Background (expand here)

Today it seems unimaginable to live without instant messaging. Fast communication with friends, collegues, family etc. - no matter from where; by mobile phone, "tablet", PC at home.

But which service should be used for this uncomplicated way of communication?
There are some differences in user experience, a few important differences in terms of data security which are much to often ignored. And of course there is the question about reliability of the service provider. And sometimes there are some simple unimportant but pragmatic issues that lead to prefering a particular service. Even if it is just the question which service is used by "all the others" - where my friends can be contacted.

In an ideal world of instant messaging the sysem would be similar to e-mail: Everyone chooses a provider of his choice and can still communicate with all others. But instant messaging seems to work differently.

The problem: For me it it not possible to use WhatsApp, because it has too many important issues. But on the other hand I do not want to force someone else to switch to some particular other service provider.

That is why I want to promote switching to Delta Chat. It makes encrypted communication with usual instant messaging user experience possible without forcing people to register with any particular service provier.
It uses the existing e-mail address everybody has already for sending the messages. And if someone does not use the Delta Chat application he will receive the messages as ordinary e-mail and will miss the modern and lean look of an instant messaging application, but can still participate in the communication and is not forced to switch to a particular service.

• No need to switch to another service provider: With Delta Chat you can communicate with everybody who has an e-mail address and you will not force anybody to switch to a particular service provider or to install any particular application. Your communication partners can just use their normal e-mail application to participate. Installing Delta Chat just leads to a modern instant messaging look of the conversation and to automated encryption.


• OpenSource: The program code of Delta Chat can be reviewed openly. So it can be checked what the application is doing in contrast to closed source applications where your have to trust the provider that the application does not do unexpected things like collecting user profiles to sell them for advertising.. To compare: The source code of WhatsApp or Telegram can not be reviewed openly and thus cannot be checked.


• No profit interests: Delta Chat is not provided by an enterprise and has no costs for transporting the messages as it uses the existing e-mail infrastructure. In contrast to this most other providers have profit interests and are forced to collect user data to sell.


• Data security: Most other providers do upload the contactlist of your phone to check for your contacts if they are using the same instant messaging service. This can be illegal as you should first ask all your contacts if they approve you to give their phone number to a third party. Delta Chat does not do this. The connection is being established manually by the user by providing the e-mail adresses of his conversation partners.


• Available for PC: There are native applications for PC including Windows, Linux and Mac systems so that it is possible to stay in contact with your friends not only by mobile phone (and even without having one at all). To compare: WhatsApp can only be used on a PC within your browser and only if you have your phone available to log in.


• Usual functions: You can send text, photos, files and you can initiate videocalls easily.
  


• Encryption: Communication via Delta Chat is encrypted automatically when both communication partners use Delta Chat (and not their classical e-mail application to read and respond). This is also true for group conversations. For encryption OpenPGP is used. A strong and open source algorithm that is checked well as it can be reviewed by everybody. To compare: WhatsApp for example uses a closed source encryption algorithm and so it is a secret of the service provider how it works exactly. So the security of the algorithm cannot be checked by experts. Even worse: Telegram also uses a closed source encryption algorithm but encryption is even not switched on by default and does not work for group converstations at all.