2019-02-11 Delta Chat

I think my favourite new chat app is going to be Delta Chat. It’s a chat client that uses your email account for everything.

Delta Chat

Thus, you automatically get a robust back end for distribution.

Furthermore:

1. anybody who has an email address can be contacted (first message is unencrypted since the app needs to exchange keys, first)

2. it’s decentralized (the infrastructure is not in the hands of Facebook, for example – which is what I don’t like about *WhatsApp*)

3. you don’t have to hand over your phone number to anybody (that’s what I don’t like about *Signal*)

4. perhaps chat is a bit slower, as messages travel at the speed of email, I don’t know? I don’t think I’ll mind, though.

5. the imprint shows a German company being responsible for it all (which is only slightly better than Five Eyes)

imprint

Five Eyes

Check out the FAQ. I need to read more about Autocrypt.

FAQ

Autocrypt

I’m not sure how they make money, however.

​#Cryptography

Comments

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Very cool, Alex! Thanks for bringing it to my attention. If you’ve set it up already, did you set up a new (dedicated) email address to use with it? or just use your existing email?

– acodispo 2019-02-12 20:27 UTC

acodispo

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Right now I don’t have enough friends to make it a necessity. Also, I kind of believe that Email is no longer that important, so I don’t mind my email app giving me an unread count at the same time that the chat app gives me the same unread count. In a way, the unread messages and the unread mails *are* the same, aren’t they? So I guess you could simply switch off notifications for one of the two. But for now, I made no changes whatsoever and simply think of it as “easier to use than them installing GPG and doing manual key management.”

Email is no longer that important

– Alex Schroeder 2019-02-12 22:02 UTC