New Delhi, Nov 9 (IANS): Encrypted messaging platform Signal is testing usernames for accounts so people don’t need to share their phone numbers to connect on the app.

Signal VP of engineering Jim O’Leary said that it is no secret that we’ve been working on bringing usernames to Signal for a while now.

“After rounds of internal testing, we have hit the point where we think the community that powers these forums can help us test even further before public launch,” he said in a blog post.

An official release is planned for early 2024,according to Signal president Meredith Whittaker.

“As you’re testing, we’re most interested in hearing about crashes and seeing your corresponding debug logs 7 in this dedicated forum thread. These early builds are designed to proactively crash if it appears that anything has gone wrong under the hood, since we’re changing the fundamental way that accounts are identified in the Signal ecosystem,” O’Leary explained.

There are some rough edges in the user experience (UX) at the moment.

“We expect to update these builds daily, rather than the weekly cadence you’ve become accustomed to in the public beta channels,” the Signal executive said.

An official release is planned for early 2024, according to Signal president Meredith Whittaker.

Signal uses a centralized computing architecture, and is cross-platform software. It is developed by the non-profit Signal Foundation and its subsidiary, Signal Messenger.

It uses mobile telephone numbers as an identifier for users and secures all communications with end-to-end encryption.