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A comment on What can you use instead of Google and Facebook?. Parent comment

Re:What can you use instead of Google and Facebook? by 52-6F-62 on Friday January 24, 2020 @12:17PM (#22140281)
I don't use any of them, but I've been trying to keep in touch with an old friend of mine who's serving with the Canadian Armed Forces in Ukraine and we often miss each other's emails.

He's had to adopt a local SIM card over there for security purposes (Russia's listening) and uses WhatsApp regularly. He asked me to pick it up, and instead I referred him to Signal.

This was [part of] his recent response:

I downloaded signal but they want to confirm my number but my sim card doesnt work over here and my european card is data only.

So that is one blocker for sure but otherwise I always push people to Signal as a reasonable alternative.

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Re:What can you use instead of Google and Facebook? by quindecagon on Friday January 24, 2020 @01:48PM (#22141230)
Apparently if SMS verification fails, it can fall back to a phone call where a robot reads you the verification code. This means you could set up Signal with a landline, Google Voice, Skype, or Twilio.

https://theintercept.com/2017/09/28/signal-tutorial-second-p...

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Re:What can you use instead of Google and Facebook? by newscracker on Friday January 24, 2020 @04:20PM (#22142574)
Just make sure you don’t lose access to that number. Or you’ll find yourself locked out of Signal completely if someone else verifies an account using that number.
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