Signal

The lack of privacy is a serious problem nowadays and you can never feel too safe, even when exchanging simple text messages with other people. Fortunately, there are still software developers out there who feel that it's imperative to address this issue. A good example is Signal, created by Open Whisper Systems. It is a simple chat application, for mobile devices and PCs, but it is specially engineered to keep your messages private with end-to-end encryption. You can use it to communicate with friends and family, without worrying that someone, somewhere might be looking over what you say.

Signal is absolutely free and you can have it up and running in under a minute, on your Windows-powered computer and on Android and iOS mobile devices. The application works straight out of the box, without requiring any complex settings or any supplementary tools or services.

Before you can use Signal on your computer, you must install the mobile app on your smartphone or tablet. Once it is installed, you can run the desktop application and scan a QR to link your device to your computer. At this point, all the contacts and messages you have on your mobile device will appear on your computer as well.

There is not much to look at on the desktop user interface. Just like many other chat applications, Signal displays your contacts in a list, on the right side of its interface and you can exchange messages with selected contacts on the right side. Besides exchanging text messages, the application lets you make voice calls as well. Of course, it is also possible to create groups and chat with multiple people at once.

As previously mentioned, messages are encrypted end to end. This means that only you and your partner will be able to read the messages. For obvious reasons, messages can be deleted, without any effort. What's more, the application can be set to delete messages automatically and it lets you specify an time interval for this operation. Everyone in the same thread will share the same settings, so the messages will be gone from everywhere, with no traces left behind.

Your privacy will be protected with airtight security measures when using Signal.