Signal Crypo Ap Coming To Desktop

It requires Play Services on Android. No thanks.

Looks interesting. I use Signal on Android and it's great.

I admit that using GCN isn't ideal, though. Really they should be using some independent push mechanism.

Is there such a push mechanism?

Signal is nice because it has the potential to be used by folks who are less tech-oriented and less aware of the need for data privacy, thereby increasing the likelihood that messages between random folks (neighbors, friends of friends, etc...) will be encrypted. It attempts to cover the use case where communication with someone is necessary, but hashing out the details of how to encrypt that communication is cumbersome or otherwise not possible.

As far as encrypted SMS, I've had good experiences with SMSSecure:

https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.smssecure.smssecure

Looks interesting. I use Signal on Android and it's great.

I admit that using GCN isn't ideal, though. Really they should be using some
independent push mechanism.

It requires Play Services on Android. No thanks.

This looks interesting. Has anyone used it on Android?

https://whispersystems.org/

Is there such a push mechanism?

Signal is nice because it has the potential to be used by folks who are less
tech-oriented and less aware of the need for data privacy, thereby increasing
the likelihood that messages between random folks (neighbors, friends of
friends, etc...) will be encrypted. It attempts to cover the use case where
communication with someone is necessary, but hashing out the details of how
to encrypt that communication is cumbersome or otherwise not possible.

As far as encrypted SMS, I've had good experiences with SMSSecure:

https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.smssecure.smssecure