Is anyone here aware of some alternatives to mentioned instant messaging applications ? Alot of people keep mentioning Signal , however since it is US based I am not going to entertain it as a possibility.
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take a look at ArcaneChat https://arcanechat.me/
Wait, what’s wrong with signal?
well … US based.
It is a us based non profit that doesn’t store any information about you, your contacts, or any of your metadata, and encrypts all of your data in transit and at rest, using a strong open source encryption protocol. Signals privacy is so strong that when delivering a message, they cannot tell who the sender is. It is developed out in the open and has been independently audited like four times.
Also you don’t need to purchase the app so boycotting it really only harms you since every other messaging app (that isnt self-hosted) is objectively worse in all of these measures, or has no network effect.
Don’t punish orgs who are doing things right.
It is a us based non profit that doesn’t store any information about you
still it runs in AWS, Microsoft, etc servers, and as any centralized service policy and interests can change at any time in the future, which would be pretty bad when you have several countries fully depending on them, just look the current situation with whatsapp, you can not be resilient/sovereign like that
has been independently audited like four times.
could you provide source pointing to the security audits?
That is a good take. However I could instead support European company with european people which is not to be neglected
That is completely reasonable and in every other instance I would encourage this, but there really isn’t a secure, private (those are two different things; WhatsApp is (probably) secure, but definitely not private) alternative to Signal at the moment. Even if one did exist, it likely isn’t compatible with Signal and would only serve to fragment messaging even further until it has more users than Signal already does.
I guess, I just want to encourage you to make changes where it really matters. Absolutely dump Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and other for-profit American manufacturing and services. But boycotting Signal doesn’t really help the way you want it to.
Ultimately you have to decide what is best for you and I obviously can’t and won’t force you to use something, but I hope I can at least provide some perspective.
It’s serverless though, right? The messages aren’t stored in any of signal’s servers? Or am I mistaken?
It’s also open source, so it would be possible just to fork and use a “European” version of it. Also, since it’s open source, it’s free to use, so no money actually goes to on American company by using it.
It’s serverless though, right?
no, and in fact the cost of running it is really high because the server infrastructure they need to pay, they even say it themselves “Signal is expensive” https://signal.org/blog/signal-is-expensive/
it would be possible just to fork and use a “European” version of it
in theory yes, in practice no one has done it, and then you should not use Signal but the european fork which will not be compatible/federated with signal
I think they are also non-profit company
The big inconvenience with the EU alternatives, is that I don’t know a single soul who use them.
I think schildichat on matrix is a good alternative the app is developed by a German guy and matrix is decentralized as the fediverse you can have your own server or join a mass server.
Here is a nice overview of the most common messenger:
Why is there no mention of TeleGuard?
Never even heard of that one.
The only thing the site says is it’s using Salsa20 (a stream cipher) but says literally nothing about key exchanges, key validation, etc.
Teleguard is closed source and the encryption protocol is not public or audited.
Try out the either Element or Fluffychat. Both based on decentralized, privacy, and security. Both based on Matrix. I like Fluffychat for ease of use and it’s on all devices. Plus you have to verify every device that signs in or that new device can not see previous chats as they stay encrypted.
It’s not just “based on”. Element and Fluffychat are two clients that use Matrix and are fully interoperable.
(I’m sure you know, but I’m not sure it’s obvious for potential newcomers)
Tue. Sorry, bit sleepy while responding doesn’t help.
I also use Fluffychat and I’m pretty satisfied. But it has its own “quirks”. I would say it’s slightly more buggy than I would expect. And I’m mostly missing the function for pasting of images from mobile device’s clipboard. It’s still doable, but in a somehow convoluted way. But once I got familiar with it, I’m liking it.
One of the latest updates allow you to use the Share button to directly post to Fluffychat. But I do agree with quirks.
Yep, that’s what I meant by convoluted. It’s: Share -> Fluffychat -> Click on Post
Then Fluffychat opens with a popup where you select the respective chat and click on Forward. And then click on Send in new popup. It’s not a catastrophe, but I can definitely imagine less steps for that :)
Sounds great, thanks for the tip
You are most welcome. I tried a lot of various messengers and these were the only ones that seemed to fit the extreme security we need in age of fascism.
Exactly … Element looks really good … Now is the time to bully everyone around me to ditch the US shite and join me over there haha
Element.io is a great option if you can get your circle to sign up
Threema is swiss
I’d say Simplex, but check this comparison:
I do like the idea behind it. However, it is extremely buggy and freezes on iOS. It is extremely convoluted to add multiple devices as for now they can’t be on same profile. And to top it oof, it does not seem to have a working export database feature for now.
When they fix those issues I do feel it has a great chance to take over.
The truth is I havent had much experience with it (well, didnt convince anyone to try it with😆), especially with iphones.
May I ask, does the export not work on iphone? It seemed to be working on my android.
It gets stuck on create passphrase to export. Even after re-install and an attempt with a new profile on the iPad.
That is great Comparison… thanks alot.
Delta Chat! Mostly Germany based, email protocol PGP encrypted messenger
Threema.
I’ve heard of Session, though I haven’t actually tried it out yet. It’s Swiss.
I’ve heard about https://docs.cwtch.im/, but haven’t tried it. It does seem to take privacy very seriously.
I’ve been using SimpleX, and I like it a lot. Very polished and reliable. The company is registered in the UK.
