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Signal Finally Lets You Skip the Phone Number, but Now Google Is Involved

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Signal Finally Lets You Skip the Phone Number, but Now Google Is Involved

Signal has started testing a way to join the encrypted messenger without handing the app a phone number. The feature, branded Signal Login, is in the Android 8.28 beta and is slated for an eventual iOS release.

On a fresh install, the registration screen now includes an option to sign up without a number. Choose it, and Signal asks for a one-time in-app purchase, listed at launch as $2.99, or €3.49 including VAT. Prices can vary by country. Phone-number registration remains the default, free path.

After the payment clears, Signal issues an Account ID and a recovery key. Lead Android developer Greyson Parrelli told testers to treat those like a username and password and to store them in a password manager. “If you lose them, your account is gone,” Parrelli wrote. “There is no other recovery mechanism.”

The existence of a username at all is entirely optional. “If you choose not to add a username, your account will be completely unreachable,” Parrelli wrote. “The only chats you will be able to participate in are the ones you start yourself.”

"Good news! You don't need a phone number to use Signal anymore! Now just pay for an ID using your KYC fiat…" https://t.co/AhF3zTTC7X

Parrelli said the fee exists because a free, numberless signup would be a gift to spammers. “If it was free, spammers would acquire massive numbers of these accounts and ruin our network,” he wrote. “This was the most reasonable way we could think of to prevent spammers.



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