Delta Chat – Email Based PGP Encrypted Chat

The landing page may be a bit too minimal in giving overview of this cool project. I really liked the direction towards real-time P2P networking, based on Iroh [0]. See the blog post about this [1].<p>&gt; After almost two years of collaboration with the wonderful Iroh team, and years of discussions with numerous experts in the decentralization space, we are happy to announce that Delta Chat 1.48 apps on all platforms contain state-of-the-art Peer-to-Peer networking support, including hole punching and forward-secret end-to-end encryption. Concretely, Delta Chat now establishes private Peer-to-Peer gossipping networks between users who start a webxdc app that uses the new joinRealtimeChannel() API.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;iroh.computer&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;iroh.computer&#x2F;</a><p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;delta.chat&#x2F;en&#x2F;2024-11-20-webxdc-realtime" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;delta.chat&#x2F;en&#x2F;2024-11-20-webxdc-realtime</a>

There was a few talks about Delta Chat in FOSDEM&#x27;25. Seems it has come a long way since inception.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fosdem.org&#x2F;2025&#x2F;schedule&#x2F;event&#x2F;fosdem-2025-5853-delta-chat-from-e-mail-messaging-to-peer-to-peer-realtime-networking&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fosdem.org&#x2F;2025&#x2F;schedule&#x2F;event&#x2F;fosdem-2025-5853-delt...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fosdem.org&#x2F;2025&#x2F;schedule&#x2F;event&#x2F;fosdem-2025-5217-chatmail-server-networks-for-anonymous-end-to-end-encrypted-messaging&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fosdem.org&#x2F;2025&#x2F;schedule&#x2F;event&#x2F;fosdem-2025-5217-chat...</a>

In a sensible world, we would be using this, instead of whatsapp. It is amazing that even really a vast majority of, even technical people, not once stopped and looked at whatsapp, and said &quot;Wait, e-mail can do this, we just need a pretty UI&quot;.

For those unaware, this was created by Holger Krekel, the brain behind pypy and pytest! Another great product.

On the positive side, the use of P2P and IMAP makes censorship difficult, which is a strong advantage in authoritarian regimes.<p>However this comes with serious trade-offs. PGP lacks forward secrecy: if a key leaks, all past messages can be decrypted. Also IMAP offers no metadata privacy, anyone can see who you email and how often.<p>Signal and WhatsApp are likely a step ahead in terms of privacy with their double ratchet encryption (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Double_Ratchet_Algorithm" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Double_Ratchet_Algorithm</a>).

Previous discussions:<p>24-jan-2021 <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25893626">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25893626</a> 148 comments<p>07-jan-2021 <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25674894">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25674894</a> 4 commments<p>27-feb-2019 <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=19263357">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=19263357</a> 11 comments<p>21-feb-2019 <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=19216827">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=19216827</a> 56 comments<p>03-feb-2017 <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=13560279">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=13560279</a> 1 comment

Several years ago I tried DeltaChat and it caused an insurmountable problem: my mail provider kept locking me out of my account. Almost certainly it was because DeltaChat&#x27;s suspiciously ciphertext-filled messages were triggering the abuse lockdown.<p>The provider was GMX and it was their fault, not DeltaChat&#x27;s. But I had to call off the experiment.

The most important factor with email, is that your inbox is encrypted at rest at all times... and cannot be bruteforced.<p>The chances of your email messages being &#x27;man in the middled&#x27; are almost non-existent. Its a micro-percent of live investigations that does this.<p>The police RELY ON finding messages in either your inbox or the recipients. It doesnt matter if they are encrypted or not in reality. Of course they&#x27;d like to read them and if they are this deep into you. Its likely they still will (probably from the recipients lesser password hygiene than yours).<p>Almost no evidence is every &#x27;plucked&#x27; out of the air and read. It just doesnt work that way.<p>However, software like Delta is better than nothing esp for normies. Its just limited in use for people who really need ways to frustrate LE.<p>Source: Ive been under NCA and FBI investigation before. Protonmail with the two password method stopped them every time. Memorise the 2nd password and password manager the first.

I wish I could send a one-time link to my father where we could play chess against each other by re-visiting the same link.<p>The e-mail part made me think of this. I have no use for an e-mail based chat but an online chess game that&#x27;s easy to use without registration would be cool. He&#x27;s 82 and he can&#x27;t use complex sites.

My first question on this sort of thing was how well does it work with GMail. And they have an FAQ entry on it: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;providers.delta.chat&#x2F;gmail" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;providers.delta.chat&#x2F;gmail</a>

Reminds me of Topicbox (by Fastmail).<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.topicbox.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.topicbox.com&#x2F;</a>

I tried to use it, liked the concept, but the way it handles email is a mess, making it unusable for my use case of trying to use it as an alternative mail client for my normal mail account.

would be nice if all the &quot;no, no, this can&#x27;t work! email is slow! blah blah&quot; guys once and for all actually give it a try to the app and realize IT WORKS AND IT IS BLAZING FAST! I have been using it since years with my family and some friends without any problems, it is the best I could find after trying Matrix, XMPP, etc.

Does it means the delta chat messages appears in the regular mail inbox?

Ah the famously friendly UX of PGP combined with the solid reliability of email. This is trying to get two drunks to stand up straight by leaning them against each other.