Signal Desktop beta offers encrypted voice and video conversations

The Signal development team has released a new beta of Signal Desktop. The trial version of the software allows users to make encrypted voice and video calls on macOS, Windows and Linux.

The developers are calling on users who are not afraid of bugs to join the beta period and test the features. It concerns end-to-end encrypted telephony and video, as is also available for the mobile version of Signal and which should be included in the final version of Signal Desktop.

According to the development team, a lot of work was needed to bring the audio and video functionality to the desktop version of Signal. The details of this work will be published by the makers in the coming weeks. Among other things, they will discuss the forking of Interactive Connectivity Establishment, a protocol for Network Address Translation as laid down by the Internet Engineering Task Force.

Signal Desktop is the encrypted communication application that runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. It is required that a user also has Signal on his smartphone. It is not yet known when the voice and video functionality will come to the general release of Signal Desktop.