Individuate Your Identity: Signal Now Allows Personalized Usernames, No More Phone Number Sharing Required.

Several chat apps have evolved from simple SMS conversations, particularly those originating from the Western world. They share a common feature of only using phone numbers as accounts, which poses a privacy concern. If someone knows our phone number, they can easily look up our account in the system.

Recently, many chat apps have started allowing users to create accounts based on usernames instead of phone numbers. The latest app to do so is Signal, which allows users to set their own username and share it instead of sharing their phone number. (Although users still need a phone number for initial registration before setting a username later).

Signal has also updated its settings to default hide phone numbers. However, contacts who already have our number saved in their phones can still see our number. Additionally, users can now choose to prevent others from searching for their phone numbers in the system.

These features are currently available in Signal Beta and will gradually be rolled out in the stable version.

Source – Signal

TLDR: Chat apps are moving towards using usernames instead of phone numbers for more privacy and security. Signal’s new update allows users to hide their phone numbers and share usernames instead.