Best messaging apps

Don’t use WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger, both owned by Facebook/Meta.

These are good alternatives:

• Signal: a free open-source app that sends encrypted messages across all platforms. (See this description - scroll down to the column.)
• Element, a secure chat app that runs on the decentralized Matrix network. Element makes money from corporate plans with extra features.
• Delta Chat, a “decentralized and secure messenger app.” (See Mastodon.)

Other alternatives:

• Apple Messages - the app built into iPhones, iPads, and other Apple devices - is another alternative, but it’s not encrypted when communicating with non-Apple devices.
• Telegram is a messaging app created by a Pavel Durov, a Russian cryptography expert. It’s not open source, so it is difficult to ensure that the encryption is secure.

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