Hello, I’m doing some research for my family and friends to help them navigate the tech space and recommend them some better privacy focused alternatives. I’ve been stuck with the most important piece: instant messaging.
Ideally I would like something:
- decentralised
- Foss
- Possibly not tied to phone number
- Encrypted
- Not funded by an US or Israeli company
- Fairly easy to use by not tech people
If I manage to convince them, I can’t make them change in a year or so, the alternative needs to be future-proof.
- Signal: is Foss (not completely) but not decentralised (one “wrong” update and we are back to square one) + very much american funded
- Matrix: foss and decentralised but funded by an Israeli company (sorry I really can’t)
- Telegram: phone number registration, not fully encrypted, server proprietary
- Theema: server side not open source
- IRC: no video/audio calls, not encrypted
That leaves me with SimpleX and XMPP, I think (I don’t know much about them). What do you guys use/recommend?
I’m reading [this wiki page].(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_instant_messaging_protocols?wprov=sfti1#Table_of_instant_messaging_protocols)
XMPP is rock stable and just works.
SimpleX has a more feature rich client than Conversations for XMPP, but the whole ecosystem is developed by a single company with external funding.
Ok, but xmpp still needs servers owned by others right? Who are the trustworthy servers run by?
You can run your own and even select from multiple different servers you can use, or if you really want to you can write your own, the specs are out in the open. Check XMPP software selection for a start.