Signal Rolls Out Story Support to Everyone

Every messenger should have stories. Now, even Signal does, following Snapchat’s lead, so you can post your images and videos for 24 hours there for all your contacts to see and react. After mainstream messengers went secure in the wake of scandals and mass concerns, the first secure messenger goes mainstream.

The upcoming feature was announced in October, and it didn’t take Signal long to implement it after that. Before the official rollout, though, it was tested in the beta version, and as the results turned out to satisfy both the developers and the public, the feature made it to the next major update. If you have updated your Signal to the version 6.0 (or later by the time you’re reading this), Stories must be already there.

Signa’s approach to stories is quite minimalistic, given that this feature is unnecessary for many users. There is a dedicated “Stories” tab where you can see your contacts’ stories and create yours. The tools provided by the messenger are minimalistic. You can add images or videos from the camera or from your gallery, add a message, trim the picture to a certain ratio, rotate it, and choose the resolution. Stories allow for adding more than one media. There aren’t any filters, frames, or effects.

What Signal does feature is advanced privacy settings. You can choose the recipients as you publish the story. Also, in the Settings you can define groups for which your stories will be available, like your family, neighbors, coworkers, etc. This approach fits the general positioning of Signal as the messenger that’s about security first of all. It goes without saying that stories are end-to-end encrypted, as well as any other content you share on Signal.

If you use Signal, how do you like its take on stories? Have you already posted any? And are the privacy settings advanced enough for you? Welcome to the comments section, tell us what you think about it!