Cross-posted from : https://lemmy.ml/post/16566616
Hi, I wanna know what is the most secure and best messaging app/platform… Need an app that is crossplatform and has a very good numbers of features and security. (And it has to be FLOSS) I thought about XMPP clients, Signal, Session, IRC clients… Propose and explain me your choice
Email, probably. Kind of depends on your needs, and how willing other people are to accommodate them. The most secure messaging platform is email with a third party IMAP client using OpenPGP. That way the client and the server are run by different people, and the encryption is based on a verifiable and well known standard. But will other people use that to communicate with you? Probably not. So probably something like Signal would strike a good balance between privacy and ease of use.
I strongly disagree, email is a train wreck for secure communication.
Proton has done a pretty good job of making an implementation that’s actually secure but PGP email has fundamental flaws like the subject line and recipient being clear text on the message, user error/key management complexity, and it’s also just a high-friction means of communication vs “texting” or “IRC”-like approaches.
They asked what the most secure one is, not the most practical. When I said other people wouldn’t communicate with you, I meant because it is very difficult to set up, so I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone. But unless your client and server come from different parties, you’re putting all your trust into one other party (like with Signal), so that’s inherently less secure.
Where your friends are?
We should be glad that WhatsApp with E2EE is what people jumped to, instead of Facebook Messenger
WhatsApp is part of Facebook. You really think they operate differently?
Yup. Reality. No point using a hyper secure chat system if literally nobody you know is using it.
My friends knew I was using it. I said why with very simple words, focused on freedom and abuse over side effects, privacy and security, and they joined. I guess having friends who actually respect you helps a lot.
The other day I found this, using an very old inbuild command line tool in Windows, Mac and Unix: finger
Write for Example
finger zerush@happynetbox.com
in the command line
Delta Chat is quite good, it’s an email client thats built like a messenger app. It’s E2EE with Autocrypt lvl 1, you can use it with most email services, and they have a self hostable/hosted “chatmail” service that you can also use if regular email services are slowing down the messages (gmail isn’t the best for this). It also supports apps and games in chat using the webXDC standard.
I’d go with Signal or Threema
Signal: Best data protection. They are on a different level from anyone else. They even reimplemented gif search through their app so it can be anonymised (instead of the data-collecting gif search in your keyboard). Just an example, they really try. Also has a desktop app that doesn’t need the mobile app to be running. Downsides are google dependency (for push notifications - but they’re empty, the encrypted data does never even touch google) and required linking to phone numbers. They do have usernames now so you don’t have to give out your phone number to talk to someone. Behind it is an US based non profit - whether that is a downside everyone can decide for themselves.
Threema: No need for phone number, not even a credit card, you can buy it anonymously through their website. No google services required. Swiss based company, so much better laws than USA. Finance themselves through the one time fee of 2 USD and through their corporate offers, no nags for donations, no selling of data. Downsides are server code is not open source, and their protocol is less good than Signals, but still reasonably secure. They’re working on a new one though. Also no independent desktop app yet (also working on it).
