Bitmessage

Bitmessage is a peer-to-peer communication application that puts a special emphasis on strong encryption. This decentralized tool helps you send encrypted messages to another user or multiple subscribers using public key cryptography so that only the receivers are capable of decrypting the message.

It also integrates its own anonymous P2P network that mixes and scrambles all encrypted message of a given users with all the other messages of all users. The result of this information mix is that it proves to be quite difficult to track down the computers. For an extra layer of security, the utility does not archive messages on the network.

Bitmessage reveals a multi-tabbed layout that allows you to quickly switch between the main features of the program, namely Inbox, Send, Sent, Your Identities, Subscriptions, Address Book, Blacklist, and Network status.

The Inbox panel is quite intuitive and reveals a list with all your messages along with some information about them, such as receiver, sender, subject and received date. You may filter data by one of the aforementioned options.

You may view HTML code as formatted text, mark items as unread, reply to the selected message, add sender to your address book, and save messages or send them to trash.

Bitmessage gives you the possibility to send a message to one or more specific people or broadcast to everyone who is subscribed to your address. You may type in the message directly in the main window or paste the information from the clipboard.

The application keeps a list with all your sent messages and lets you create a new identity (address) by generating random numbers or using a passphrase.

What’s more, you can add multiple subscriptions, create a new entry in your address book by adding names and labels to other Bitmessage users in order to quickly identify them, keep a blacklist and whitelist for blocking or allowing connections, as well as check out an overview of your network status that includes information about the total number of connections, down and up speed, processed broadcast messages and public keys.

A chan represents a decentralized anonymous mailing list that helps users send messages that include neither the sender’s nor the receiver’s Bitmessage address. However, a total level of encryption is not achieved since a user who knows the chan passphrase may read the chan and post any message into it.

Bitmessage allows you to start the utility at user login, show notifications upon received messages, run the tool in a portable mode (messages and configuration files are stored in the same directory as the program), set up proxy parameters, and limit the bandwidth (the maximum download and upload rate).

If private and secure communications are on top of the list when it comes to sending messages to other people, then Bitmessage may be exactly what you are looking for. It is not as intuitive as other messaging applications but its encrypted protocol ensures your anonymity.