Signal just got a big upgrade that beats WhatsApp

(Image credit: DANIEL CONSTANTE/Shutterstock)

Signal Private Messenger, the encrypted messaging app, merely got a notable feature upgrade that tops WhatsApp, at least in terms of numbers.

Cheers to a new service that was developed in-house, Signal now supports up to xl participants on an stop-to-terminate-encrypted group video call, while WhatsApp is stuck at a maximum of eight.

"In that location is no off-the-shelf software that would allow us to support calls of that size while ensuring that all communication is finish-to-end encrypted, so nosotros built our own open source Signal Calling Service to do the job," wrote Indicate's Peter Thatcher in a company web log post yesterday (Dec. 15).

The balance of Thatcher'due south post gets into the technical details, which we'll leave out here. (As Signal is an open-source project, the code for the Point Calling Service is available on GitHub for anyone's employ.)

Simply as Android Police's Manuel Vonau points out, Bespeak could support merely five participants when the service added group video calls a year ago, so this is a huge ramp-up.

It certainly leaves WhatsApp in the dust, as that Facebook-owned — distressing — Meta-owned service can handle only eight end-to-end-encrypted video-call participants at one time. Both are fashion alee of Telegram, which is slowly rolling out group video calls that have a current limit of xxx participants but are not end-to-end encrypted.

That means that while the video-telephone call transmissions are encrypted between each participant and Telegram's servers, Telegram can however see what's going on.

WhatsApp and Bespeak, on the other mitt, can't — because the telephone call content is visible only to persons on either finish of the transmissions.

If you don't listen the possibility that the hosting service might exist able to encounter what you say online — and provide recordings to the government, if warranted — and then Telegram is a fine selection, given that it has so many other features to offer. But if you'd rather not anyone else know your business concern, and then Indicate or WhatsApp information technology will have to be.

Check out our list of the best encrypted messaging apps for more information.

Paul Wagenseil is a senior editor at Tom's Guide focused on security and privacy. He has also been a dishwasher, fry cook, long-haul driver, lawmaking monkey and video editor. He'due south been rooting around in the data-security space for more than 15 years at FoxNews.com, SecurityNewsDaily, TechNewsDaily and Tom's Guide, has presented talks at the ShmooCon, DerbyCon and BSides Las Vegas hacker conferences, shown up in random TV news spots and even moderated a panel discussion at the CEDIA home-technology conference. You tin can follow his rants on Twitter at @snd_wagenseil.