I’m on the lookout for a chat application that prioritizes privacy, available for desktop or web use. It should feature end-to-end encryption, enable users to export entire chat histories, and provide the option to delete all messages in bulk later on.
SimpleX does that.
I use it, and I didn’t know you could export the entire chat history.
I think Signal can do most of this, although for example exporting requires third party tools like signal-export or signal-backup-decode. Edit: Oh Signal also doesn’t have a web version though…
Check out Mattermost, very happy with it so far for our company. Pretty sure it does all that.
Mattermost recommends Microsoft Windows’ BitLocker for encryption. It does not have E2EE
obligatory arcanechat plug Its goooood
provide the option to delete all messages in bulk later on.
You cannot reliably do this on any chat platform, since a server that (openly or secretly) keeps chat history can ignore requests to delete it, and since the other participants can (and often do) still have the messages.
The closest you can come is to self-host a server or use a peer-to-peer chat service, and chat only with people whom you trust. (And use end-to-end encryption, of course.)
any server that (openly or secretly) keeps chat history can ignore requests to delete it
Twice as true for any client!
The best thing a server can do is simply be a temporary relay before messages get to those clients. And the messages themselves should be undecipherable. (I’m probably preaching to the choir here, but for those who don’t know, that’s how apps like Signal work.)
Teleguard promises end-to-end, but I haven’t seen a proper security review of them.
