Session Blog

Seems like a good time to plug Session: https://getsession.org/

Open source, doesn't require a phone number, and a big strength is that it's decentralized, which makes it much less vulnerable to outages like this.

"Session utilises the decentralised Oxen Service Node Network to store
and route messages. This means that unlike P2P messaging applications
you can message Session users when they are offline.
This network consists of community operated nodes which are stationed
all over the world. Service nodes are organised into collections of small
co-operative groups called swarms.

Swarms offer additional redundancy and message delivery guarantees even if some service nodes become unreachable. By using this network, Session doesn’t have a central point
of failure, and Session’s creators have no capacity to collect or store
personal information about people using the app"

Session [0] is an up and coming, open source E2EE messenger that doesn't rely on phone numbers (and doesn't require them). It also routes messages through Tor. It's fast and reliable, and I always get notifications on time.

It has some disadvantages though, depending on how you use it. Your ID is a 66 character long hexadecimal hash instead of a classic username. Another disadvantage I've found is the paltry 10 MB attachment limit - trying to share a short video clip I made on my phone required several re-encodes to dip below the limit. Even some still photos will hit that limit, depending on complexity. So not very good for sharing media, but great for texting, in my experience.

[0]: https://getsession.org/

I know nothing about this field so I went looking for those product names.

I believe the Session referred to is here ... https://getsession.org/

Tox is here ? https://tox.chat/

The Matrix i found seems to have been closed down earlier this month ... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_(app) ... that's assuming I found the correct "matrix".

If it matters to you don't take my word for those being the correct points of contact, that's just me searching for two minutes.

As a side rant, I wish people would choose less generic names for their projects, calling something "session" ? You might as well call it "thing".

I've been looking for secure messengers during the last few weeks. I use WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram. Telegram isn't very secure, WhatsApp is owned by Facebook and even Signal - while very secure - requires a cell phone number... Briar seems great in this regard but isn't available on iPhone and has no support for images, calls, voice messages, etc. Apparently they're going to support images and a desktop client, though.

In short, I just don't know what to use.

Edit: Session looks great but is not fully released yet: https://getsession.org/ This might be what I'm looking for in the future.

Anyone tried https://getsession.org/ seriously?

- desktop and mobile clients, cross-platform (with an AppImage that installs on old systems)

- end to end encryption

- onion routing, based on the Oxen Service Nodes [0], which also propels Lokinet that allows to anonymously browse the web

- no phone number or email required

- group chats, voice messages, voice and video calls (webRTC), attachments, emojis

https://docs.oxen.io/oxen-docs/about-the-oxen-blockchain/oxen-service-nodes

https://lokinet.org/

I want to like Briar and Cwtch but neither of them have iOS clients which really breaks the whole friendly to people who use other platforms covenant. If a client doesn't have apps for both of the big mobile platforms I'd say it's very unfriendly because you by omission are creating exclusionary silos.

There's Session, which is iOS and Android friendly and doesn't burn down your battery as messages are privately routed through zero-knowledge nodes: https://getsession.org