Signal is working on a way to sign up without a phone number. The feature has not yet been officially confirmed, and it is not yet known whether it will be available to all users or in what form.
They say they need to figure out how to counter/avoid spam/abuse first. And that makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, just look at Telegram (which is ironically going the opposite route nowadays).
I don’t believe Telegram desktop needed a mobile connection before and I used it for years and didn’t use a mobile client. I mostly used it as a bridge client for IRC and Matrix as the client itself was superior if you didn’t need privacy or encryption.
They say they need to figure out how to counter/avoid spam/abuse first. And that makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, just look at Telegram (which is ironically going the opposite route nowadays).
Telegram requires a phone number, last I checked, and Desktop needs to be signed in to from mobile. So the same as Signal for “Abuse Prevention” ™
And it’s only good for connecting to bot networks to deliver… Questionable content.
Most of my torrents ceom from Telegram bots, now that sites keep getting taken down who hosted them.
As to actually using it?
Well, the only contacts I have are pirate bots, and that will never change.
Still more than I have on Signal, though ;)
And yet I get tons of spam on telegram, and the only way to prevent it is to subscribe to Telegram Premium
I don’t believe Telegram desktop needed a mobile connection before and I used it for years and didn’t use a mobile client. I mostly used it as a bridge client for IRC and Matrix as the client itself was superior if you didn’t need privacy or encryption.
Well, I was worried about losing contact with the bots when I cancel my phone service, but maybe I won’t have to ;)