vanitasvitae

#Signal requires a smartphone?
Not exactly. You can use Signal without a smartphone using signal-cli.

This guide shows how to setup signal for desktop-only use (and how to keep it running!):

https://lefherz.net/2025/09/25/how-keep-using-signal-desktop-without-a-phone-with-a-command-line-tool/

How to keep using Signal Desktop without a phone, with a command line tool

Since recently, Signal warns its Desktop users that their account will deactivate if they don't turn on their phone again. Supposedly, it's for "security reasons". Here is how you can overcome this discriminatory behavior.

Nami
Apr 9 at 1:46pmWeb
Show threadAxel   Apr 9

@vanitasvitae
I like the conclusion of the article "[...] This severe lock-in effect should be reason enough to find alternatives, even if Signal has other advantages."

#xmpp #diday #did #didit #imday

Show threadNudelstaplerApr 9

@vanitasvitae

I know people that successfully use signal-cli.
But it is tedious.
I recommend using Signal on Waydroid. Waydroid is an Android Container for Desktop Linux that is not a virtual machine.

Show threadRoodieMay 13

@lasagne @vanitasvitae

There is also
https://bbernhard.github.io/signal-cli-rest-api/

a dockerized wrapper around signal-cli and it's not so much tedious, especially for the native and json-rpc modes.

signal-cli-rest-api API documentation