Contents
After Whatsapp changed its privacy rules a lot of people have been moving to other services like Telegram and Signal, and today we are going to show you how to use Signal like a pro by introducing some of its great features.
How to use Signal like a pro: Here are the best features of the messaging app
Turn on screen lock
The screen lock is intended to protect access to in-app chats when someone else has access to your phone. For example, if a friend wants to use your smartphone to check some things and suddenly wants to see your conversations in Signal, they will not be able to do so if you have this option activated.
When activating the screen lock, you can only access Signal with your fingerprint or your phone’s PIN, but this will depend on the default settings on your device. On the iPhone, it also works with Face ID.
To activate the screen lock you just have to go to Settings> Privacy> Screen lock. Once activated, you can also configure the time parameter for the screen lock to be activated.
Use screen security
This is one of the features that we recommend for all Signal users because it prevents screenshots of both the conversations in the application and the recent applications menu being taken.
If someone accesses your phone and wants to take a screenshot of your chats, they will not be able to do so, and if they try to see your messages through the preview in the recent applications menu, they will only see a gray box that will prevent them from having access to this information.
To activate this feature you must go to Settings> Privacy> Screen security.
Enable incognito keyboard
Although keyboards seem harmless, it is important to remember that they collect a lot of information from users, and some even store the passwords and user names of the services we use every day.
If you activate this feature, Signal will force your default keyboard to activate incognito mode whenever you use the application, this way it will not obtain data from you and it will not serve to spy on your conversations.
To force incognito mode on the keyboard you must go to the option that is just below “Security on screen”
Link devices
As with other messaging applications, there is a desktop version of Signal, but you cannot log in on more than one mobile device at the same time, and to link your account to the desktop version you must also scan the QR code as it is done with WhatsApp.
If you are logged into a computer and later switch to a mobile device, you will have to re-link your phone to the desktop version to enjoy the security features, and this is due to the famous end-to-end encryption that the service uses.
To link your account to the desktop version you will have to go to Settings> Linked devices, then click on the + sign and scan the QR code. Also, from that same option, you can close your session remotely.
Turn on / off new user notifications
Within the settings you can set the application to notify you when one of your contacts has joined Signal, so you won’t have to be checking the list of available chats to know if your friends or family have already created their account.
To activate the notification of new users you have to go to Settings> Notifications> Events, and check the referring box.
