1 cent per five years .... is the current marginal hosting cost for a #chatmail address, with which #deltachat apps facilitate world-wide private messaging including interactive #webxdc apps that run end-to-end encrypted in any chat group.

<1 Million EUR per year is the estimated marginal hosting costs for 350 Million EU citizens. Such scaling requires, however, research and development, including careful UX and #cryptography work. Related writing from @gordon

newsletter.squishy.computer/p/…

The trajectory of E2E-encryption is about de-platforming: There shall be no central machines that can control the edges/peers, and the social groups and virtual centers they freely form.

Our #deltachat R&D around #chatmail relays and #webxdc apps all aim to realize such a "zero-platforms" fully E2E-encrypted interaction model. However, this is *not* just about cryptographic cleverness. Rather it is about usable anti-authoritarian designs, as explicitly stated in January delta.chat/en/2025-01-23-webxd…

Delta Chat: Replacing billionairish platforms with ZIP files

How can we evolve and deploy web apps without allowing developers or operators to become a “billionaire in the middle”? There are many ways to try to address this challenge and some involve the tec...

^delta.chat

I said it before on Mastodon. I'm reposting this again. Comparing #DeltaChat and #Matrix together, if you want hassle free and consistent messenger for private #E2EE chats, don't go for Matrix. DeltaChat is way better.

However, if you want something like a public forum, or a public chatroom, don't go for DeltaChat. Matrix is way better suited for that. And DeltaChat does not support public groups at all. In DeltaChat groups, there is no admin or moderator and everyone have got permission to remove or add the others.

I think I have to write a longer post on my personal blog about these two, comparing them together.

PS: Another Matrix encryption bug few minutes ago triggered repost of this.

#Element #IM #Messenger #Email #FOSS #opensource #freesoftware #free_software #decentralization #decentralized

Thanks to a wonderful effort by @fredldotme, DeltaTouch is now available as a snap 🎉

$ sudo snap install deltatouch
$ sudo snap connect deltatouch:lomiri-ui-toolkit lomiri-ui-toolkit-core24

If you want the app to access cam and mic, connect the interfaces:

$ sudo snap connect deltatouch:camera
$ sudo snap connect deltatouch:audio-record

Many thanks Alfred!

#DeltaTouch #snap #DeltaChat

Dear fans of messenger comparison sports,

How does it factor in that on #deltachat there are many apps that can be used in a chat without requiring a login or even a privacy policy ... And the apps all work like cryptpad but automatically and without requiring any server side hosting?

Editing documents and checklists and calendars are all safely end-to-end encrypted without a server and anyone can write new #webxdc apps permission free.

Which other cross-platform messenger offers this?

streamed yesterday: one-hour german #chaosradio @cccfr freiburg feature at @RDL with a deep-dive conversation about #deltachat origins, what it has and hasn't to do with e-mail, protection against server compromise, phone based compared to e-mail networking, how to conspire for baking cheese cakes, authoritarianism and sovereignty, protest and organization, how to arrange for shopping and checklists in chats ... and fun music :)

rdl.de/beitrag/chaosradio-frei…

rdl.de/sites/default/files/aud…

Chaosradio Freiburg 0xAC

Termine28.2.

^{Radio Dreyeckland}

DeltaTouch 1.14.0 is out, bringing the message editing, deleting and bookmarking features that were recently released for the official #DeltaChat apps 🎉

#DeltaTouch #UbuntuTouch

#Signal took a huge bet that running on US big-tech toxic infrastructure is fine because its groundbreaking and industry-shaping cryptography is crafted to neutralize it and keep users safe.

But is it really feasible to live on toxic infrastructure in the longer run?

#deltachat rather takes a bet on the massive e-mail server network and interoperable protocols, and on #chatmail servers which enforce message encryption and metadata-minimization.

Delta is for when centralization turns sour.

@delta I would be curious about some statistics and charts from nine.testrun.org, something like number of messages processed, amount of data sent or so.

Of course this is not the only chatmail server out there but it probably is the main one and stats might be a useful tool to help spread the word.

Maybe stats could even become part of the chatmail package?

What do you think?

#DeltaChat

Anybody interested in creating a port of the #DeltaChat desktop client for #FreeBSD? Just asking for a friend... 😬😀

Cc @delta

There is no shortage of startups and enterprises animated by, or outright proclaiming, replacing e-mail as the de-facto open internet messaging standard. VC Investors are forever fascinated by funding such endeavours. #matrix #simplex #slack etc are examples.

#deltachat endorses e-mail but reconfigures and repurposes it to serve for interoperable instant messaging. The #chatmail server network relays end to end encrypted e-mail only, and servers are reduced to dumb store-and-forward relays.

Sensitive content Reveal/hide

So I just read the latest #DeltaChat article: blog.feld.me/posts/2025/03/del…

Can we please stop with #XMPP's supposed "very" fragmentation? That's the kind of cheap shots that annoy me. Just like summoning the almighty gtalk that doomed us all.

First, is it that bad? (myeah? "It depends")

And second, you're bound to hit some level of fragmentation as long as your policy is to allow various independent implementations on the network. IMO the *only* reason you're not fragmented *yet* is because you provide a single implementation across platforms.

#XMPP also has some of these, the first example that comes to mind being #Snikket (snikket.org).

Snikket Chat

Snikket is a simple, secure and private messaging app

^{Snikket Chat}

I wrote a #DeltaChat blog post for technical users who are skeptical about how it works

Everything You Think You Know About DeltaChat Is Wrong

blog.feld.me/posts/2025/03/del…

@delta

DeltaTouch 1.12.0 is out, highlights:

🔹 Sync deletion of messages and chats across devices
🔸 Page sized text editor for longer messages
🔹 Webxdc: Notifications (and more)
🔸 Improved integration into UT (ContentHub import/share)

Also included: Preparation for the long-awaited feature teased by @delta 😇
chaos.social/@delta/1141265297…

Full changelog: codeberg.org/lk108/deltatouch/…

Webxdc support in DeltaTouch is generously funded by @nlnet / @NGIZero, thanks!

#DeltaTouch #DeltaChat #Webxdc #UbuntuTouch

Delta Chat (@delta@chaos.social)

Attached: 1 image Release cycle completed. Please update so we can initiate the next release round with a long awaited feature ;) Generally delta apps are compatible to all currently released apps and because 15+ app stores come with all kinds of …

^chaos.social

The downside of our project approach was that we often got experts being very dismissive on re-using email and #OpenPGP ... and there still is some opposition which often subsides when actually trying #deltachat and #chatmail, looking at security audits and our strong usable security focus.

There may also be surprising upsides. The UK "Online Safety Bill" which attacks end-to-end encryption integrity seems to not apply for ... e-mail. Because everyone knows, e-mail is unencrypted, right? :)

Decentralizers, attention! :)

Last #deltachat releases introduced stable #p2p group membership not found in any other messenger. Members can add/remove peers also while being offline, and when everything comes online again, everyone has the same consistent membership view. We formalized and ran a simulation model using #TLA+ (invented by Leslie Lamport of vector clock fame):

github.com/chatmail/models/tre…

and a complementary #pytest model with more corner cases tested here:

github.com/chatmail/models/blo…

models/gmc/test_gmc.py at main · chatmail/models

Formal specifications for chatmail. Contribute to chatmail/models development by creating an account on GitHub.

^GitHub

@Cnoceda you can use your own email account or server as long as the provider allows you to use 3rd party email clients (ex. #outlook doesn't work, #protonmail and #tutanota doesn't allow it, etc)

About #ArcaneChat, yes you can import your profile from #DeltaChat
to ArcaneChat and the other way around, they are fully compatible

@avoca

With #deltachat #chatmail and #webxdc developments we aim to instigate a new modern foundation for secure E-Mail and a resilient Web without platforms. We are building a kind of #minecraft system for modern decentralized messaging.

But who are we building it for?

For all who need reliable trustable means of modern private communication.

While our work needs hackers and experts it's not designed for them. @tante raises interesting and important related thoughts tante.cc/2025/03/03/who-is-fre…

Who is Free Software for?

For a while I have been arguing that maybe there are some issues with the whole “Open*” movements, their founding myths and ideologies (see for example my talk at Fluconf). This criticism comes from a place of love.

^{tante (Smashing Frames)}

#deltachat

Finally convinced my non-techy family member's to move from Signal to Delta Chat messenger.

Setup was a piece of cake and we now have 4 x iOS devices, 3 x MacOS laptops, 2 x Windows laptops, 3 x Android devices, including 1 x GrapheneOS and 1 x LineageOS,, and two Linux Mint computers connected seamlessly as one Family Chat group.

Not one single byte of personal information required nor a single SIM card needed between us, though of course we all have them.

The security benefits and other bonuses provided by Delta are great but the key here was a de-centralised messenger that allows easy setup for family groups across multiple platforms.

Well, that's it! I am completely open source finally. No Google account. No Apple ID. No Microsoft, Meta, etc accounts.

The only organisation's who have my real email address are my bank, my government and my education providers.

@maple #ArcaneChat is an android client for #DeltaChat, and Delta Chat is available for #iOS, #Windows, #Linux etc.

and now that you talk about young people, in several places people are not even allowed to get a SIM card at all until certain age, so apps like Signal that depend on phone numbers are a non-go, while I have seen several people using DeltaChat with their children, ex:

mastodon.ie/@davidbenque/11403…

@bert_hubert

I really recommend you to give a try to #DeltaChat anonymous login without any phone number or any private data required, you can create as many accounts and add as many devices as you want, all work smoothly no encryption problems with multi-device etc and it has a better interface than #matrix on the level of #WhatsApp and #Telegram super user-friendly and painless to onboard family and friends

And you LITERALLY own your data and can browse it and search it offline

@spla +1 for Deltachat. Requires an auto-crypt-compatible email address. @Tutanota , would you please add #deltachat compatible auto-crypt goodness to your offerings?

PS: I have tuta, proton, and posteo.net email addresses (and thanks for the free service!). I pay for, and favor the posteo.net one the most. Why? Because of the auto-crypt support. (BTW: I am not paid in any way to endorse one over the other.)

#XMPP enthusiasts out there: what would you say the ultimate Achilles heel of the XMPP ecosystem is, at present? Fragmentation of clients? What?

My sense is that it's this: when one goes to store an XMPP address in one's addressbook, there doesn't seem to be standard way to store an XMPP address. #Android doesn't have that as an allowable field, and #Thunderbird and #Nextcloud have an "Instant Messaging" field, where the type can be set to "XMPP". But are these two compatible with each other when trying to sync between them? Edit: Yes, but there's a catch: *the XMPP address must be prefixed with "xmpp:"*

So "user@foo.bar" is not an OK XMPP address, but "xmpp:user@foo.bar" is.

Then to make matters worse, now there's a wish to change the labeling of "XMPP Address" to "Chat ID": gultsch.social/@daniel/1140129…

It might be a long time before the address synchy-ness ever works again between Android <-> #Davx5 <-> Nextcloud <->Thunderbird

Note: Android allows a "Jabber" type for an IM address, where you *don't* prefix the address with "xmpp:".

(#DeltaChat gets to gloat hard here, as they have plain-old email addresses)

#prosody #conversations #gajim #dino #snikket #monocles #monal

Interested to take a little tour through how #deltachat apps and the #rustlang core library are wired together?

@treefit and @WofWca provide a deep-dive into the history of apps migrating from a C-Foreign-Function-Interface to a #Rust based JSON-RPC mechanism, with entertaining horror stories like how an iOS release some years ago could delete profiles without the user intending it 😬

The post also highlights a few areas where folks interested to help could start ... delta.chat/en/2025-02-11-why-j…

Delta Chat: From C- to JSON-based APIs of the Rust

Foremost this is a quite technical post. Read our other blog posts if you want something more targeted at end users. If you have not yet looked at the Delta Chat source code, you might not know tha...

^delta.chat

✨ My first technical blogpost is out now. ✨

If you ever wanted to learn a bit about how
#deltachat works internally and why we have two ways to communicate with our #rust core, then this is the introduction to read

delta.chat/en/2025-02-11-why-j…

#jsonrpc #cffi #c #rust #deltachat_desktop #deltachat_core

Delta Chat: From C- to JSON-based APIs of the Rust

Foremost this is a quite technical post. Read our other blog posts if you want something more targeted at end users. If you have not yet looked at the Delta Chat source code, you might not know tha...

^delta.chat

The #chatmail #fosdem talk from @compl4xx is public. It goes into topics such as

- why chatmail servers?
- how to setup a server with your child
- (avoiding) spam filtering
- metadata and guaranteed end to end encryption in #deltachat
- #cryptographic #interoperability for email message routing

Thanks to attendees for the great energy even if was the last talk on the day and also for questions and conversations afterwards!

ftp.fau.de/fosdem/2025/k4601/f…