this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2025
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Privacy
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hi. Do you have any suggestions for an app to replace it?
Right now signal is the best. I've basically tried them al and at least for me, the known good confidentiality of messages is worth the lack of anonymous accounts. All the other options have issues or have not been properly verified / audited.
When simplex is ready, it will be the best by a lot. But right now you might randomly lose contacts and a few different
unfortunately not. matrix is probably a no because of this thread. i hear a lot of people saying briar is good but idk anything about it
Briar is... Signal if you turned security up to 11. It comes with drawbacks, like if you are offline, you miss messages. You can get around it by using their mailbox, but that brings other issues (Securing a server).
do you know of any good in-depth analyses of its security? every time i decide on a new chat app someone has to point out something that totally ruins it lol
Like this?
https://www.opentech.fund/security-safety-audits/briar-security-audit/
Or more a techie in-depth review?
I can attest: Briar requires no PII to create an account, operates over the Tor network (Your device becomes an onion service, basically, for chat). And, it integrates with Ripple, an emergency wipe button app (As does signal).
I like it, because you can keep a blog, create forums, group chats, and a few other really cool features. It sucks down your battery life, though (It's the notifs, and keeping an always-on server running).
i don't want to make you do my googling for me but if you have anything else just on-hand i'd love to read it. i can't trust the open tech fund because of its ties to the cia (see this paragraph by dessalines) but i'll definitely look into briar
I would disregard, at least, that line of thinking. I mean, Tor was heavily funded by the CIA... However, it's secure. Linux kernel is largely funded by the US government. However, it's secure.
What dessalines is doing is called "poisoning the well".
However, I'll find some more, as I recently was looking into this.
i don't agree with everything in that essay but the OTF-CIA connection gives me good reason not to read anything they say. not that everything they fund is bad but everything they say is untrustworthy.
maybe more importantly though, is briar android-only? no desktop app?
as a sidenote i just noticed i posted the dessalines essay twice in this thread so i'll say just for the record i still like signal. the security of the messaging protocol is, according to every cryptographer i've read on the topic, the gold standard in the field. it just makes me uncomfortable that a service, especially one centralized around amazon aws, is demanding my phone number. means they can tie my government name to my social graph
Ok. Thanks anyway!