You can also set your messages to disappear over time, or photos to disappear after a single viewing. Apple users will want to visit their privacy settings within the app and turn off 'Show Calls in Recents' to prevent your history from syncing with the cloud. To keep yours private, you can sign up with a Google voice number.

Signal requires a phone number to join the app. If you're concerned about someone accessing the Signal app from your phone, you can lock the app with the same passcode or fingerprint scan normally used to lock your phone. For now, groups are capped at 150 people, but adding and removing new people from a group is simple. Those include group admins, updates, timers for disappearing messages. Signal's beta version is testing new kinds of chats with forum-like features. You can even send and react to messages with emojis, much like on Slack and Discord. In these chats, you can send pictures, videos, internet links, voice messages, and more. On a basic level, you can have one-on-one conversations with someone or start a group chat. There's a Signal app on nearly every major system.

Web signal app