Good news! Our developments are back into full swing with major new releases expected throughout 2025 ๐Ÿฅณ After the shock February dry-up of funding grants we recently secured substantial private donations, wonderfully helping to hit the ground running ๐Ÿงก #deltachat #chatmail and #webxdc developments currently use ~600k EUR per year to support a dozen experts and contributors, to in turn help the wider contributor communities, as well as to realize major new features.
For refining #deltachat UIs and UX we are looking at many other messengers regularly. But we are curious. Which messenger UX/UI do you like most and suggest we take cues from?
Two of our teams just gave talks at the @npub1uk4v...z2gq 2025 conference in Lille: @npub1uqem...za0f tells the story of "federated messaging" waves and her usable security research, emphasizing "availability" as a key issue -- @holga starts off with prioritizing usable security and walks through #chatmail transport layer security goals and #deltachat end-point security status, upcoming releases and prospective work on improving metadata and other goals
Internet fragmentation is real in many countries and regions today but did you know that this "Sometimes-Internet" was the reality of the 1980ties when #email evolved? #chatmail relays are cheap, secure, fast, ephemeral and resilient server setups for the growing Sometimes-Internet, using cryptography for planetary-scale interop: - E2EE-only, strict TLS+DKIM - no spam-check magic - delay/cut-off tolerant - messages removed after download - addresses removed if stale - push notifications image
#DeltaChat evolved according to needs of people under repression and continues to do so. The more ignorant and exchangeable we make #chatmail relays, the less their operators have to worry. Having metadata-less, fast and cheap instant messaging relays, that can also operate when 99% of the Internet vanishes in a region, is a key goal. Some way to go still but, already now, is there any other real-world solution that provides better service in internet-repressed regions in 2025?
We used to look closely at #whatsapp Usability/UX. Not anymore. Meta is enshittifying WA to become a social media app, charging companies for access to followers, showing ads, and pushing AI slop down the throat of billions of people. #deltachat remains all about pleasing private messaging UX. Resilient, secure and decentralized. Its trivial to get started as a family, group or little org. Its trivial to migrate between android, iphone, desktop, Ubuntu touch. #Privacy and #RightToExit
We'd like to remind everyone that a self-hosted #chatmail relay is best shared in some wider than family circles. In crisis situations everbody does better when helping others. A typical 1gb RAM chatmail relay VPS for 5-10 eur per month supports 50k+ daily users. chatmail VPSes are stateless. You can wipe all disk state, reinstall and chatting will resume. Conversely, #deltachat does not keep or depend on any server state .Operators under pressure do not need to feel bad to hand over data.
Overheard last night from two users in #Cuba user1: "the people are currently in need not only to save data plan but also to have more security in their conversations" user2: "also stability. Right now the whole of Guantanamo is in blackout with problems in several radio-bases/cell-towers due to the lack of power/electricity and here I am talking like nothing / without breaking a sweat" user2: "while WhatsApp doesn't even manage to connect" #DeltaChat is for when centralization hits the fan
Some people in #Iran successfully use delta with national email providers when outside Internet is cut. #deltachat designs are #OfflineFirst using delay tolerant protocols. Messages are queued when a path is blocked. email servers are made for this and run at planetary scale. Messages crossing the border may arrive three days later but they arrive. Peoples can stay in private touch across time and space, to the extent possible in current breakdown times. Which is what delta is about.