Speek!

Conversing with your friends privately has been increasingly encroached upon in the digital world, and the privacy concerns are valid enough for one to seek alternatives. These alternatives can provide a more private chatting experience, while still providing the desired functionalities for their users. 

In essence, that's where Speek! looks to deliver: the interface is rather similar to Telegram and WhatsApp, except that now, the connection is handled via Tor to ensure user privacy. The chats are encrypted, and the app also prides itself in its decentralized approach, where no conversation metadata is stored.

Setting everything up is no work at all: the tool takes about 5 seconds to establish a Tor tunnel, and there you have it. The interface is as you'd expect from an instant messaging platform: practical, intuitive, and very clean. You can start by adding your contacts, and to do that, you'll need their Speek IDs. When adding contacts, you can attach a message, as well as designate their username, so that everything is easier to manage.

Upon adding someone, you can chat with them just as you would normally. Send and receive messages, attach images and documents, and so on: the app simply operates as intended. It's worth noting that, when attaching a document or photo, the recipient has to consent to receiving the file.

Users can effectively create multiple profiles through the Identities menu. This allows users to create and manage multiple contact books, useful for all sorts of reasons. For instance, you could have a contact book for business, and another for personal matters.

Aside from that, taking a look at the Settings reveals the Backup support, which is handy for when you want to preserve your conversations & take them with you on another computer.

A thing that may be a deal-breaker to some is the lack of a mobile app: being able to converse with your contacts on-the-go is a feature that is unfortunately lacking here.

Speek! seeks to further the concept of decentralization with a clear focus on user privacy: insofar as private chatting goes, this one is a worthwhile software solution.