Delta Chat

Delta Chat looks and feels like other popular messenger apps, but does not involve centralized tracking and control. The app uses the largest, most diverse and decentralized communication system ever created: the existing e-mail server network. Just use your standard e-mail account and start chatting with any of your e-mail contacts, whether they have installed Delta Chat or not.

Technically, Delta Chat is an e-mail application but with a modern chat interface. E-Mail in a new dress if you will. Chat and contact data remain on your devices. No uploads of addressbook, calendar or other personal data. There simply are no Delta Chat servers where anything could be uploaded to.

Use Delta Chat with anyone out of billions of people: just use their e-mail address. Recipients will see a simple e-mail and may directly reply with their own e-mail app. They don't need to install Delta Chat, visit websites or sign up anywhere. If you send a picture or other media to a chat group your chat recipients will see a nice regular e-mail with an attachment. If they send a message and attachments back, you will see the media in your chat for this contact.

Delta Chat sends e-mails using your e-mail account and provider of choice. You can change mobile numbers without any trouble or even work without any SIM card or phone number at all. You can export all your chat data on one device, import it on a new device and happily continue chatting. Not requiring mobile numbers avoids cell-tower and other tracking.

Delta Chat establishes end-to-end encryption automatically when chat partners start communicating with each other. On a two-people chat, just send a "Hi!" message and already receive an encrypted reply if the other side accepts you as contact. End-to-End encryption not only works between Delta Chat apps, but also with other e-mail apps if they support the Autocrypt Level 1 encryption standard.

Moreover, Delta Chat offers an experimental "verified group" chat guaranteeing end-to-end encryption to be secure against active network or provider attacks. This unique feature is based on recent usability and cryptographic research and is going to be refined after further user-testing with at-risk users in 2019.

Delta Chat offers instant chatting and synchronization across devices. Messages sent on one device will quickly show up on other devices. There is an early iPhone version and mostly stable downloads for Linux, Mac OS Laptops and an experimental Windows download. All Desktop versions can be used standalone or in conjunction with a mobile version.

Delta Chat is a relatively young project, but already has a lot to offer. It employs a pragmatic and usability-driven approach to decentralized messaging. No re-inventing of wheels unless one of them causes actual trouble or concern. We rather often think about removing technology than adding yet more of it, trying to keep things maintainable and understandable for us and others. Most popular programming languages and many human languages are involved in the development of Delta Chat apps and the various activities around it.

We are grateful for any help, be it contributing good bug reports, helping other users on the forum, participating in our open development with PRs and reviews, translations to more languages, working on new bots, setting up new experimental mail servers ... or a donation if you can.

We currently use monetary donations to help contributors join us at our repeated one-week long gatherings -- where we develop and user-test with locals and evolve new directions and plans.

Delta Chat的外观和感觉与其他流行的Messenger应用程序类似，但不涉及集中的跟踪和控制。该应用程序使用有史以来建立的最大，最多样化和分散的通信系统：现有的电子邮件服务器网络。只需使用您的标准电子邮件帐户并开始与您的任何电子邮件联系人聊天，无论他们是否已安装Delta Chat。

从技术上讲，Delta Chat是电子邮件应用程序，但是具有现代的聊天界面。如果可以，请以新衣服发送电子邮件。聊天和联系数据保留在您的设备上。禁止上传地址簿，日历或其他个人数据。根本没有可以将任何内容上传到的Delta Chat服务器。

与数十亿人口中的任何人一起使用Delta Chat：只需使用他们的电子邮件地址即可。收件人将看到一封简单的电子邮件，并可以直接使用自己的电子邮件应用程序进行回复。他们不需要安装Delta Chat，访问网站或在任何地方注册。如果您将图片或其他媒体发送到聊天组，则聊天收件人将看到一封带有附件的常规电子邮件。如果他们发回邮件和附件，您将在聊天中看到此联系人的媒体。

Delta Chat使用您的电子邮件帐户和选择的提供者发送电子邮件。您可以毫无困难地更改手机号码，甚至根本不需要任何SIM卡或电话号码即可工作。您可以将所有聊天数据导出到一台设备上，将其导入新设备上，然后愉快地继续聊天。不需要手机号码可以避免手机信号塔和其他跟踪。

当聊天伙伴开始相互通信时，Delta Chat会自动建立端到端加密。在两人聊天中，只需发送“嗨！”消息，并且如果对方接受您作为联系人，则已经收到加密的回复。端到端加密不仅在Delta Chat应用程序之间有效，而且在其他电子邮件应用程序支持自动加密1级加密标准的情况下也可以使用。

此外，Delta Chat还提供了实验性的“验证组”聊天，可确保端到端加密免受活动的网络或提供商攻击。此独特功能基于近期的可用性和密码研究，并将在2019年对高风险用户进行进一步的用户测试后进行完善。

Delta Chat提供跨设备的即时聊天和同步。在一个设备上发送的消息将迅速显示在其他设备上。有一个较早的iPhone版本，并且主要针对Linux，Mac OS Laptops和稳定的Windows下载进行稳定的下载。所有桌面版本都可以单独使用或与移动版本一起使用。

Delta Chat是一个相对较年轻的项目，但已经提供了很多东西。它采用务实且由可用性驱动的方法来分散消息。除非车轮之一引起实际的麻烦或担忧，否则不要重新发明车轮。我们宁愿经常考虑删除技术，而不是添加更多技术，以使事物对我们和其他人而言可维护和可理解。 Delta Chat应用程序及其周围的各种活动都涉及最流行的编程语言和许多人类语言。

我们非常感谢您提供的任何帮助，无论是提供良好的错误报告，帮助论坛上的其他用户，参与PR​​或评论的开放式开发，翻译成更多语言，开发新的机器人，建立新的实验性邮件服务器……或捐赠（如果可以）。

目前，我们使用金钱捐款来帮助捐助者参加我们为期一周的反复聚会-在聚会上我们与当地人进行开发和用户测试，并制定新的方向和计划。