Hello!
I strongly dislike, that Signal needs the phone number for registration, as well as needing it as user identification.
Taking an e-mail address wouldn’t make it better, in my opinion.
I would like Signal to be without any registration process (with validation SMS and so), just chose a username, pick a password, and that’s it.
I never understood the point of this registration viai SMS.
Kathy
Sigh, I’m so tired of Signal right now. This week I bought an old second-hand phone and a new prepaid card. That way I could register a phone number with Signal this weekend for someone who doesn’t have a smartphone or mobile phone.
On my smartphone, I could activate that person’s number with the Android app, after removing my version and then reinstalling the app later, with rolling back the backup.
So I went to that person’s home today to set it all up. He’s not technically savy, and it’s certainly not a straightforward process to set up Signal Desktop when you don’t have a smartphone. So I definitely needed to help.
But then I downloaded Signal Desktop, wanted to run the installation file on his Windows 10 computer, only to get an error message saying 32-bit is not supported. 
But that’s not mentioned on the download page: it simply says “Signal for Windows”, which implies any Windows version. There is no mention of system requirements on the downloads page.
So thanks Signal for wasting 4+ hours of my time that I spend researching this approach on Google, this forum, and Reddit. Plus getting the phone + SIM card. Oh and not to mention wasting dozens of euros. 
Sure I should have explored every single aspect. But I already thought my to-do list was done. So that’s my fault and a lessons learned for me. 
But come on guys, does it really need to be this difficult and complex to message with a Signal Desktop user? 
It’s 2018 for God’s sake. We have computers that apply machine learning to play and beat professional gamers. SpaceX can send rockets into space and their programs make them return to earth without fail. But we can’t send text messages to people like we did with MSN Messenger back in 1999-2001?
I think currently the best option for people who don’t have a smartphone is to use Wire.
In some countries, including Western democratic countries like Germany, you cannot get even a prepaid SIM card without showing state-issued photo ID. Which
Why would a messager that has privacy in mind want to support any of this?
In my understanding that is to prevent others from abusing your phone number by registering it for themselves. For your friends it would look like you’re on Signal but all the Signal messages sent to you would automatically go to the Signal client on the bad persons phone.
Same would apply to e-mails or user names when you don’t use some sort of validation process.
But you’re right! I would also very much appreciate it if Signal would also support simple e-mail verification without a phone number. Just like Threema does.
Hello!
Wire also requires a mobil number for registration, or, if you do it via the webpage, an e-mail address.
From week to week I start to like the approach of Wickr.
Just chose a username, choose a password, and no registration process. So you can use it on your iPhone, iPad and Computer simultanously without complicated synchronisations via iCloud or so.
No, Threema does not require any verification. You download the app, start it, you can, if you wish, say no phone number, no e-mail address, no access to contacts. You just have a Threema ID and that’s it. So you can use it without having any e-mail address or phone number (for example, if you own just an iPod Touch).
Same for Wickr. But I like Wickr’s approch more:
Because using Wickr, you just chose a username and password, which you both need to remember.
Using Threema, you have this Threema ID, and if you do not pay attention, and make no special “ID backup”, you might have a second Threema ID soon. I knew people who had 4 Threema IDs after a few months of usage.
What makes me sad:
All these things are being discussed in the Signal forums for years now. And you never really know, where Signal is going to. If they would have a transparent roadmap, and I would know:
Right now I don’t even know, if any of those features will ever come.
Kathy
By 1-to-1 following their instructions you will end up on the staging server, but you should just have to replace the URL with the real one.
Signal-Desktop can’t run on 32bit because electron does not. Signal-Windows should work on 32bit and supports sms registration, but it is unofficial and I have not tried it yet on a 32bit device.
And are you really using a processor not capable of running on 64bit? Aren’t all processors produced in the last 10 years capable of doing that?
Wickr and Threema aren’t open source, which makes them not so trustworthy for many users.
Sure, that’s just changing the entry in the JSON file. I can do that. But what I don’t understand is building a development version from source.
I might take a look at that, thanks for the suggestion.
I haven’t looked up the processor, but I suspect it can run 64 bit. But I’m not going to reinstall Windows just to run Signal Desktop. That’s a sickening amount of work (6+ hours) with the risk of data loss. That’s simply too much. It probably also requires a RAM update or other hardware components.
I envy you 
, because you make it sound like building from GitHub is easy and have enough money for up-to-date PCs. If that only were true for all of us.
Hello!
You are right about Threema, not about Wickr though:
Kathy
TBH, I just quickly scanned the article. From what I understand, only Wickr’s crypto core was open sourced, but not the complete app and server.
You should not switch to a 64bit operating system for signal desktop, but for a plentitude of other reasons:
A more complete lists is over at wikipedia. Most of the benefits are utilized only if a 64bit process is running.
What’s worse, we don’t know whether preventing us from having multiple independent online presences easily is intentional or just lack of priority.
Hello!
Yes, in my opinion that is the interesting part: how does the encryption work?
If you use Android and would like to build the app yourself from source code, that is not possible with Wickr, you are right. For me it does not matter anyways, because I use iOS.
Other than that (building the code yourself), I do not see any other points of making everything open source.
Kathy
Hello!
Well, that Signal is completely linked to your phone number; that you cannot use it anonymously… that is intended.
I do not know the reason, but I guess, because the Signal team thought, that the majority of people would be overstrained with everything else. So: Use username and password will of course result in a situation, where about 30% of all users will forget their password after a few years, or an approch like Threema’s will result, that 30% will not make an ID backup and thus might get problems after the first phone change…
Just using the phone number is the easiest approch, which will not result in direct problems. But it includes many trade-offs, so I don’t like it.
Kathy
I don’t know where you live in Germany, in The Netherlands you can get prepaid anonymously. A Lebara prepaid you can get at many phone shops or fuel stations for free as well (without any credit). You have to activate it in The Netherlands (just one phone call to a computer-operated service number, press 1 for English, 2 for Dutch, etc. ) and use it or top up every 6 months but if you only use it for registration that’s enough.
Hello!
This link is in German, but you see a nice map there. All countries, which are marked red, decided, that you need to show your passport to get a prepaid SIM.
The countries which are yellow, do not have such a rule, but it is discussed.
The green countries do not discuss such rules.
Kathy
In The Netherlands some politicians of the previous government talked about it but the discussion is dead now. Of course the police will always try to push such a thing if they think they can get it through but even the dumbest hardliner politicians admitted that it would only encourage the creation of sim-card mules who buy them and pass them on for a small fee.
Further on topic, Signal can be registered with a throwaway VOIP number as well.
Hello!
That sounds cool, in some aspects the Netherlands have better rules than many other countries in Europe.
Do you know, how the anonymous prepaid cards you can get there can be used with roaming in the EU?
Kathy
I worked in Germany for a while so I could test it and it works. Usually you have to register the card in The Netherlands, but that is like I described: call a phone number, listen to the tape and press some numbers to select your language of preference. Because some of these branches aim at foreign workers the instructions are usually in Dutch, English and sometimes in Polish and Turkish too. After registering you can roam in the EU. Top-up codes can usually only be bought in The Netherlands. Online topping up is possible but requires either IDEAL (Dutch online banking standard) or a creditcard; both remove the anonimity. Call credit can be bought at all manned fuel stations and most supermarkets in quantity’s of 10 and 20 euros. 3G and 4G internet usually works as well but can be quite expensive.