The Top 4 Safest Apps To Send Messages

When it comes to sending a message to another person, given that the receiver has a device connected to the Internet, the choices seem endless, including Slack, WhatsApp, Skype, iMessage, and Snapchat. However, their security levels are not the same. Much like when you say something in person, it is hard to make sure that someone else is not listening.

Any message you do not want to be seen by your ISP or is about something so sensitive that you cannot afford to have another person to know about, the best solution here is end-to-end encryption.

The system works by giving any user of a particular messaging app a private and a public key. The text is encrypted with the latter and can only be deciphered by using the former. Anyone without the private key, even if that is the company that offers the messaging app or the government, the text is unreadable.

The servers of these messaging service providers also matter. Even if the texts are kept only to you, someone with expertise can gather information on who you are talking to and when from the servers’ metadata. If you have backed up your entire chat history on the cloud, things are even easier.

Another security measure companies usually apply is to set for these messages to be self-destructed, which can come in handy if you worry about hackers or someone who has access to your device. Some other firms let users send texts anonymously.

Nowadays, it is becoming harder to be 100% sure that the messages you sent will never be compromised. The situation is so severe that the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit privacy organization, does not recommend any app as a safe medium to entrust your confidential information.

A secure method to send texts only work if the people you want to contact also have these apps. SMS is by far the medium almost everyone has, but it is also one of the most insecure. iMessage features end-to-end encryption, but only users of Apple devices have it. Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are also commonly used, but its parent company, Facebook, is not exactly a shining example of respecting users’ privacy.

So the question here is what you value more, your convenience or the need to keep the content of texts only to yourself and the receivers.

Facebook Messenger

This list starts with a choice so easy to use that you do not need the other person’s phone number to reach them. The last time we check, this app host over 1.3 million people, so whoever you want to contact, the chances of finding them on this app are larger than on any other.

However, the texts you send on this site are not encrypted by default. To do that, you need to access ‘secret conversations,’ which is only available to its Android and iOS app, not on browser.

The messages sent through this special function are encrypted with the industry-standard protocol of Signal and can be self-destructed if you want.

The biggest disadvantage is that the app is owned by Facebook, a company that has a long list of data breaches.

WhatsApp

WhatsApp might be stricter in encrypting users’ texts, but since it is also owned by Facebook, users are skeptical of how safe they are when sending messages on the app. In 2014, when Facebook acquired the platform, it said that WhatsApp would work independently. But two years later, Facebook started having access to its user base.

WhatsApp hosts around 1.5 billion users, and with the data sharing process, Facebook can know information like when you last used the app or how often you go on it.

Facebook used to say that it would only use the data for ads and suggesting products, but then, it said:

Data sharing aside, WhatsApp also has Signal’s standards for encrypting its texts. This means that even if Facebook changes user agreement in the future, it cannot access the content of your messages.

WhatsApp does not store these texts on its servers, but if you choose to back them up in Google Drive or iCloud, the risk remains, as these platforms can be compromised.

Telegram

A few months ago, when WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger temporarily went down, it is stated by Telegram’s CEO that the app acquired three million new users in just 24 hours.

Telegram focuses mostly on security and has been in work since 2013. In 2018, it had around 200 million active users globally. The app has some features that a security-conscious user would appreciate, like the choice to set messages to self-destruct, or wiping out the whole chat history of you and the receivers.

Much like Facebook Messenger, the texts are not encrypted by default, you must access a section called secret chats to activate the function. The encryption process will happen between the sender’s device and Telegram’s servers, as well as between the servers and the device of the recipient.

However, the encryption of Telegram has raised the eyebrows of many security experts as it is developed by the company itself and has never been open-sourced.

Signal

You may have heard of it as the maker of the benchmark end-to-end encryption protocol, but Signal is also known as the go-to app to send texts securely. Chats and metadata are fully-encrypted, and users have the choice to set the messages to be self-destructed or send them anonymously.

Signal now can only provide information on when an account was created or the last time a user uses the platform, which speaks volume of how little data it keeps.

The security level of Signal is confirmed by Edward Snowden, and one of Signal Foundation’s chairmen is also WhatsApp’s co-founders.