Signal Beats WhatsApp To Become India’s Top Free App
Harleen Kaur Grewal
Pune, January 10, 2021: In the last few days, the number of users of the ‘Signal’ app has increased drastically. With the introduction of WhatsApp’s new privacy policy, the Signal messaging app has been widely downloaded. Hence, the Signal app has become the top free app by overtaking WhatsApp on the Apple App Store.
‘Signal’ is taking over the markets of WhatsApp in India, Germany, France, Austria, Finland, Hong Kong and Switzerland and has achieved top positions. Signal has also become the top free application in Google Play Store in Germany and Hungary. At one point, the OTP verification of the Signal app was delayed due to the heavy traffic in app downloads.
The Signal app has been downloaded by more than 10 million times on Google Play Store. In the first week of 2021, the rate of installations of WhatsApp has fallen by 11 per cent.
What makes ‘Signal’ different: ‘Signal’ allows users to send messages, make audio and video calls, share photos, videos and links. The app claims that user data is rarely used on its behalf. It also does not send unsecured backups of users to the cloud and it keeps the encrypted database secure in one’s phone. Signal had also brought the option of group video calling in December 2020.
Elon Musk’s tweet makes ‘Signal’ known to all: A tweet by Tesla company CEO Elon Musk suddenly facilitated the app’s popularity. Musk tweeted that he is using the Signal app. Since then, the download speed of the Signal app has increased multiple folds. He wrote on Twitter: ‘Use Signal.’
Musk’s tweet was also retweeted by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
WhatsApp’s new policy: WhatsApp has introduced a new privacy policy for its users, wherein the users will be required to agree with whether they like it or not. If the user chooses to disagree with the new policy, WhatsApp will close their account after 8 February. WhatsApp’s new privacy policy gives the company the legal right to use the data of its users.
