How to link Signal to my desktop without a cellphone? (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by Zeon@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

15 comments fedilink hide all child comments

To my understanding, Signal requires that you have a physical phone to use the desktop version. Is there any way to scan the QR code without a physical device? I'm trying to make an anonymous Signal account.

My idea:

1.) Set up Android VM on Linux laptop

2.) Use laptop camera to scan the QR code on my desktop

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] SuspciousCarrot78@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I wonder...does it need to be a real phone number, or can it be a virtual phone number that forwards?

https://www.burnerapp.com/

You just need to authenticate once, right? Then you can drop the burner number and you're clean?

EDIT: Yup!

https://www.burnerapp.com/blog/signal-without-phone-number

this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2026

45 points (100.0% liked)

Privacy

48907 readers

542 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 6 years ago

MODERATORS