredith Whittaker

Signal has been running on Signal video for a long time, and the addition of call links about a month ago was a MASSIVE quality of life improvement.

Seriously, give them a try! Imagine, not sharing the contents of your daily standup with a large video conferencing company!

Nov 11, 2024 at 5:46pmWeb
Show threadMarkus ๐Ÿค“โœจNov 11, 2024
@Mer__edith but how else will I get ever more relevant ads for things I do neither want nor need? The planet isnโ€™t going to destroy itself yโ€™know, we need that thing machine to keep on pumping.
Show threadJubeiNov 11, 2024
@Mer__edith awesome! Keep up the good work Meredith.
Show threadJubeiNov 12, 2024
@Mer__edith ps. would be awesome if at some point in the future I have a way of flaunting my support (I started my donation on the website and therefore I don't get a badge). Super low priority btw. If you guys ever get to it! ^_^
Show threadkatzenberger ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆNov 11, 2024

@Mer__edith

When it comes to video calls, closing issue #8529 that is still unresolved after 5 years would be a much more massive quality of life improvement, for those who depend on metered cellular plans.

In all those years, stale bot tried to close it, since nothing happened. A workaround was presented as a pull request - closed by stale bot. People keep telling you under this issue that this prevents them from fully switching to Signal.

https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/8529

Voice/Videocall - Mobile data used even if WiFi is available ยท Issue #8529 ยท signalapp/Signal-Android

Bug description Voice & Videocalls are using 3G/4G connection instead of the connected Wifi. This reduced mobile data budget by 11 GB within 2 days :-/ Steps to reproduce connect to wifi (and try s...

GitHub
Show threadMikalaiNov 17, 2024

@katzenberger
Check if you have "Always relay calls" -- it uses external relay, going outside of local net.
Remove checkmark and try again.

@Mer__edith

Show thread๐“ผ๐“ฎ๐“ป๐“ช๐“น๐“ช๐“ฝ๐“ฑใ€ใƒ„ใ€‘โ˜ฎ(๐Ÿ“๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ)Nov 11, 2024

@Mer__edith

One thing that really annoys me how it disconnects my paired desktop if i dont use it for some time and it then refuses to sync back my conversation data between mobile and desktop ๐Ÿซค

Show threadMeredith WhittakerNov 11, 2024
@serapath this is a security feature.
Show thread๐“ผ๐“ฎ๐“ป๐“ช๐“น๐“ช๐“ฝ๐“ฑใ€ใƒ„ใ€‘โ˜ฎ(๐Ÿ“๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ)Nov 11, 2024

@Mer__edith fair enough.

makes it a great messenger for those with intense security needs, but is a huge downside for everyone who like to be secure, but also keep their message history.

i definitely prefer https://keet.io in this context. Its peer to peer on top of that and file sharing any size of file is a breeze.

Downside - syncing files sometimes can take quite a bit of time, but that likely improves in the future.

also doesnt need phone number. just a 24 words based keypair

Keet - The Peer to Peer Chat App

Keet is a peer-to-peer chat application that allows users to communicate directly with each other. 100% end-to-end encrypted. Never on a server.

keet.io
Show threadDistanteNov 18, 2024
@Mer__edith @serapath Perhaps it could be done so that users can disable this in the settings if they wish
Show threadLaura LangdonJul 27, 2025
@Distante @Mer__edith @serapath I think if this were optional Signal would need to warn the contacts of a person whoโ€™d disabled it, because it would mean their shared data with that person would be less secure than the Signal default. Right now we all know this minimum is maintained.
Show thread๐“ผ๐“ฎ๐“ป๐“ช๐“น๐“ช๐“ฝ๐“ฑใ€ใƒ„ใ€‘โ˜ฎ(๐Ÿ“๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฆ)Jul 27, 2025

@LauraLangdon @Distante @Mer__edith

It seems the keet p2p messenger keeps history, but is end2end encrypted and encrypted at rest, but never on a server.

I guess its not for everyone who uses this as an activist in dangerous countries, but for every day life its amazing - including the ability to share videos and images in full quality, because no server costs for anyone to store it. ...its peer to peer ๐Ÿ™‚

Show threadDasMammutNov 11, 2024

@serapath @Mer__edith That used to annoy me, too.

However, in recent versions of Signal you get a reminder if a paired device is about to be disconnected - which seems to happen after a month of inactivity.

I can live with that ๐Ÿ˜