5d ago

ArcaneChat: Private chats for the family

arcanechat.me ArcaneChat

Private chats for the family

ArcaneChat is a FLOSS private and secure messenger focused on privacy and friendly user experience.

💬 Reliable instant messaging with multi-profile and multi-device support.

⚡️ Sign-up easily and anonymously, no phone number or any private data required.

🎮 Interactive mini-apps in chats for gaming, shopping lists, productivity and collaboration.

🔒 End-to-end encrypted chats safe against network and server attacks.

ArcaneChat is a Delta Chat client and it is compatible with other Delta Chat clients.

Source code: https://github.com/ArcaneChat/

18 comments

Has it been independently audited yet?
- ArcaneChat is a Delta Chat client and uses the Delta Chat core (which contains all the crypto and logic and any app can use to implement e2ee IM) and it is based in the Delta Chat client, which has been audited around 6 times over the years: https://delta.chat/en/help#security-audits

heck! I was looking for this yesterday but ended up going with snikket and only just got it running this morning!
good post and I'm looking into it now!

How does this compare to Matrix or XMPP?
- the app is much more on the WhatsApp and Telegram level UI wise, much more user friendly for "normies" like family and friends, while Matrix and XMPP are more "nerdy" and hard to understand and onboard
  Nice multi-device (that actually works without encryption problems) and multi-account support.
  Security-wise it is easy to end up sending unencrypted messages in XMPP (groups are often unencrypted due unusable otherwise) and in matrix it is also a mess with "unable to decrypt" and the reactions are not encrypted. ArcaneChat groups and 1:1 chats have a concept of "protected chats" via scanning QR or invite links that are warrantied to be e2e encrypted and safe against MITM attacks.
  Groups in XMPP depend on the server, if the server dies the group is lost, in Matrix the groups metadata is spread across several servers, in ArcaneChat the servers are agnostic of the group state, the group lives in the users's devices and hence don't depend on any server, user can even migrate account/address and keep participating in the group
  The server requirements for ArcaneChat are super lightweight (ex. https://arcanechat.me/ has +700 users right now and it is only using ~500MB of RAM and ~3GB of disk) in this regard XMPP might also be similarly lightweight but Matrix is well know for the complexity and requirements on the server
  ArcaneChat is offline-first, you can fully use the app while being offline, even create groups, search across all your groups, messages and contacts, play in-chat mini-games or use collaborative tools like in-chat WYSIWYG editors etc. send messages etc. and all will be nicely synchronized when you go back online.
  ArcaneChat is super lightweight, apk size in google play is only 13-15MB while being feature rich and beautiful
  creating bots to provide extra functionality (similar to telegram bots) is easy and there are already several bots available and discoverable in the app.
  Now lets talk about some downsides:
  ArcaneChat doesn't support integrated phone calls at the moment (but it is planned, and it has jitsi meet videocall invitation integration)
  ArcaneChat doesn't support discoverable public groups or channels (it is an app for private chats, you can invite people to group via invite links tho, and telegram-like channels are in the roadmap) a public bot can be used to list and join "public" groups tho, but at the moment everyone in the group is admin, there is no group admin concept as groups are private
  there are more stuff to say but this post is too long already 😅
  
  Also another downside, if I am not mistaken, is that all of the chat metadata is unencrypted, unlike alternatives like signal. (I think this is the nature of being essentially encrypted email on the backend)
- Here's a good comparison where delta chatis included
  
  That's actually a really fair and balanced comparison. A rare thing on the internet.
- Delta chat is based on top of email (i.e.SMTP, IMAP) so its like sending emails but in a chat format and encryption on top (and some more stuff).

I love this and Delta chat. I'm keeping this in my back pocket for future group chats and for if any of my current groups become open to switching.

This looks neat! Can we host the server side, or does it have to sync with arcanechat.me?
- For sure!! The app is decentralized/federated. You can host your own server: https://github.com/ArcaneChat/chatmail
  And some 3rd party servers are discoverable inside the app at registration time.
  The app can also be used with classic email servers so if you have an email server you can use it as well with ArcaneChat
  
  Awesome. Once there’s an iOS app I’ll definitely try this out.
- Not positivr, but the FAQ says its a delta chat client, and delta chat indicates you could host your own chatmail - so, hopefully.
  https://delta.chat/en/chatmail#selfhosted

Video and voice calls possible?
- at the moment there is not "integrated calls" that would cause the phone to ring, but it is planed, but what is available is calls/video-calls invitations in-chat that show a nice "Foo invited you to a video call" message in chat with a button to join but on click it just open the call room in Jitsi Meet app or web browser

18 comments