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    Best privacy chat apps

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    • marcusquinn
      marcusquinn last edited by

      Chatting with @humptydumpty about alternatives to Discord, so thought I'd share my conclusions:

      • Signal seems the easiest for people used to Whatsapp, Discord, Messenger, Whatever
      • Telegram seems good but Signal being open-source seems better.
      • Matrix / Element / Mattermost - too quirky and poor mobile experience.
      • Rocket.Chat the best of our current Cloudron options but higher RAM needs.
      • Jitsi & Jami look like the best of the App Wishlist alternatives.
      • Tox looks OKish for desktop but no mobile.

      Hope that helps some - anything better than the above I've missed?

      marcusquinn JOduMonT 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • marcusquinn
        marcusquinn @marcusquinn last edited by

        Just been looking at Signal on Desktop. Not so good, doesn't seem to do everything the mobile app does. Telegram wins in this comparison.

        d19dotca 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • mehdi
          mehdi App Dev last edited by

          @marcusquinn said in Best privacy chat apps:

          Telegram seems good but Signal being open-source seems better.

          Security professional opinion : Telegram is 💩 . It's no better than facebook messenger. No encryption by default. I don't know how they managed to create the public perception that they are privacy-focused.

          marcusquinn 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 4
          • d19dotca
            d19dotca @marcusquinn last edited by

            @marcusquinn Yeah Signal's UI is crap, but it's supposedly one of the "best" for privacy, so I hear. Been using it with a few friends for a couple of years and it's worked well. Just not a fan of the interface.

            H 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • H
              humptydumpty @d19dotca last edited by

              @d19dotca My problem with Signal and most other apps is that you need a phone number or email address associated with the account which can be mined from the metadata.

              Signal removed the "from" in the metadata but for an app that touts "secure communications", you'd think they would have done that since the app's inception.

              You might say, "I don't have anything to hide" or "I don't care if they know some things about me" but all this info is being collected and they're building a profile about you so they can profit from it. That's the best case scenario. Now imagine dictators having that kind of power in their hands. What's stopping corporations, governments, organizations from abusing this power? Nada. We have to protect ourselves by denying them every bit of data no matter of irrelevant it may seem. Ask yourself, if it's that irrelevant, why do they want it so bad? Why does big brother want a backdoor into encryption?

              I rest my case.

              d19dotca 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 5
              • marcusquinn
                marcusquinn last edited by marcusquinn

                Privacy is my new favourite subject, to the point I'm writing blog posts as I learn more, this being the first I got around to:

                • https://www.marcusquinn.com/do-you-trust-this-computer/
                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • marcusquinn
                  marcusquinn @mehdi last edited by

                  @mehdi Damn, fooled me, and I thought I was good at spotting the cracks but information-overload is a great marketing tool eh. Any other recommendations then?

                  jdaviescoates mehdi 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • jdaviescoates
                    jdaviescoates @marcusquinn last edited by

                    @marcusquinn I think Signal has the best privacy and security. But yeah, I've never used the desktop app, just the mobile app.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • mehdi
                      mehdi App Dev @marcusquinn last edited by

                      @marcusquinn From a security and privacy standpoint, I would only consider Signal and Matrix. Both are pretty usable in my opinion.

                      I also heard good things, from a security perspective, about Olvid. No idea how good is the interface though.

                      jdaviescoates rmdes 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 4
                      • jdaviescoates
                        jdaviescoates @mehdi last edited by jdaviescoates

                        @mehdi said in Best privacy chat apps:

                        Olvid

                        Hadn't heard of that before, sounds good:
                        https://www.olvid.io/en/

                        I note it doesn't have the phone number/ email address issue Signal and other apps have that @humptydumpty mentions above.

                        I also note that Olvid isn't (yet) open source:
                        https://olvid.io/faq/is-olvid-code-open-source/

                        But the technology it's powered by is:
                        https://olvid.io/faq/is-olvid-technology-open-source/

                        robi 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • robi
                          robi @jdaviescoates last edited by

                          @jdaviescoates it seems they are limiting voice calls with a subscription.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • rmdes
                            rmdes @mehdi last edited by

                            @mehdi what do you think of Wire compared to Telegram ?

                            mehdi 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                            • mehdi
                              mehdi App Dev @rmdes last edited by

                              @rmdes End-to-End encryption, not re-implementing their own crypto primitives, using a well known protocol, open-source ... On first glance, looks good.

                              rmdes 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                              • rmdes
                                rmdes @mehdi last edited by

                                @mehdi I Also like that it allow people to get in touch and use the entire feature set without ever exchanging phone numbers

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                • M
                                  murgero App Dev last edited by

                                  Matrix + Element is probably the best privacy focused app if I am being honest. Next is XMPP (With OMEMO or PGP).

                                  Client side, each have multiple apps for Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, and Android (Not to even mention Web Apps).

                                  Matrix is probably the best option of the two as by default it can federate with other servers securely.

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • marcusquinn
                                    marcusquinn last edited by

                                    Thoughts on Rocket.Chat security?

                                    mehdi 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • mehdi
                                      mehdi App Dev @marcusquinn last edited by

                                      @marcusquinn It's self hosted. So, on that point, better than most ^^ Otherwise, there is no special security feature, no end-to-end encryption, ...

                                      marcusquinn 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                      • d19dotca
                                        d19dotca @humptydumpty last edited by

                                        @humptydumpty Not sure if that was really meant to be directed at me or not 😛 haha because yeah, I agree with your points on the "I don't have anything to hide" part, that's been something I've argued for years with people and fully support that it should never be about if someone has something to hide or not.

                                        What do you prefer to use over Signal though in that case if it doesn't quite past muster for you? Always open to alternatives.

                                        marcusquinn H 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • marcusquinn
                                          marcusquinn @mehdi last edited by

                                          @mehdi Cool, thanks, the scope of this post is for all chat apps, not just CLoudron ones, but insight into the Cloudron ones is always handy.

                                          I guess the hope is to find what works best for family & friends to try and get them moving to that doesn't involve self-hosting or cost because frankly that's the benchmark from the no-so-private competition.

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                          • marcusquinn
                                            marcusquinn @d19dotca last edited by

                                            Everyone here has A LOT to hide. If you're a Sys Admin, all those keys to kingdoms you have could yield great value or damage in the wrong hands.

                                            Doesn't matter how secure we are if social-engineering can get to our stuff through our peers.

                                            Aside from that, hopefully my blog post above explains a lot of other things to think about for how all our peers devices can gather data on us no matter how secure we are personally, so it will only be a whole society movement that plugs those holes, and I'm sure many here are happy to help friends and family do that if it is the seeds for a greater migration.

                                            d19dotca 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
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