The Signal messenger and protocol.

The latest update for Signal Android introduces comprehensive support for linked devices. Now you can easily link another Android phone or Android tablet to your Signal account. Thanks to significant interface improvements to better support large devices, your messages will stay in sync across every screen and look good on all of them too.

Not beta anymore.

More details here.

Release notes:

Their website and F-Droid repo is unreachable now. No update about this on Mastodon and apparently they haven't updated the app in 3 months.

Some updates from their Matrix channel

They responded to the ticket

Thanks for reporting it. The domain automatic renewal failed because the credit card we used for payment was expired, and OpenCollective didn't issue a new card.

The domain is still ours, but the DNS services are suspended. We've already paid for the renewal (11 hours after the domain expired). Unfortunately, our registrar, Gandi, seems to need to take a manual action, and they haven't responded to our support requests yet. Today is bank public holiday in France.

Signal has introduced new in-app confirmations and warning messages as additional safeguards against phishing and social engineering attempts that could lead to various forms of fraud

From the official Dutch Intelligence and Security Service

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information.

“Despite their end-to-end encryption option, messaging apps such as Signal and WhatsApp should not be used as channels for classified, confidential or sensitive information,” states Director of the MIVD, vice-admiral Peter Reesink.

Individual accounts

An interesting aspect of this Russian campaign is that it does not exploit any technical vulnerabilities of the messaging services. The attackers instead make malicious use of legitimate security features of the apps. Director-General of the AIVD Simone Smit states, “It is not the case that Signal or WhatsApp as a whole have been compromised. Individual user accounts are being targeted.”

To increase resilience against this Russian campaign, MIVD and AIVD have published a Cyber Advisory explaining how to identify and respond to attacks. The advisory also give instructions for Signal users on how to identify potentially compromised contacts.

All Signal users can personally check whether there are any potentially compromised contacts in their group chats. If you see any people who appear twice in the list of members (under the same or a slightly different name), this may be evidence of either a compromised account or a new account created by a victim.If you suspect this to be the case, report this to the information security department of your organisation. Together you can try to verify (preferably using a channel other than Signal or WhatsApp, such as an email or a telephone call) whether it is correct that the account in question appears twice in the chat group contact list. Should this not be the case, ask the group administrator to remove both accounts from the group chat, after which the legitimate account holder can request to rejoin the group. Please remain vigilant for group members who are not recognised by the rest of the group. The actor may occasionally change the display name of a compromised account to remain unnoticed in chat groups, for example to names such as 'Deleted account'. If a member’s display name changes, the group will receive a notification. When the change is the legitimate transition to 'Deleted account', no notification is sent. Actor-controlled accounts can also gain entry to the group via an obtained Group Link, of which the group always receives a notification. In all such unauthorised scenarios, ask the group administrator to remove the offending accounts from the chat.If there is any indication that the group administrator themselves may have been compromised, it is advisable to exit the group and create a new one.

I'm looking for an alternative to signal-desktop, with the following conditions:

1. Designed for desktop (GUI or TUI, notification support, runs in background)
2. Runs as main device, not requiring a linked signal app
3. Supports most of the signal features (group chats, disappearing messages, usernames)
4. Preferably integrated with pidgin, thunderbird, or another gui that I'm already using.

Does such an app exist? I have seen many forks of Signal, but most of them also seem to be for android. Previously, I had used signal-cli with an official copy of signal-desktop, but this is not satisfactory for a few reasons, mainly about the "remember to connect on your phone before 30 days" error.

In the latest version of Signal rolling out now, you can pin your most important messages to the top of your 1-1 and group chats.

Polls are now available in the latest versions of Signal for Android, Desktop and iOS which are rolling out now.