Now it’s your turn to show you the tricks for Signal that you need to know. As you must imagine, these functionalities are mostly linked to security, which is ultimately the great strength of this app and its objective is to guarantee the privacy of its users, something that today is of vital importance for everyone.
Among the tricks that we have found about Signal there are alternatives that let you protect the face of people present in photos, self-destruction of files, screen lock, a space for personal notes, the possibility of hiding your IP in calls and messages that disappear automatically , all focused on protecting the user and their privacy.
7 WhatsApp features that Signal doesn’t have
Use your own personal note space
Remember when you had to create a WhatsApp chat with yourself to make private notes, because now with Signal you no longer need to do it. This is something that you can now do without any problem by pressing the pencil-shaped button at the beginning of the app.
Click on the icon, you will see that the first time the app itself will ask you for a new permission to access your contacts, it is a permission that you must necessarily grant to use this function.
Once you pass this step, then you will see the list of “People” that are your contacts and you will also see your phone number as “Personal Notes” , in this way you will only have to select this special contact and you can then start creating your private notes .
You will see that it is nothing more than a simple chat, something that you surely expected, but in this case the process to open it Signal has made it much easier for you.
Signal notifications also secret
If we are interested in maintaining privacy, one of the problems that we face with messaging apps is that other people around us can know the identity of who writes us, and also see the messages we receive, so the ideal would be also being able to hide notifications .
To achieve this, all you have to do is go to Settings, then select the “Show” option, there you can choose to show the name of the contact and the message, as well as decide that the notifications are kept secret and do not show any information.
Screen locked automatically
We continue to see the Signal tricks that you should know and all of them related to privacy. Now we show you how this messaging app allows you to lock the app and the screen automatically.
- To be able to use this function you must go back to Settings, then choose “Privacy” and then the option “Access to the application” .
- The first available option allows you to lock the screen using your fingerprint , or any other security means present on your Android mobile.
- The next option allows you to block the app completely, after the system detects inactivity for a certain time.
In this way, if you have left the Signal session open on your mobile, the app itself would take care of blocking the phone and the messaging at the same time.
Blur faces to share photos
This is one of the most interesting functions for users who want to protect the identity of those who accompany them in an image, as well as children and relatives, especially if the photograph will be placed in groups and sent to people who are not totally reliable for the issuer.
It will be enough to pass the photos through a small editing step to blur the faces and you can automatically share them with any contact quickly and easily.
Enter the gallery from the chat you want to send the photo to, then choose the fourth tool present in the editor.
There you will see two available options: the first offers you to blur any element present in the photo, simply by swiping your finger across the screen and the second alternative is “Blur faces” which allows you to automatically blur all the faces detected in the image.
Images with automatic deletion
Now we move on to another security element for the images you share. This tool allows you to send the images with a timer that will erase them once the receiver looks at it for the first time, so it will not be saved in your gallery and even less will be able to share them.
- To achieve this, you must choose the photograph in your gallery and press the option with the infinity symbol .
- At that moment, click on “1x” , so you will send it and the person will only be able to see it once and then it will be automatically deleted from the chat.
It is important that you know that the user will be notified that it is a single view image.
However, you should consider that this function does not establish a specific time , so the other person can leave it open as long as they want and take a screenshot there.
Hide the IP of your calls
If you are concerned about the security of your calls through this app, the same platform offers you an alternative. Normally we make calls with known people, but in case you want your IP to be unknown, you can change this within the Settings.
To activate this function, you must go to the Settings as we mentioned before, then go to “Privacy” and then “Communication”; there you will find the function “Always redirect calls” and that will make them go from the Signal server , instead of the IP of your mobile.
Disappearing messages
The self-destructing messages from Telegram are also present in Signal. With this functionality, Signal allows you to configure messages to be automatically deleted after a period of time.
This feature will have to be activated in the chat, as it is not available for individual messages. As long as the “Disappearing messages” function is active, the messages will be deleted automatically, without any exception.
To activate it, go to the chat you want to use with this function, go to the menu and choose the option “Disappearance of messages”, there you can choose that the messages last only 5 seconds and any of the available options, up to a week.
Encrypted copies of your chats
Finally, if you are interested in having a much greater security of your messages, then you can choose the encrypted backup for your chats. You can have this backup available on your own mobile phone, you can also have it on an external storage unit.
To activate this tool you must go to Settings, then choose the “Chats” option, then select “Backup” .
There you will have to choose the “Activate” option and then you must choose a folder for it, then it will assign you a passphrase composed of 6 groups of numbers with 30 digits in total, you must write them down in a safe place.
If you do not have the password, you will not be able to recover this copy and it will be available on your device until you decide to delete it manually.
Now you know all the tricks of Signal to maintain maximum security in this instant messaging platform.
