Signal introduces secure cloud backups of its chat conversations via an opt-in feature in a beta version of its app for Android.
Users will soon no longer have to worry about losing their chat conversations in Signal. An announcement states that messages can now be restored from the cloud, even if your smartphone is broken or lost. With this, Signal takes a new and important step towards parity with WhatsApp for key features.
Monthly Fee
“If you choose to use secure backups, you can create a secure backup of all text messages and media from the last 45 days for free,” writes Jim O’Leary from Signal. There is, however, a maximum limit of 100 MiB of data for the free version.
For the first time, Signal also offers a paid option for those who want to keep more data for longer. For 100 GB of storage space, without a time limit, you pay €1.99 per month. Signal explains that the price tag is there because storage costs money. Since the chat app, unlike alternatives, doesn’t collect and sell user data, the budget for such functionality is limited. Signal relies exclusively on donations for its daily operations.
The backups are end-to-end encrypted just like regular chats and can only be decrypted by you. This means you can restore the messages (including disappearing and temporary messages). Anything you’ve deleted in the last 24 hours, or messages that disappear automatically, won’t appear in the daily backup.
The opt-in feature is available from today in a beta version on Android. A public version for Android, iOS, and the Signal desktop app will be released later. For now, there’s no communication on exactly when that will be.
read also