Briar: Peer-to-Peer Encrypted Messaging
My wife and I use Briar for household communication because of subsidiarity rather than any direct privacy concerns. Out of all the messenger projects that we've tried, Briar actually <i>works</i> for local communication. It's <i>actually</i> instant messaging without any client hiccups or latency (looking at you, Signal). We've tried a ton of other options, but we keep ending up back at Briar.<p>There <i>are</i> points of UX friction in the name of good opsec that are inconvenient but totally understandable given the project goals. The big ones being that you have to manually login after any reboots and notifications are intentionally sparse, so good luck using a smartwatch for reading or replying. Otherwise, the forums and blogs are great for managing household projects, IM is a dream, and as a bonus, anyone willing to install and use it probably has a large enough values overlap that we can use it as a social pre-filter for close friends.<p>The only other option that has come even remotely close to being as functional as Briar is DeltaChat. The only issue that stops us from using DeltaChat (or email in general) is that we both have email hosting in Europe while we live in the US, so neither of us, being frugal in principal, wants to send information to Europe and back in order to tell the person 100 ft away to come help bring in the groceries.