We're continuing investigation to the performance issues, you can follow and react here: https://lemmy.world/c/friendicaworld

mastodon - Link to source

We hereby challenge _all_ other messaging apps, FOSS or not, to provide a more convenient private onboarding experience than #deltachat

1. Install app
2. "Create new profile"
3. Enter nick name, tap "Agree and continue"
4. Tap "+" and "new contact" and provide/scan qr code/link

Voila! A secure private chat, familiar to those coming from Whatsapp or Telegram (without "AI", with #a11y).

Note: chat identities are private and can not be queried or discovered. Servers keep no track or metadata

#a11y #deltachat
This entry was edited (1 month ago)
in reply to Delta Chat

mastodon - Link to source

Magical Cat

I considered myself "tech-savvy", but DeltaChat was my first software of that kind (e2e private messenger) and my contact was far from me, and not a "tech-savvy" person. So it was not obvious for me that I had to instruct my contact who is far away about additional "off-the-band" actions need for us to add each other to contact.
Now i aware of all that, but my contact got discouraged with that complexity and don't want to try again.
Have to keep using whatsapp (it sometimes get blocked).
in reply to Frederik Braun �

mastodon - Link to source

Delta Chat

servce choice is a tricky question right now and one which we carefully avoid confronting initial users with, during the default onboarding experience. Right now, we regard it as safe to use any of the listed chatmail.at/relays (manually curated). We are working towards "randomized" onboarding by further minimizing metadata seen by relays, and introduce multi-relay support so that choices don't easily leave you stranded in case of blocking/failure.

Chatmail: Relays

Chatmail provides FOSS infrastructure for interoperable, secure, speedy and reliable end-to-end encrypted messaging. Check out clients as Arcane Chat, Bots or Delta Chat today!
chatmail.at
This entry was edited (1 month ago)

Tim Chambers reshared this.

in reply to Fabrice Desré

mastodon - Link to source

Delta Chat

we hear you but it's the truth: by onboarding to #deltachat today you are diving into an experimental testrun of "the future of email" , also known as #chatmail chatmail.at

Finally we, as app distributors, want to fully disentangle from any "default" server. Testrun will become history 😀

Chatmail

Chatmail provides FOSS infrastructure for interoperable, secure, speedy and reliable end-to-end encrypted messaging. Check out clients as Arcane Chat, Bots or Delta Chat today!
chatmail.at
#deltachat #chatmail
This entry was edited (1 month ago)
in reply to Andrey [0xdc, 0x09];

mastodon - Link to source

Delta Chat

@darkcat09 @shuro we are working on randomizing onboarding to the growing set of chatmail relays. See also chaos.social/@delta/1153621448…

Delta Chat

2025-10-12 16:30:34

mastodon - Link to source

#deltachat has reliable and audited end-to-end encryption but reliable message delivery is equally crucial in times of shutdowns and increasing Internet fragmentation. #chatmail relays are more reliable and faster than classic email servers but they may still fail, leaving users stranded. The recent rollout of V2 releases not only hardened end-to-end encryption but aims for chat profiles to use multiple relays in the future, removing a common point of failure in decentralized private messaging.
@Шуро @Andrey [0xdc, 0x09];
in reply to Kalle Kniivilä

mastodon - Link to source

Delta Chat

@kallekn @shuro publishing existence of relays and someone using them for a block is a tricky issue, indeed. We have preliminary discussions mostly around learning about new relays during chatting with others, and then being able to automatically use those, without any central list anywhere. IOW, the information which chatmail relays exist should be distributed across the planet with no central oversight.
@Шуро @Kalle Kniivilä
in reply to Kalle Kniivilä

friendica - Link to source

Шуро

@Kalle Kniivilä sadly our censors are not completely dumb and run device farms to detect even undisclosed servers which apps connect to one way or another. This way they managed to render Tor practically non-functional without private bridge servers as all public ways to distribute them eventually lead to blocks. So it doesn't matter much 🙁

@Delta Chat

@Delta Chat @Kalle Kniivilä
in reply to Шуро

mastodon - Link to source

Delta Chat

@shuro @kallekn fair points but there is one key difference with Tor: people already form social private contexts in their messaging groups. Using chatting between actual people for distributing relay knowledge can not be replicated by having thousands of device robots in some cellar because the app will only give you the same initial relays. New information comes in through chats, and not even we, as developers, see those relays.
@Шуро @Kalle Kniivilä
Unknown parent

pleroma - Link to source

rakoo

As you probably know pfs is being worked on in pgp, so there's a good chance it'll land in deltachat eventually.

In the meantime the chat app ( github.com/ArcaneCircle/live-c… ) can be used inside a dc chat, it uses iroh direct p2p connections and thus does pfs

GitHub - ArcaneCircle/live-chat: Real-time chat room inside Delta Chat

Real-time chat room inside Delta Chat. Contribute to ArcaneCircle/live-chat development by creating an account on GitHub.
GitHub
in reply to Delta Chat

sharkey - Link to source

Kenny

Onboarding is cool until step 4.
People don't like scanning QRs: when people add my Signal, even if the username is shown on my screen right below a QR code, nobody scanned the QR yet. Everybody just typed the username. Scanning QRs kinda sucks.
And it's rather impractical when the person is not next to me. At which point sending a long link also is meh (or, depending on context, just not possible).
in reply to Kenny

mastodon - Link to source

Delta Chat

@kbruen Scanning QR codes is a pretty well known UX metaphor these days but indeed not well suited for setting up a chat with a remote person (unless in a video call). We are certainly going to circle back to this UX issue. Meanwhile in reality it's often the case that two people start to chat, then do a group chat, and invite others to join that group which allows to instantly get access to all people in the chat without having to do the qr/link dance with each member.
@Kenny
in reply to Magical Cat

mastodon - Link to source

Delta Chat

@koteisaev sorry it didn't work out. IIt's clear there is room for improvement, and to make it more obvious how to setup contact. Currently, it helps a lot if someone guides the process for a group aka "Now click this link/scan this QR to join our group" after which the person immediately has secure contact to everyone in the group. Already, we spent hundreds of hours to arrive at where we are. Will be some effort to improve it further across all platforms.
@Magical Cat
in reply to Crazy Pony

mastodon - Link to source

Delta Chat

1) there are bridges ("matterdelta") which provide interop with Matrix, XMPP, Telegrram, ssh and anything that Matterbridge provides. It doesn't preserve end-to-end encryption and so bridging bot choice is tricky.

2) There are growing efforts around 3rd party #chatmail clients chatmail.at/clients. Interoperability is "free" between all chatmail clients (#deltachat being the prominent one). Unlike #Signal we welcome third parties to the party 😀

Chatmail: Clients

Chatmail provides FOSS infrastructure for interoperable, secure, speedy and reliable end-to-end encrypted messaging. Check out clients as Arcane Chat, Bots or Delta Chat today!
chatmail.at
#signal #deltachat #chatmail
This entry was edited (1 month ago)

reshared this

in reply to Nick

mastodon - Link to source

Delta Chat

@ratcatcher @crazy_pony in terms of core functionality there is no difference between ArcaneChat and Delta Chat -- both are chatmail clients using the same core library which performs all networking/encryption/contact/group/chat/realtime-setup etc.
ArcaneChat is maybe a bit more of an experiments-pushing client, and some of its features made it back to mainline, and arcanechat is continously rebasing on mainline, in turn.
@Nick @Crazy Pony
in reply to rootnode

mastodon - Link to source

Delta Chat

@rootnode yes, you can use email addresses from any modern email service that provides a certain level of security. Just make sure you use a *dedicated* address. Using email addresses that are simultanously used by non-chatmail clients are not supported, however. In prior times we tried to make it work but it detrimental to security outcomes and easily gets confusing for users. So email addresses are fine but need to be dedicated for chatting via chatmail clients.
@rootnode
in reply to rootnode

mastodon - Link to source

Delta Chat

@rootnode "add second device'" is found in settings of an established chat profile. It's about setting up multiple devices for the same chat chat profile.

To use a different email address it's "create new profile" and then "use other server". If you have further questions or suggestions maybe better use support.delta.chat

Delta.Chat

You need Delta.Chat support? Ask the Community!
Delta.Chat
@rootnode
Unknown parent

mastodon - Link to source

Delta Chat

@lexinova @upofadown FWIW there are some non-electron clients chatmail.at/clients and an upcoming post about an experimental Tauri one. The current #deltachat desktop electron-based client tries to both size-bloat/ram wise do better, and also e.g. bars the frontend rendering process from doing any Internet connections which are purely done via the Rust core library, for all #chatmail clients.

Chatmail: Clients

Chatmail provides FOSS infrastructure for interoperable, secure, speedy and reliable end-to-end encrypted messaging. Check out clients as Arcane Chat, Bots or Delta Chat today!
chatmail.at
#deltachat #chatmail @Bruce Walzer 🇨🇦
Unknown parent

mastodon - Link to source

Bruce Walzer 🇨🇦

@lexinova Message retention more or less negates the benefit of forward secrecy. If an attacker gets your secret key information they for sure are going to get your old messages. Since most people want to keep their old messages around forward secrecy is not very important for encrypted messaging.

articles.59.ca/doku.php?id=pgp… (my article)

Forward Secrecy [The Call of the Open Sidewalk]

articles.59.ca
in reply to Delta Chat

mastodon - Link to source

Sheri Gulam

the last step can be challenging. You need to be close and have working camera (yes, people have broken cameras) to scan QR, or have an already established communication channel to send the link, which in slme situations defeats the purpose.

There should be some human readable / easy to memorize or pronounce "nickname", "username", "ID" or something, so than you can tell someone "just type John Doe once you install DeltaChat to find me".

in reply to Sheri Gulam

mastodon - Link to source

Delta Chat

@vort3 you have a point and it's kind of funny that even though #chatmail uses the email system, one can't just give out an email address. The challenge is to establish automatic end-to-end encryption while maintaining identity privacy (in Delta Chat we want chat profiles to be fully private and decentralized so can't just do some central registry). There are some ideas on how to bring back the ease of telling your address and people contacting you. Just more involved than it sounds 😀
#chatmail @Sheri Gulam
Unknown parent

mastodon - Link to source

Delta Chat

@scott @koteisaev we think we know pretty exactly what you mean and why you hesitate. It's a healthy approach! Also some of our own contributors hold off on introducing it into some of their groups and for good reasons. It's important to understand and read the room before suggesting. There usually is only one try. An interesting related read ribbonfarm.com/2012/05/09/welc…

Welcome to the Future Nauseous

Venkatesh Rao (ribbonfarm)
@Magical Cat @Scott Murray
in reply to Delta Chat

mastodon - Link to source

indyradio

@abolitionmedia Hello, I was just appreciating your work. Maybe we should set up a couple of these servers. I have an extra vps and will test one this week. Thought it worth a mention. I installed this, and it looks pretty good. The fact it's not fully p2p seems a disadvantage, but it looks like the server is not hard to set up. Hopefully not. chaos.social/@delta/1154793927…

Delta Chat

2025-11-02 09:28:14

mastodon - Link to source

We hereby challenge _all_ other messaging apps, FOSS or not, to provide a more convenient private onboarding experience than #deltachat

1. Install app
2. "Create new profile"
3. Enter nick name, tap "Agree and continue"
4. Tap "+" and "new contact" and provide/scan qr code/link

Voila! A secure private chat, familiar to those coming from Whatsapp or Telegram (without "AI", with #a11y).

Note: chat identities are private and can not be queried or discovered. Servers keep no track or metadata

@abolitionmedia
in reply to Çois

mastodon - Link to source

Delta Chat

@frankiezafe default onboarding currently has 700MB per user but that's rarely ever reached and might be lowered again. Messages are removed server-side unconditionally after 20 days. More info nine.testrun.org/info.html
Other relays have different limits (often higher) chatmail.at/relays and people can onboard through the respective relay website after installing delta chat.

Chatmail: Relays

Chatmail provides FOSS infrastructure for interoperable, secure, speedy and reliable end-to-end encrypted messaging. Check out clients as Arcane Chat, Bots or Delta Chat today!
chatmail.at
@Çois
in reply to Ferrex

mastodon - Link to source

Delta Chat

@ferrex you are right. #Olvid is pretty well done regarding UX for boarding and getting in contact, largely similar to how #deltachat does onboarding, with interesting differences. Something to learn from (we think in bot directions). Thanks for pointing this out to us!
Do you happen to know any olvid people in the fediverse? It's not an open source project and work with a central transport server, no federation etc, but still interesting to engage with from a UX standpoint.
#deltachat #olvid @Ferrex
⇧