Usually when alternatives for messaging apps are recommended it’s Signal, Threema or Element but all of them still seem to have small inconveniences (Signal is American, Threema isn’t free and Element just seems too complicated).
Today I stumbled upon Delta Chat for the first time and it seems to be the ideal solution. It’s european, free, open-source, decentralised, usable on almost any device and privacy focused. But the fact that I’ve never heard about it before makes me hesitant.
Has anyone of you used it and can share their experience?
Edit: Here’s a link to their official website: https://delta.chat/en/
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I use a fork of the DeltaChat client called ArcaneChat. I like it. It is easy to setup and to get others into a chat. You just provide a name on startup and it automatically creates an arcane email account for you. Moving it to a second device is as easy as using the app to pull up a QR code or getting a code it produces. Making chats with other people is similar. You can scan a QR code or send an invite link.
Also has plugins. I have a chat with an editor app so everyone in my household can add to the grocery list for instance. But there are plugins for games, rss feeds, and bridges to other platforms though I havent used these so im not sure how well they work.
My complaint and the others in my household is notifications. You might send or receive a message but wont get notified until an hour or two later. That said the very latest arcane chat does add a new setting that is supposed to help with that but i havent been on it lomg enough yet.
Also, to my knowledge you cannot lock the app itself like Signal can.
Moving it to a second device is as easy as using the app to pull up a QR code or getting a code it produces.
So desktop-to-desktop isn’t possible or ateadt not as easy?
You can export the QR code to the clipboard in text format. I’ve done it a few times, it works well for desktop to desktop
I do, see this post for what lead me to it: https://piefed.zip/c/privacy/p/763572/looking-for-a-federated-alternative-to-signal-as-they-might-have-to-comply-with-chatcontro
I like it, slowly moving my family to it. There are a few things missing (no @ , no typing status), but it’s already very usable. I love the self-hostability and pragmatic approach regarding encryption.
Yes and I fucking love it.
In general I trust decrentalized services much more than centralized because there really is no feasable way of changing it to a centralized service (and making money off it) besides restructuring the entire platform. With signal they have that option to immediately make money by selling data to data brokers. Its the deciding factor why I choose a specific service because when a service is decentralized it implies it must be private as well, otherwise (if it isn’t) you can just move to another platform who does respect your privacy – or, better yet, make your own.
That’s what makes delta chat better compared to signal. So long as I have the ability to open port forwarding. I can setup a DNS service as the domain for my delta chat instance. I don’t need to trust anyone’s service, it is completely independent and private from other users joining, and the app (as in the delta chat or arcane chat applications) are opensource. I have no reason to avoid this service as it is completely private and it will be quite obvious their motivation when they do try to close source the app and start making it centralized.
I’m currently on the nine.testrun instance (run by delta chat). I will sooner or later use my own private instance. The main issue with delta chat is getting people to join it, it is far more challenging to get people to use it when all my family members are on WhatsApp.
I love it too.
It was a bit buggy when I used it. If I joined a group, I was not able to leave the group again. As soon as someone would write in the group, I would rejoin it automatically.
That should have been fixed by now.,
I have but that was many years ago and is probably not reflective of the current state.
One thing that probaly stayed the same tho is that its worth using a dedicated email account for it to make things less chaotic. (They have a list of good providers) As long as the other person also uses a client that supports autocrypt (like thunderbird, k9, etc) it works seamlessly. If not it defaults back to unencrypted email iirc. You can export your keys if you move devices and you can import existing gpg keys if you have any.
One drawback used to be multi client support, but i think that might be solved, maybe read their FAQ on that.
I am fairly certain you do not need to provide an email address. It creates one for you automatically. At least that is how ArcaneChat (a fork of DeltaChat) works.
ArcaneChat also supports multile profiles and it looks like thay feature has made its way into Delta now.
It would be odd and mean that its not well decentralized if the account gets automatically created on a default server. Unless they randomize which provider gets used.
It had been so long since I created a profile i decided to go through the steps again. There is a button to choose anoter relay.
And here is a lis https://chatmail.at/relays
Wish that site wasnt riddled with cookies so I could read about the app.
My bad here’s a link to the official site: https://delta.chat/en/
I use Signal, Matrix and recently Delta Chat. The latter with only very limited amount of messages. It seems to just work.
The UI is less complex than Element in my opinion but it lacks some extra features such as voice and video calls (which probably should be a separate thing). Onboarding was simple enough if you actually want to try, but hard enough for naysayers to say it will never catch on.
Calls are being added at the moment, they are still in beta, but I’ve used them a few times, it works okay.
Why Delta is less complicated than Element? What is difficult about Element?
Key management, mostly. Every time I have to log to Element on a new device it can be painful, even using the recovery key I’ll get some warnings that my device isn’t verified, than I start the verification on one device and it doesn’t show on the other.
DeltaChat keep the encryption hidden to the user, that’s better. Also automatic password creation.
i like it and i think it is very easy to use. Downside is no calling or video calling. But i don’t need that anyway. For me it is a perfect replacement for Whatsapp and the only reason i don’t use only DeltaChat is that most of my friends don’t want to install “yet another app” or insist on the calling function like socially needy weaklings.
Calls are being added at the moment, they are still in beta, but I’ve used them a few times, it works okay.
I have not. But I would suggest you also test out SimpleX Chat. It is open source, decentralized, and uses no identifier that can be traced back to you.
Threema is free as in free speech, just not free as in free beer: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/ch.threema.app.libre/
Threema is swiss and that is an issue by now,sadly.
