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@mehdi said in Best privacy chat apps:
I don't know about Telegram's encryption, I never looked into it. I just know they don't use any by default (which, in itself, is bad)
we probably don't talk about the same phase of encryption, you seams focusing on the message (which obviously it is important) and I'm talking about the transfer
anyway good thing this forum is encrypted by a SSL
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I came across a couple of nice chat comparisons recently.
First of all there is this nice infographic by niboe.info
Sadly I've been unable to find an English version of the other nice infographic in this accompanying article of theirs in Spanish.
I also came across this handy table from DivestOS (a privacy focused Android distribution):
https://divestos.org/index.php?page=messengers
Both of these make we wish Cloudron had an XMPP server like ejabberd so we could get our friends to try out Conversations and Movim (I mean, both Yunohost and HomeLabsOS have an XMPP server, and they are both fully open source and run by volunteers - whereas Cloudron is the one with a business model and full time paid @staff - and yet they've got XMPP and we don't!
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maybe me, but personally I make a difference when you are able to generate or add your own key to encrypt versus the "platform" provide you the public and private key
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@jodumont The key is always generated on your own device. There is zero reason to allow users to import an external key. If you don't trust the local app to correctly generate a keypair, you have no reason to trust it to correctly perform the encryption. So importing a key brings nothing.
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@jdaviescoates time to host an event, start packaging and get help finishing it!
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@robi I've often thought of learning to code. I loved maths as a kid. But now isn't the time.
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@jdaviescoates there's no real coding involved.. it's mostly stitching things together and adjusting configs. You'll have help too.
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Looks like Signal App's addition of payments using MobileCoin ($MOB) has struck a raw nerve with many.
Another alternative that seems to come up regularly on the comments underneath their Tweets is this Session App:
YMMV but another one for the list and your esteemed critique.
Web Design https://www.evergreen.je
Development https://brandlight.org
Life https://marcusquinn.com -
@marcusquinn see also Snikket which seems like a great option too (and gets my vote for the XMPP that ought to be first added to Cloudron).
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I'd still take Matrix over all of those for its decentralized and federated nature. It is incredibly secure and their Element client has truly come a long way. I would love to see Snikket and Oragono though. I tried packaging Oragono but lost the motivation part way through as I usually do.
But my vote for matrix comes in here: Me and a friend could both have our own homeservers and still chat in a secure manner. If we're talking privacy, I'd say its at the top for sure.
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@atrilahiji true, although I find Matrix to still be somewhat of a UX nightmare. It's often very confusing, even for geeky people.
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@jdaviescoates I mean, I wouldn't say I'm an expert in UX so I can't speak to that but I can say that for me I found it fairly intuitive. I know that this may not be everyone's experience though.
I also am wary of UX issues or incredibly pretty apps sometimes because I find that a lot of apps seem to go 110% in on beautiful and intuitive UI while compromising on core functionality.
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I think any app requiring a central server will remain niche.
Signal took a long time to persuade people to switch with very low signup friction.
User experience is as fundamental to security as shoes are on gravel.
If the experience doesn’t factor-in user onboarding time & friction, then it becomes a security issue in itself, by discouraging critical-mass adoption to be more useful than the ad-tech alternatives.
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@marcusquinn said in Best privacy chat apps:
I think any app requiring a central server will remain niche.
Did you mean apps not requiring a central server? Looking at the current abysmal state of the internet, apps requiring central servers dominate.
Signal took a long time to persuade people to switch with very low signup friction.
User experience is as fundamental to security as shoes are on gravel.
If the experience doesn’t factor in user onboard IG time and friction, the it becomes a security issue in discouraging critical mass adoption to be more useful than the ad-tech alternatives.
I think this is a good ol' agree to disagree situation. I'm of the opinion that if someone needs to be coerced into caring about security they may as well stick with selling their soul to Sundar Pichai and Zucc. As far as I'm concerned the best privacy chat app is the one that best protects privacy. Simple as that.
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@atrilahiji The family reeeeeeallly resisted the push to Signal for months, these are people that care, and I care about, but the "why should I?" brainwashing runs deeper than personal and relationships nowadays.
That's the power of user experience and trust in exchanging effort for that.
For business and professionals, sure, we have some influence, but for personal, I'm afraid the user statistics speak for themselves.
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@atrilahiji Moral hypothetical; mental health is an issue, I think we can agree on that?
How do we reconcile having capabilities to improve user experience and adoption, against having people we care about unnecessarily unhealthy in mind because they "sold their soul", or more likely it was bought and sold for them?
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@marcusquinn I mean yeah, for a number of people the security aspect is something of a non-issue. What moves them is the UX. But I'd argue that most, if not all, open-source chat apps that allow for self hosting simply cannot compete with Signal because people move to the shiny thing. You and I know that there are better options if privacy is the concern, but for the majority of people privacy truly is not a concern. If it was, we wouldn't even be having this discussion and everyone would use Matrix.
But where I'm coming from here is solving the core issue of the best privacy chat app, which I still argue is Matrix. I would not say it is the best chat app. But again its a matter of what one prioritizes.
