I didn't want to advice/promote DeltaChat/ArcaneChat, they are not the only possible way of using email securely, just came here with the meme as a way of leaving out a rant because I have seen a lot of people talking like that and it is by now an urban legend people just repeat like parrots and pointing to articles that basically are misleading. Had a recent discussion about that in the Privacy Guides forum and just came here with the meme to shake the frustration away ;-)

it is all about the sassy retro style and base64 MIME body

more seriously: Signal is centralized and based on phone numbers, and as said by Signal themselves: "Privacy is Priceless, but Signal is Expensive" https://signal.org/blog/signal-is-expensive/ while email infra is WAY more economic and decentralized

SimpleX maybe but I it is not powerful/flexible nor as solid/mature as email server infra

When you send ANY message (it doesn't matter if it is just text, image or other attachment) it is end-to-end encrypted and on the server it all looks the same, encrypted blobs, it is only visible in your devices.

If you have a single device the encrypted blobs are deleted immediately after downloading them, if tyou have more than one device, the blobs are stored up to 20 days in the server to give you the chance to sync your devices, if you use "disappearing messages" option or manually select and delete messages or use the "clear chat" option, then you have more fine control when it is removed.

About your friend being offline, the same rules apply, they will be able to download the images and other messages you send to them as soon as they come back online within 20 days :)

Of course, if you host your own server you can tweak it to your needs if the defaults of arcanechat.me don't suit you

If you want to join a community group to test and talk about Delta Chat:

https://i.delta.chat/#6CBFF8FFD505C0FDEA20A66674F2916EA8FBEE99=&a=invitebot%40nine.testrun.org&g=DC+Community&x=y6dS91dlLLi&i=0bzEm4zAacX&s=GQQlKuqD-zH

it seems Pleroma is really bad, you have to scroll down until you find the actual comment in that thread that is marked with a different color, it is showing you the top of the thread, anyway, here is the image:

This is simply not correct, the page you link is talking about problems of email as a network of different clients and servers. With ArcaneChat and arcanechat.me server there is no metadata leak, the article talks about leaking subject which is simply not leaked in ArcaneChat since it is moved to the encrypted part as many other headers, the To and From headers are needed by the server to know to whom send the message, this is the same in virtually all other messaging platforms, like XMPP, Matrix, WhatsApp, etc. So why is it listed as a flaw of email?

Here you can see what someone can see in a message sent with chatmail servers, tell me exactly what metadata you got from this message as the server operator:

That kind of "no no you can't use email in a secure way" is a so outdated urban legend

They are not totally the same tho, for example "Delete messages on device of recipients" says "no" for Delta Chat but it is already available in ArcaneChat (will come to DeltaChat "soon")

Also "Minimal metadata" says "no" while there is no personal data at all required to use ArcaneChat, accounts are fully anonymous hence what metadata and from whom?

so the table is getting outdated quickly 😄

You download the "model" or whatever they use to translate for each language you want, it is like 100MB each IIRC, then you can fully use the language translator offline, by default only English can be used offline the others you manually click a download button besides the language entry in the language selector

I know, but I don't want to self-host it, I want to use it completely offline as an app on the phone just as google translator app, also LibreTranslate can't translate in real time using the phone camera like Google Lens

it is pointless to talk in theory without actually trying things out, besides the app doesn't have to do only email, in fact it already has p2p support for real-time that can be used for now inside the https://webxdc.org/ mini-apps, and might be used for calls in the future, or just use WebRTC for calls, one of the mini-apps in the store "Live Chat" already has typing indicators btw. The app already has Jitsi Meet invitations integration.

Chatting in Delta Chat with chatmail feels just as fast as WhatsApp, Telegram etc. sometimes even faster depending on the chatmail server you use

WHen i tried it years ago

you should try it again, Delta Chat is totally on a different level than a few years ago, there has been tons of improvements, I started using it around 2018, now I am even contributing to it

Delta chat is basically email.

and how is that exactly a problem? the protocol is email, but email done right is actually good and fast, as it can be tested if you actually try out the app. The new chatmail servers are optimized for chatting, the main reason classic email providers suck is because they have to deal with spam and arbitrary decisions like gray-listing etc

without being picky about quality of translations vs Google Translator, this can't be used offline in the phone/android, right? maybe trying to setup the server side inside Termux could work, this doesn't solve the problem of translating text just by pointing the camera to some banner or traffic sign etc. which is useful while traveling in a foreign country etc.

Can DeepL be used offline? One of the killer features of Google Translate IMHO is the ability to download the language models and translate offline, that plus the integration with Google Lens which also can be used completely offline to translate text in real life pointing the camera or from an image is a killer feature I have not seen other alternative provide, I would like to be completely independent from an online service, even if it is Google if you download the languages and block internet access of the app with a firewall that is better than an online service.

I am currently not using Google Translator, uninstalled the app together with Lens and have a degoogled phone now but I am suffering in silence every day

https://arcanechat.me/ is also European (Germany) and is decentralized, fully OpenSource, free/gratis and registration requires ZERO personal data! Everything is End-to-end encrypted between people, server can't see any data which is encrypted and stored only temporarily on the server

and the thing is: Telegram having a proprietary server feels more opensource and open to 3rd party clients and developers (ex. bots, mini-apps etc) than Signal, Signal's issue tracker has a bot auto-closing stale issues and several people are completely ignored, never receive a reply

I highly recommend you to give a try to https://arcanechat.me/ (I am the developer) it is heavily inspired by Telegram, if you want to test it you can join this community group: https://i.delta.chat/#6CBFF8FFD505C0FDEA20A66674F2916EA8FBEE99=&a=invitebot%40nine.testrun.org&g=ArcaneChat+Community&x=3KvvQZfzU4t-9u5s0PF3USGp&i=AQKH9_8x0R0&s=dbGW9xOhRQX

Threema is paid (registration tied to payment is already bad for privacy, most people will not register with some crypto-coin etc) and centralized, any centralized service is vulnerable to enshitification, none of them start evil, also it is easier to block by authoritarian governments and can't be used in a sovereign/independent way (ex. own independent server in a local community)

Session: it has been a long time since I last used Session, at the time my impression was that it was a bit hacky and it was draining my battery and using a lot of mobile data, more importantly Session doesn't seem to have multi-account support, also doesn't seem to support using your own independent server "off-the-grid". Session groups have a limit of only 100 members while in ArcaneChat groups can have 1000 members for now (or even more depending on the server you use, ex. your own)

none of them have in-chat collaborative/interactive apps (ex. collaborative editor, calendar, shopping lists, split bills, polls, etc.) and games that can be used even while offline

How on earth do you think the various Matrix clients are “this is for nerds” like and buggy? How do you come to this statement?

if you don't even see the problem, I am not even sure it is worth to try to talk about it... ex. a private 1:1 chat in Matrix is a "room" the whole experience of starting a private chat with your mom is a series of "foo invited bar to room", "bar joined the room", etc. besides easy to end up in a state where not even you can read your own messages the famous "unable to decrypt"

Signal can be based on Useraccounts without phone numbers as well.

Signal depends on phone numbers, if you are talking about setting a nick-name (which Telegram supports since ages) that doesn't mean anything a phone number is still required, just as in Telegram, and it is not an argument against my point that talked about the need for a SIM card.

And the registration process tbh is a pro and non a con

it is a con, period.

if you don’t provide a secured process you will be run over by bots at some time.

bots are supported and welcome, just as on Telegram, bots can't spam people because, unlike on Signal with the phone numbers problem, in ArcaneChat people can't just write to you randomly, they need your contact's invitation link. Also in worse case, migrating your address is possible and cheap, you can have many accounts as you want and also create accounts temporarily to interact "in the wild"

Is that feature audited?

yes, ArcaneChat is a Delta Chat client, and the Delta Chat app and core has received several audits (six over the past of years so far), any Delta Chat client using the Delta Chat core benefits from the security audits, you can read about it here: https://chaos.social/@delta/113963707915543266 unlike many of the mentioned clients that don't have any known security audit at all?

BTW: Furthmore your website does not confirm with German legal requirements and makes you an easy target for bad faith lawyers,btw.

could you tell me what is wrong with it? my address is show in the terms & privacy policy / GDPR, but I admittedly am not well informed in German law topics, so if you could point me in the right direction I would be really grateful

post-data: please don't read my reply as a aggressive discussion, I am just providing arguments, not trying to fight unknown people in the Internet, and I appreciate you took your time to reply, have a nice day!

1. if they leaked something you wouldn't know because US government law doesn't allow them to disclose if they requested data.
2. uses AWS servers that also the gov could ask for access to Amazon directly without even talking to Signal, being centralized and depending on AWS infra is also a weakness.
3. needing phone numbers to register, often tied to passport and it is super easy to get your whole network when compromising 1 device
4. all centralized services start nice, attracting users, once they have you, and money starts being a problem.... meet: enshitification

I moved my whole family since years to Delta Chat, eventually started contributing to the project and even created my own fork that is what my family is using, see: https://lemmy.ml/post/26007254