""Media requires a lot of storage, and storing and transferring large amounts of data is expensive," Signal's VP of engineering, Jim O'Leary, says in a blog post. "As a nonprofit that refuses to collect or sell your data, Signal needs to cover those costs differently than other tech organizations that offer similar products but support themselves by selling ads and monetizing data.""
"Signal is also launching free secure backups that save your media from just the last 45 days. On that free tier, you'll also be able to save your text messages past then, and while you'll be limited to saving 100MB of messages, Signal expects that will still "be large enough for even heavy Signal users to back up the text of all of their messages," according to O'Leary."
"The backup archives are "stored without a direct link to a specific backup payment or Signal user account," O'Leary says. You'll use a recovery key to unlock your backups, but if you lose that key, the company "cannot help you recover it." If you turn on secure backups, your device will make a new backup every day. The feature is available on Android's beta app, and a public launch and iOS and desktop support are "coming soon.""
Signal now offers a paid option for secure, end-to-end encrypted backups of media older than 45 days and text message history for $1.99 per month. Media storage and transfer are costly, and Signal, as a nonprofit that does not collect or sell user data, is funding those costs via the paid option. A free tier saves media from the most recent 45 days and allows message backups beyond that with a 100MB cap, which should be sufficient for most users. Backup archives are stored without a direct link to payments or accounts and require a recovery key the company cannot recover. The feature is in Android beta, with broader platform support coming.
Read at The Verge
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