Sooo instead you will be required to pay by card and thus have your identity proven by financial institutions behind? Big ooof.
this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2026
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I think you're jumping the gun a bit. They're just saying that requiring a phone number added a barrier against spammers and they want to be sure this change doesn't open the flood gates.
From the article:
"We gotta figure out some way to induce a cost for signing up without a phone numberβ, Kret said.
Itβs unclear whether this means that registration without a phone number will become a paid feature.
However, βcostβ does not necessarily mean a monetary fee; it could also refer to another barrier designed to prevent abuse.
Even if it was a card, privacy.com for the win as it allows for any address and name to be used with their debit cards!
For the low, low price of the transaction fee and all data about the transaction!
Is there a system in the US that doesnβt need an overhaul at this point?
There's no transaction fees and the payment data can be anything you'd like... But I'm on the same page about an overhaul for sure
Headline:
Signal is working on registration without a phone number. But what form will it take?
30 July 2026 10:30 CEST
Signal is working on a way to optionally 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.
Thank you!
I've always said it. Best form to prevent spam is to have allow list as a default. You should only be able to receive messages from pre-approved people.
I have allow listed my email for ages and it's great.
But obviously advertisers and business hate it because then they need your true consent to send you shit.
And in the case of Telegram, if they did that why would anyone sign up for their premium account?
I tried using Telegram and the amount of spam I would receive was annoying, but what was even more annoying was finding out that the 'Restrict messages from users not in your contacts' setting is paywalled. Telegram profits off of the spammers on their network.
yep, i had that feature on, but then they paywalled it and now I'm getting some spam.
I don't really use telegram and I will dump it soon.
Just a FYI, the nomenclature has moved to block/allow lists.
I had no idea. Makes sense. Thanks for saying.
Yeah, I had it pointed out to me last year.
I'll be happy if it happens but I need to see it. It would be significant to use Signal without phone number but one option they are considering to combat scam is to use bank card payment... Signal's issue still remains the centralisaion
They already lost users in authoritarian countries like Russia or China, where Signal is blocked and you can't get an SMS via a VPN, so registration or logging in with 2FA becomes impossible.
Another W for Signal
Ten years too late.
This could have had a far greater impact when whatsapp exodus or controversy happend in 2021. I bet they have reached a stall in the number of new accounts and donations are drying out.
I have also read rumors about them thinking about tying this to a one time payment to prevent bot registration
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" (TM)
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 ;)
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This is the main reason I don't use Signal, so depending on if and how it gets implemented, I may finally use it. Getting other people on board will be its own fight of course.
It would be good if true, for a privacy first chat, asking for your phone number is the first and biggest red flag.
Someone knows how Delta Chat handles the spam problem? Or spam is only a problem that comes with wider adoption?
My biggest issue with Signal is that it doesnβt reliably work. Iβll message back and forth with a friend on there and then receive a text message a week later asking why Iβm not responding on Signal. And itβs because I didnβt receive the messages.
Yeah happens to me from time to time. I think it's special treatment by Android OEMs. I think Samsung really likes to kill background apps even if explicitly told not to. see here.
Maybe It's expected behavior if Signal is not being used that often. Still weird WhatsApp never has that problem
That's really weird. I use it for my out-of-band chat for work since we all mute our Teams after hours. It's been reliable the entire 3 years we've been using it. Maybe I'm just really lucky?
Never had that myself. My family and i have been using it exclusively for years now.the only tine we fallback is when someone is in an area without data or wifi. Maybe once a year.
Weird I have never experienced this (or it was so long ago I don't remember). We've been using Signal absolutely reliably for our family Chat for many years now, and also with other friends.
I don't think Google Play Services are required, but
your power optimisation settings might prevent signal from running in the background
could have sth to do with it. And that's accessible through Settings, an App Permissions thing IIRC (although I never needed to do that manually either).
PS: I sent you a dm on a different matter.
Do you have google play services installed? If not, your power optimisation settings might prevent signal from running in the background, which it needs to to receive messages
Works on my machine. :P
Ive had this issue as well. I find it happens when i leave my wifi and go to cell signal. Not sure if its the same for you. I dont think ive had it be almost a week later but its been a few hours or maybe a day
Considering I've been sending everyone to Session instead, since I refuse to put a phone number linked to my name, address, and payment information in to a "privacy focused" messenger...
Havenβt they been working on this for months? I could have sworn I heard of this well over a year ago.
Will this allow people to install it on multiple devices? Right now I can't have it on my phone AND tablet and it sucks...
Not my experience:
- Signal (Android) on my phone
- alternative client (SfOS) on the same phone
- Signal desktop on my Linux laptop
All work with the same number/registration, i.e. they're in sync.
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We had an encrypted chat for a bit before I realized it was completely pointless with literally everyone in it but one or two having entirely stock phones with in-built Ai and tracking mechanisms. We used XMPP.
Since it was for a Jellyfin server, it basically meant anyone on an unmodified Google or Apple phone was basically a door to a seach of that data from either company for the text logged into each chatroom by each user, and displayed. Unless everyone is secure, no one is.
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