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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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 have been hoping Element would catch on since I have the impression it also have the potential to be more than just a iMessage/Facebook Messenger replacement.
Got my family to use it, basically moved from Telegram to tchncs.de. Loving it.
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?
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.
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.
Why is that?
https://tuta.com/en/blog/switzerland-surveillance-plan
While it has been postponed a bit it’s still on the table and even the current laws are far more far reaching than what the EU has. (And Switzerland is well known for intelligence service overreach. Look up the fichenskandal)
And Threema is pretty close to the swiss government in a lot of aspects.
I recently heard of it and was looking to try it. Someone else mentioned Snikket which is open source allows you to self host and has both android and iPhone apps for it.
