Developer(s) Daniel Gultsch Written in Java | Development status Active | |
 | ||
Initial release 2014; 3 years ago (2014) Stable release 1.15.2 / 24 December 2016; 2 months ago (2016-12-24) Repository github.com/siacs/Conversations | ||
Conversations is a free instant messaging client for Android. It supports the exchange of encrypted text and picture messages. It is largely based on accepted open standards like the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), Transport Layer Security (TLS), and Off-the-Record Messaging.
Contents
Development is focused on secure communication and implementation of XMPP extensions that are important for mobile usage. Specialist publications praised the decentralized and open transmission network and simple, intuitive usage with a workflow that is familiar from other applications. It is regarded as a serious attempt to improve the usability of XMPP-based messaging to a competitive level.
The source code of the software is managed on GitHub and governed by the terms of version 3 of the GNU General Public License (GPL). The software can be installed either free of charge (or rather donation-based) from F-Droid or against a fee from the Google Play store. Google counted over 10,000 paid installations as of 2016.
History
On January 24, 2014, first code was submitted to the public repository. The first official version 0.1 was published on March 24, 2014 when encrypted messengers for mobile devices gained a lot of popularity in the wake of the Snowden disclosures (June 2013–) and Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp (February 2014). It soon garnered some positive reviews. In spring 2014 it was included into Google Play and starting with version 0.1.3 from April 6, 2014 into the alternative Android software repository F-Droid. Since version 0.2 from May 12 picture messages (file transfers, as plain-text data or OpenPGP-encrypted) are supported, as of version 0.4 (June 30) also OTR-encrypted. Version 1.0 followed on February 1, 2015. Andreas Straub participated in the Google Summer of Code 2015 on behalf of Conversations. This produced drafts for a new end-to-end encryption standard (OMEMO) that were submitted to the XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF) for standardisation. In October 2015 the ChatSecure project announced that it is going to base the Android version of its messenger on the Conversations core and to be working on an iOS implementation of OMEMO.
Functionality
Conversations provides native support (i.e. without plugin) for end-to-end encryption (E2E) as well as point-to-point encryption. Conversations talks to XMPP servers using Transport Layer Security (TLS) and for E2E encryption there are OpenPGP, OTR Messaging, and OMEMO to choose from.
It allows several clients/devices to be signed into one account simultaneously (using XMPP) and also delivering messages to several clients (synchronization) using the protocol extension "Message Carbons" (XEP-0280) and Axolotl encryption.
The design of the user interface strongly reminds of the Gmail app and Google+ Hangouts. Files can be sent, with optional encryption. Sent images are shown inline with text messages in the conversation view.
Being an XMPP client, Conversations inherently provides interoperability with other XMPP (client) software and isn't bound to server infrastructure of the manufacturer either.
Overview of implemented XEPs
Conversations masters the following XEP's, short for XMPP Extension Protocol, the official extensions of the XMPP protocol: