In the short term, as someone running without Google Play Sevices, I'm curious to see whether this just gave me access to the functionality of TextSecure again or broke RedPhone.

Regardless of which, I'm optimistic about the long term support for my own use, and I think the unification is going to be good to help the program spreading. Now for the people who don't really get the point of protecting our privacy but are just going along anyway I'll be getting calls and messaging for one round of persuasion. Much rejoicing.

Thank you Open Whisper Systems!

Now just so some UI polish (or maybe calling should be a part of the texting UI. Who am I to judge) and a better audio codec (say, CBR opus) and Signal has everything I could ever imagine wanting. I have had a rock solid experience, and the simplicity is amazing . My whole extended family is using it, and a couple of them are computer illiterate.

Great work Moxie and all the folks at Whisper Systems!

I was actually in the middle of re-writing a lesson on mobile phone security for activists in the field that I am giving in about an hour when I saw the new blog post. Never have I been so glad to be scrapping parts of a presentation and lesson plan at the last minute. There will be another 20 vulnerable human rights defenders in the field using Signal by the end of the day :)

Is this app widely considered safe? It seems to ask for an awful lot of permissions and is definitely communicating with a server while it operates

I'm aware of who Moxie Marlinspike is and have seen the Open Whisper Systems testimonials, I was just surprised with how much it asks for, has anyone dug through the code to get a feel for the risk profile of letting this app into everything on my phone?

Poor choice. They should've gone with "TextSecure". "Signal" is too generic, and I don't see any security aspect related to it. (But who am I to complain, I'm using Threema, anyway.)

Frankly it is a stupid choice.

"Have you got signal?", "Get signal so I can message you!"

It is already a widely used word relating to cell phones. Even with context, it's not obvious which "Signal" one is necessarily referring to.

'Have you got the signal app?' - solved.

The signal app, the one that shows me how strong my mobile signal is? Yes. (Annoyingly only for one SIM though.)

"The app called Signal" would be the only sensible way to do it that I can immediately see, but it's still clumsy and daft.