Encrypted chat apps
PRIVACY IS THE NAME OF THE GAME WITH THESE ENCRYPTED MESSAGING APPS.
WHEN COMMUNICATING WITH OTHER SIGNAL USERS, MESSAGES ARE AUTOMATICALLY ENCRYPTED, BUT WHEN TEXTING NON-SIGNAL USERS, YOU CAN EITHER INVITE THEM TO TRY THE APP OR SEND AN UNENCRYPTED REGULAR SMS.
WE LIVE IN a world where surveillance and metadata retention policies have become commonplace. And while governments try and pass laws on what specific bits of all that data should be deemed ‘private’, app developers are doing their best to give users the opportunity to keep a tight hold on their privacy.
Secure mobile messaging apps have come to the rescue of the privacy-conscious public. The technology has been in use for quite a while in desktop applications like email, but applying them to mobile platforms has certainly been a step up.
While automatic encryption is available in some apps, with no need to turn on anything in the preferences or settings, others require a little work to set up their privacy magic. And with messaging apps a dime a dozen these days, it’s not an easy task to figure out which one trumps the other in security.
So we decided to do the testing for you — here are our top picks for the best cross-platform encrypted chat app.