I am always on the search for the most private chat apps. I used to use Matrix a lot but I found inexplicably I never really liked the user experience, nor could I onboard friends and family easier.
For the full reality of why this is a bit hard for me, I also avoid closed source software including ‘closed operating systems’ as much as possible. This is all pretty well setup for the desktop environment I found but most people are hanging out on mobile devices and even for me, ‘mobile’ and ‘chat’ must dance together. For me, the mobile device is for ‘mobile communications’ primarily.
Anyway, my setup a few years ago was:
- Ubuntu on all desktop/laptops (a super-supported linux/debian based operating system)
- Ubuntu Touch on mobile (a time-tested linux mobile OS with future directions of going much further and onto more devices)
- Android with Fdroid for cell phone service as a backup for the times when the cell phone providers in north america seem to temporarily kill my ubuntu touch
Therefore, the chat app really needs to function in these three environments to be a solid option for me and many of the people I know who care about privacy and freedom or who are starting to care…
The current offerings that work well on all of these that myself and others were using were as follows with the weaknesses I didn’t like mentioned with them:
- Telegram: requires cell phone number (bad!), spammy, unknown leadership, servers, etc, seems to be no decentralization options
- Signal: requires cell phone number (bad!), eems to be no decentralization options,
- Matrix: didn’t love the user experience and onboarding, but in other ways ‘pretty good’
- XMPP: pretty great, actually, but lacking in some features still that I needed and found it a bit harder to onboard, but still one of my faves
A few years ago, I was asked to test something called ‘Delta Chat’ with a friend. It seemed to run over email (yes… like old-skool email!) and you could chat. So I set it up in my Thunderbird email client somehow and then remembered it was like ‘instant chat email’. It… didn’t work for me and became very noisy in my inbox and I tossed it and my experience then was fairly negative.
About a month ago, someone in an Ubuntu Touch Telegram group suggested I try out Delta Chat on Ubuntu Touch. At first I didn’t consider it because of my past experience but this person is intelligent, reasonable, and also has good taste in software. He said ‘it’s a chat app now’. First, I was surprised to hear the ‘app’ terminology when speaking about Delta Chat because I couldn’t really call it that before. So I only had an android phone on me so I downloaded it for a quick look.
Sure enough – it was a real chat app.. interesting.
Then I went to my ubuntu machine and – behold – there was a supported snap which I instantly downloaded and set up without any issue.
Finally (wrong order, of course) I installed on ubuntu touch (my cell carrier is a pain right now) and it also worked great.
I then realized five very cool things about ‘the new Delta Chat’ as follows:
Five Very Cool Things about the New Delta Chat
1. You can very easily connect to others, including yourself
“Myself?” You say? Yes. One of my biggest annoyances over the years is finding a quick chat app that can run on something like a test server to which I can send files back and and forth to my other devices. Now, on my test server (for example) I install Delta Chat, scan the QR code and boom – there is a chat between all my devices and the chat server for quick and easy file movement.
And this is the really amazing part about Delta Chat: it does not require your phone number but also is very easy to connect to
These are the two critical aspects missing from all the other chat apps I’ve been trying lately.
Another pleasant surprise: You don’t actually ‘need’ a camera/qr code reader. My laptop doesn’t have a QR code reader like a mobile. And, for whatever reason, I couldn’t easily get the QR part set up, or I was too lazy… can’t remember. But, what I do remember is that I simply sent a screenshot image (.png) of my other device’s QR code invite thing to my laptop device. I just took a screenshot on my mobile while the QR was on my screen. Then, in my laptop’s Delta Chat, I just hit a gear icon, selected ‘load QR code as image’ and done! The software itself identified the QR code in the image and connected the two devices seamlessly. So what I’m saying is that even if you don’t have a camera on the device, or are too lazy to set it up, it’s pretty easy to connect devices with QR codes like I did. You could just stick a USB stick in the machine with your QR screenshot and boom. Done.
So, in summary, one of the most amazing and great things about Delta Chat is that it’s very easy to connect devices. But the true significance of this is that Delta Chat now has a very high chance of becoming a very popular chat platform in the world because of its built-in ease of connecting.
2. There seem to be ‘decentralization’ options
Probably someone will yell at me for a slightly lax definition of ‘decentralized’ but you’ll get my layman point. Here is a similar excited blog of someone who got into Delta Chat and then started his/her own relay (something I want to do soon). For me, one of the niche things I want to do is to be able to keep chatting in my local LAN or beyond. One day, I hope to connect something like Delta Chat to a mesh network. I’ve been told if I were to set up a relay in my house, for example, I could keep chatting with my family if/when internet goes down. This is what I like to hear! I’ll probably blog it if I ever get one set up to confirm… here is the official page for doing it if anyone wants to beat me to it:
If you find a way to connect Delta Chat to the Reticulum mesh network project, let me know! Then we’re on fire…
3. UI is clean and nice
It’s really nice.
It can do pretty much anything you’d need to do: audio, video, file sending, groups, emojis, stickers (which I’ve never tested). I don’t see gifs which I love, but sometimes you have to pay a temporary price for freedom. And like all amazing open source projects, you can build it if you want it.
Oh, my 87 year old mom said ‘I like Delta Chat. It’s nice and works better!” so what other approval do you need?
4. Apps within Apps!
This is one of the most interesting things I recently discovered about Delta Chat. I’m not sure that still understand the full possibilities here, but … If you are in a chat, you can ‘install an app’. These are like ‘mini apps’ that install in a protected sandboxed zone of your app and your chat. So, picture this: you have a family group chat with Maw, Paw, Little Boy and little girl and Charlie the dog. You install the ‘to do checklist app’ (or whatever it’s called). Each person can add a task and assign it and interact with it. Yet, it does not live anywhere except in that ‘zone’. So it’s very private, and very personalized. I’m excited to think of other applications this might be good for but I was thinking for a business this could also be great. But worst case scenario: you can play a game of chess in a very protected environment because they also have games in there you can install into the chat…
4. Bots!
This is a bit ‘advanced’ perhaps for the average user, and a lot of these are currently outdated but this foundation is very interesting as well. You can install bots somewhat, it seems, like the Telegram “Bot Father’ bot thing. The ‘Gemi Ai’ bot I tested and it works. This gives you an in-chat front end to interact with Google’s gemini – which of course I won’t do so I uninstalled it after testing, ha. But you get the point. I will be trying to figure out if I can do the same and connect to my private Ollama LLM on my own server one day. Could this also connect to N8N and automation? How about with Home Assistant? I bet you could! Shut your lights off at home with a Delta Chat command…
5. Built on Old Skool Email
This point is ‘behind the scenes’. You won’t see it or appreciate it, but I do. It’s very unique and cool but somehow or another Delta Chat basically runs on an email server… it kind of is an email server. It uses the ports of an email server and it communicates like one. What this means is that Delta Chat is built on one of the most robust and long-living protocols on earth… I think this represents a very unique and solid foundation.
I hope this summary helps a few others get this app going. Don’t forget, it’s open source and many volunteers helped get it going so bring your ideas, time, and help to the project to help it improve. Your voice and help is always appreciated and here is another link to the project, and a big thanks to all the faithful contributors for this fantastic ‘new’ option in my life.
