** Now in Android and iOS app stores **
No Face, No Name, No Number, No SIM card, No Internet! Berty is a messenger that doesn’t require any of your personal data or network connection (using Bluetooth Low Energy BLE). All conversations are encrypted with end-to-end encryption, in a fully distributed network.
It is a peer-to-peer messenger with no servers, no cloud - your data is only stored on the device where Berty is installed and used. No one would be able to access the data or shut the app down, not even the developers.
Being P2P, it means the IP address needs to be available to route messaging, but their site explains a bit about how they’ve tried to mask this. Whilst Briar is an excellent alternative, it is still Android only. The closest alternative is maybe Jami, but it lacks a non-Internet Bluetooth alternative if I recall correctly. Interestingly, Berty also can use Airdrop (iOS to iOS) and Android’s Nearby as alternative protocols.
You can share your details and add contacts via a QR code, public key, or an invite link. It is currently available on both iOS and Android, with desktop clients to follow.
#technology #messenger #berty #P2P #IPFS #privacy
i’ve been using berty for a couple of months now, not as a primary messenger, but more so in situations where I want to transfer some information in the form of text/images/videos in situations where there is no internet connection
it has some issues, but it’s relatively robust imo
That’s good to hear. As always with P2P networks though you have to know some people to get connected as otherwise you have a messenger with zero contacts. And that is always the part of the more difficult onboarding for P2P.
Any idea how it compares to Briar by chance?
i’m not familiar with briar, so i can’t really tell :(
They sound quite samiliar, with Berty you have to have the recipient on the app as well, ya? In other words no SMS/MMS messaging I believe from the break down? Briar is marketed for activists and journalist being a decentralized and encrypted messager which works without WiFi and can be routed over Tor.
yeah, you need both peers to have the berty app installed and it can’t use SMS to send messages, but just like briar, berty is able to communicate via local wireless network, bluetooth, via other berty peers, over tor etc
so they are actually similar, but while berty uses ipfs, i’m not exactly sure what technology briar uses 🤷♀️