Hi,
As I’m convinced that we should move to Delta Chat for many reasons, I wrote an article to introduce Delta Chat to my friends and contacts.
I would be very grateful if you could share your feedback on the article:
Thanks!
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It has practically the same features as WhatsApp (except for calls and channels, for now).
This is out-of-date as of 2.22.0! 
This means that any individual or organization can use their own email server to chat or rely on specialized servers called chatmail, which allow the creation of pseudonymous accounts with automatically generated credentials.
…“called Chatmail servers”? Not to be confused with the Chatmail core (part of the client software). We used to call the core “Deltachat core” and “Chatmail” was only the servers. Maybe a third name is needed. The credentials can also be manually-set. I think it is important that these accounts are free of charge, and not limited in number per user.
“Chatmail” and the names of other open standards are proper nouns and so should probably get caps. Italics seem needless though.
See the Axolotl software for Signal’s active opposition to not only decentralization, but alternative clients. Deltachat encourages alternative clients, and an outdated client will work seamlessly with the latest version.
DC has third-party security audits for its E2EE.
Censorship resistance is partly because blocking E2EE will bring down so many security-critical systems.
In case of an attack, launching another server is not hard; the only inconvenience is that the keys would have to be shared again.
Unless you have accounts on more than one server, which is encouraged.
if that server is compromised or keeps copies of the messages, some privacy can be lost.
Specifically, the metadata is compromised.
For example, I could send my WhatsApp contacts a message with the link they need to reach me on Delta Chat.
Fine, but it is best not to send invite links over Telegram or any other non-E2EE messenger. If you post a code publicly someone could make a fake copy and claim their QR code is yours, but actually relay messages both ways (a MITM attack)
Other weak points: DC uses a nonstandard mailstorage format and exporting chats is a message-by-message chore last I checked.
“Enshittification” is usually spelt with to "t"s, perhaps less so in the US.
It is a tool that respects the freedom and dignity of individuals and communities and allows us to build sovereign, ethical, subsidiary, and resilient communication.
Subsiduary? I think this may be a false cognate of the word you want.
E-mail is indeed part of the Fediverse! Alas, it is increasingly centralized, with fewer and fewer servers that are increasingly quick to reject mail from new servers.
In under two minutes you can create an account, test it with a friend, and, if you have the technical skills, set up your own chatmail server.
Server setup time may exceed two minutes.
1 Like
only to some extend. we try to ensure compatibility, but there are limits: like with features like message editing or deletion, those don’t work seamlessly with ancient versions of delta chat (the core functionality may still work, but there may be bugs with those new features, so it is not guaranteed to be seamless, so please stay up to date with your versions).
@missytake did a workshop once, there it took the participants roughly 15-30min to setup their own chatmail relay. (“servers” in chatmail are called “chatmail relays”)
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I spent a lot of time communicating between – 1.1, I think? and 2.something versions, and had no serious problems. Once a png failed to display and I had to open it externally. That was by far the worst issue, and I did not manage to replicate it.
Obviously the new features don’t all retroactively start working in old clients, but everything that used to work stays working, even when only one end updates. This is a dramatic advantage over other messengers.
Also if AWS goes down again, or some other cloud platform or huge centralized service, you will not have a global Deltachat outage (Signal went down with AWS, and complained that it is impossible to run a global real-time messenger without using AWS or something similar).
I’m impressed by a 15-30 min setup time. Why “relay” but not “server”? Because, like the oldschool open relay servers, anyone can send a message? But users do create an account as they do so, now, and replies will come by the same route.
I think the term “relay” is also sometimes used for an automated remailer used for anonymization, which also takes mail from anyone (and usually does not create accounts); but I don’t think Chatmail has that functionality.
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I believe with multi-transport the term “relay” will make even more sense. currently it refers to the fact that the messages are just relayed (or kept for a short time) and not stored forever (normal email/IMAP servers store emails forever until you delete them).
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How far are we from multi transport? Is there a timeline?
I have only checked weakness chapter, very quicly. Some people think that being too horizontal is bad for “big” groups, they would like some herarchy, group admins.
Also big, big groups are not possible withDelta Chat.
I like DC without those, but people complain about that. I am OK if big moderated groups are done with matrix (public sector for example). DC is for the people
Too bad I didn’t find any info about that. It took me days. With all these DNS settings MTA-STS, opendkim, submission, dmarc … which are mentioned on some articles/chats. No clue if really necessary though.
Of course it’s me who have to learn a lot of new things during these process. But IMHO it’s not so easy with current documentation.
Not offending, I’m happy with Deltachat as far as I can say after the first tests. Maybe it’s only me who missed the links to the simple instructions.
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as far as I remembered it, those DNS values were generated and shown by the installation script, maybe you missed them? (or I don’t remember correctly, it has been a while since then)
There are links to some instructions on setting up relays at cosmos.delta.chat, but they are a bit out-of-date. Chatmail relays seem to be a sort of quasi-standard which is implemented in various ways on various mailserver software, as well as as specific package. Which is good, too; a bit of heterogeneity keeps standards greased and adds resistance to bugs and attacks.