Hangouts vs Signal

Start chatting on your phone, then on your computer, then on your tablet seamlessly!

Hangouts uses Google account credentials. If you use any other Google service, then you already have an account set up.

If you have signed in your Google account, Hangouts allows making video calls with up to 10 people or one-on-one. There are business, education and government solutions that increase the participant count to for video calls to 15 as well as offers support for those accounts.

Additionally, you can switch between using either the front-facing or rear-facing camera on your phone or tablet.

Google offers all features of Hangouts completely free on iOS, Android and web with quick and reliable sync across all platforms. It's also tightly integrated in other Google services - it can be accessed from services such as Gmail, Google+, Chrome.

While the standard Hangouts offering is completely free, there are business, education and government solutions that increase the participant count to for video calls to 15 and offers support that may cost money.

Use the extension on any computer you can run Chrome browser to text from your computer or tablet!

It's possible to know what each and every participant of the group has read. Their icons are displayed below the last message.

If you have gifs in your mobile phone, you can share them in the conversation and your partner will be able to see it animated in the chat.

Google Voice is a service that enables making and receiving free phone calls within US. Google Voice forwards incoming calls to all connected devices and allows placing calls from any of the connected devices, but they will show as coming from the Google Voice number.

Hangouts completely integrates Google Voice, allowing you to place calls and receive texts and voicemail from all of your devices. The Hangouts app for Android also includes a needed dialer for making calls with the users Google Voice number.

Hangouts app for Android can be extended with an optional dialer for making calls. Most calls to US and Canada are free and international calls have cheap rates.

A Google Voice account will be needed in order have a number that allows these calls to be made.

Hangouts can inform about the status of other users including what device they are currently using, whether they are in the middle of a call and when were they last seen. This allows making sure that you're not disturbing someone when initiating a conversation. It's possible to granularly turn off status sharing.

Hangouts can add different effects and overlays to video calls that can be viewed on your device. Unfortunately, they can't be set from your phone.

Hangouts can be used completely hands free, even if the app is not open and the phone is locked: "OK Google, send a Hangouts message to Mary".

Signal uses an advanced end to end encryption protocol that provides privacy for every message every time.

Signal is free and open source software, enabling anyone to verify its security by auditing the code. It's the only private messenger that uses open source, peer-reviewed cryptographic protocols to keep your messages safe.

Signal Desktop can be used on multiple devices and has most features of the Android version, although it still requires you to register with your phone.

Signal supports: emoji, pictures, videos, audio, contacts, any location and GIF.

Allows you to "send: messages to yourself and sync to desktop so you can use Signal as a kind of encrypted Pushbullet alternative

You can easily view all media shared in the chat without scrolling back to when it was shared.

The sender credentials can be encrypted with the rest of the message, leaving only the recipient address readable by the Signal server. Even if Signal wanted they couldn't see who is talking with who by this mean.

Unlike most messenger apps, Signal works reliably in all countries by securely circumventing internet censorship.

Edward Snowden uses this messenger and recommends it to everyone who is concerned about his privacy.