Signal had been down since Friday morning.
Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Encrypted-messaging app Signal came back online Saturday after a daylong outage apparently caused by a crushing number of new users.
The maker of the app alerted users on Friday morning it was aware of technical difficulties they were experiencing and was working to resolve the issue. More than 24 hours later, the service was finally restored Saturday afternoon.
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“Signal is back! Like an underdog going through a training montage, we’ve learned a lot since yesterday — and we did it together,” Signal said in a tweet. “Thanks to the millions of new Signal users around the world for your patience. Your capacity for understanding inspired us while we expanded capacity.”
Encrypted-messaging apps have seen a massive surge in new users in the last week after tech mogul Elon Musk urged his audience to drop Facebook-owned WhatsApp over its recent privacy policy changes. The changes give it permission to see communications between users and businesses within the app for marketing or Facebook advertising.
Read more: Everything to know about Signal
Last week, WhatsApp published an FAQ aimed at clarifying its data collection policy, emphasizing that neither it nor Facebook can see users’ private messages or hear their calls. Following mounting privacy concerns, WhatsApp announced Friday that it would delay the rollout of its new policy by three months.
The Signal app was downloaded almost 1.3 million times on Monday, according to data from Apptopia, a tracking firm. The encrypted-messaging app had been downloaded an average of 50,000 times a day prior to Musk’s tweet.
Signal warned that the outage might cause error messages to appear in chats but said it wouldn’t affect the chat’s security.