I’ve been working really hard to research and rank messaging apps by their privacy. The more green boxes the better.
I plan to turn PrivacySpreadsheet.com into a place for privacy data on everything from cars to video games. It’s all open source too on GitHub.
Not trying to advertise, I just put a lot of time into researching all this, and I want to share it since I think others could benefit.
Would absolutely add Session, I think it’s basically a requirement for this comparison. Great work otherwise
Yes, please add Session. Wire is missing, too.
A version of this with usability features would be nice. Some of these I gave earnest tries, with multiple friends who were willing to indulge my interest, and the tools failed for various reasons: too cumbersome, too confusing, too unreliable, too basic. It’s a subjective metric, but these are social tools, and to be useful, they have to be usable – and many simply aren’t.
I don’t know if it’s humorous, but one unexpected thing I discovered was that Wire’s and Session’s embedded animated GIF finder+inserter is so hugely desireable with my friends, it became an almost minimum requirement. Funny GIFs are immensely popular.
I just saw Session - thanks!
But now I’m confused. Maybe you could add notes about what some of the rows mean. For example:
- Upon what is based the “recommended for private comnunication?” Recommended by whom? Under what criteria?
- Why is Session’s voice/video “n/a” when it supports encrypted voice and video calls?
- Why is running a private server, rated as higher security than distributed, tor-like onion networks? (can self host), and why is Session listed as “no” when anyone can self host routing nodes in the network? This preference for centralized servers over distributed onion networks is particularly baffling for a privacy-focused table.
This is a huge labor. Thanks again for attempting it.
