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signalapp
Signal-Android
Kotlin2011–2026
signalapp / Signal-Android

Signal-Android

A private messenger for Android.

Security & PrivacyMobile & DesktopCommunication & Social
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
280Distinct people
372Mentions
5Explicit recommenders
29.6KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

A private messenger for Android.

GitHub

Where it is used

  • Molly — Molly uses the signalapp/signal-android codebase as an independent fork to deliver a variant of the Signal Android app with added features. It ships as its own app built from the Signal Android project. Source

What people are saying

I never hated on Signal, on the contrary I recommend it too many people but I can say that the energy consumption on Android is in many cases abysmal for multiple years now and…

johschmitz used a recommendation phrase. 5 indexed comments match. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 2:04:58 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year372 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2011-12-21 12:48:31 UTC to 2026-10-12 11:10:46 UTC.

0204060802011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 comments20112012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 1 submissions, 3 comments2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 12 mentions; 0 submissions, 12 comments2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 23 mentions; 0 submissions, 23 comments2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 26 mentions; 1 submissions, 25 comments2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 46 mentions; 1 submissions, 45 comments2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 22 mentions; 2 submissions, 20 comments2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 24 mentions; 4 submissions, 20 comments20182019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 10 mentions; 1 submissions, 9 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 25 mentions; 1 submissions, 24 comments2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 87 mentions; 12 submissions, 75 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 30 mentions; 2 submissions, 28 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 13 mentions; 0 submissions, 13 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 16 mentions; 2 submissions, 14 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 23 mentions; 1 submissions, 22 comments2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 10 mentions; 0 submissions, 10 comments. Incomplete calendar period.2026*

* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20112011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC110
20122012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC413
20132013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC12012
20142014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC23023
20152015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC26125
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC46145
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC22220
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC24420
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC1019
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC25124
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC871275
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC30228
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC13013
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC16214
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC23122
2026 (partial)2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC10010

What Hacker News says

12 sources
sillysaurus2·Dec 16, 2013
He's done nothing in crypto, and he's rolled his own protocol. That's historically been recipe for disaster regardless of how many honors you hold. Colin Percival is similarly decorated, along with being a cryptographer (he's the FreeBSD security officer): http://www.daemonology.net/papers/ ... yet even his crypto app Tarsnap was broken for over a year before he noticed, due to a typo during an innocent-looking refactoring change. http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2011-01-18-tarsnap-critical-... And the only reason the critical bug was found is because it was open source. This, as far as I can see, isn't. So we have a perfect storm of problems here: An author who has rolled his own crypto, isn't a cryptographer, and whose product is closed source. Trust Telegram at your peril. It's worth noting that there's an app which already does wh
Read the rest
at Telegram claims to do. It's called TextSecure, and it was written by Moxie Marlinspoke and several other big-name cryptographers: https://whispersystems.org/ ... and it's open source: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure/ ... and they don't try to roll their own crypto: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure/wiki/ProtocolV2 These aren't coincidences. It's basic necessity. EDIT: Telegram is open source, so I was wrong about that and it'd be unfair of me not to mention it. But the other observations still apply. Until Telegram is verified to be secure, I don't think it's a good idea to trust it, especially when secure alternatives like TextSecure exist.
In Telegram - secure, free messaging
chrisballinger·Dec 6, 2013
What really disappoints me about the current crop of VC funded messaging apps is that none of them care very strongly about user privacy. Even apps that claim to keep your messages "encrypted" are closed source and don't include details about their encryption techniques. There are open source encrypted messaging apps like ChatSecure [1][2], and TextSecure [3] but they lack some of the modern vanity features that users expect and they can seem difficult to setup for an average user. 1. https://github.com/chrisballinger/Off-the-Record-iOS 2. https://github.com/guardianproject/ChatSecureAndroid 3. https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure/
In Overrun With Messaging Apps
yareally·Mar 6, 2013
> I'm thinking some ways of encrypted mobile-to-mobile communication, file storage, maybe even encrypted video. There's a few good open source implementations out there already for phone calls and SMS. The two below were done by Moxie Marlinspike. They're built for Android, but I'm sure they can be ported elsewhere with the source being available. https://github.com/WhisperSystems/RedPhone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure
In Stop thinking up startup ideas [presentation]

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