Best 5 secure mobile messaging apps

Stay secure online with our list of some of the best encrypted messaging apps

We all have private conversations we want to keep, well, private! Whether it’s an embarrassing story, office gossip, or opening up about your feelings, the last thing you want is for someone to see your messages or have them used to serve you ads. Unless you’re using an encrypted messaging app, you’re leaving it all out in the open.

Signal

• Handles group chats, SMS, voice, video, documents and picture messages
• Offers disappearing messages (with a timer)
• Signal protocol
• Open-source
• Doesn’t store user data or metadata
• Advocated by Edward Snowden

WhatsApp

• Uses Signal’s encryption
• Most of your friends are probably on it
• User-friendly and offers extra features

Wickr Me

• You don’t need a phone number or an email to sign up
• Open-source
• Offers ‘shredder’ feature
• Doesn’t collect any user data or store metadata
• Offers Pro version for businesses

ChatSecure

• XMPP with TLS certificate pinning.
• OTR for verifiable end-to-end encryption and forward secrecy.
• OMEMO for a mobile-friendly alternative to OTR.
• Tor to help bypass restrictive firewalls.
• SQLCipher to locally encrypt conversation logs.

Telegram

• Offers disappearing messages and other extra features
• Easy-to-use interface