Encrypted Applications vs Conventional Applications.

Nowadays, when all our communications occur through messaging apps, it is extremely important that we protect our personal data and the most sensitive information that we process with family, friends, clients or contacts in general. Normally we are left with the idea that conventional applications like Whatsapp are the only or best messaging application, but this is far from the reality. These types of applications are unreliable, since although they use end-to-end encryption, it is not robust, and is easy to decrypt.

Privacy policies

Privacy policies are a key point that differentiates an encrypted application from a conventional one. An encrypted app, such as Threema, Armadillo Chat or Silent Circle, has strict privacy policies and does not require access to the phone’s metadata.

On the other hand, applications like Whatsapp or Telegram necessarily request access to contacts to be able to use the app and they also collect an alarming amount of metadata such as location, IP addresses, phone number and model, mobile operator, among many other things. Telegram, for its part, is an app that is managed in the cloud, so all encrypted and unencrypted information will be on its servers.

Functionalities

Recently Whatsapp included features such as timed messages, something that encrypted applications already managed a long time ago. In addition, encrypted applications have features such as encrypted calls and video calls, message timer, remote deletion in case you lose your phone, messages that are instantly deleted after being read and in some you can even hide the app behind another icon such as the calculator. .

Cost

Although most conventional applications are free, we must ask ourselves why they are free, and it is precisely because their profit is in our data that they capture the market. On the other hand, there are some free encrypted applications but the vast majority have some cost, but the truth is it is a very low value in relation to all the benefits you will obtain. You can find some with values ranging from 15 USD