A few years ago, CyanogenMod decided to integrate WhisperPush Secure Messaging into their software. This allowed you to message anyone without risking your messages being intercepted. An issue that many people are paranoid about these days. It was a pretty streamlined integration, and didn’t take much work from the end user. However, today the company announced that they are ending support for WhisperPush, and it will be end of lifed on February 1st, in a new blog post.
The main reason for the CyanogenMod team to drop support for WhisperPush is due to the release of Signal. Which is an app that can be downloaded from the Google Play Store and still encrypt your messages. It’s basically like a combination of TextSecure (which was part of WhisperPush), and RedPhone. It works pretty well, and as CyanogenMod notes, since the release of Signal, WhisperPush hasn’t seen as much use on their platform. That there, led to their decision for them to drop support for WhisperPush.
There are a few key details here about WhisperPush Secure Messaging. For those that don’t have the device that they registered WhisperPush on, don’t worry. CyanogenMod will be unregistering everyone on February 1st. They are also assuring everyone that they won’t run to similar issues as iPhone users who used iMessage then went to Android. However, if you do want to unregister your device, you can do so now. Simply head into Settings then into Privacy and into WhisperPush. This is only available on CyanogenMod 10.2 through 12.1. As CyanogenMod 13 does not have WhisperPush integrated – for this exact reason.
Encrypted text messages is a pretty important feature to a lot of people. Thankfully, Signal is around to fill that void for CyanogenMod users. Luckily, it is a free service that can be downloaded from Google Play. There are also zero in-app purchases, so it is completely free. So those that still want to get their text messages encrypted, can do so with Signal. A pretty great app, and one that is sure to get a whole lot more attention now with CyanogenMod shutting down WhisperPush Secure Messaging in a few short weeks.