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On Friday afternoon, X officially launched XChat, the company’s proprietary chat app. Unlike other chat app options like WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal, you need an X account to use XChat, which limits the user base to a specific social media platform. X users with a large enough social circle on the platform may find this new app useful, but <\/p>\n
The biggest sell of XChat, besides being a place for X users to communicate, is that it is end-to-end encrypted. As the app reminds you upon setup, this encryption means there’s no way for anyone, including X, to read the contents of your messages. Only the sender and recipient (or recipients) of an encrypted message have the ability to open and read it. In fact, XChat sets up a passcode for you before you proceed to the actual app. <\/p>\n
Once the app boots up, you’ll find all your X DMs organized just like you’d expect from a standard chat app. However, it doesn’t appear that encryption applies to previous chats: Once you send a new message, you see an alert that reads “This conversation is now end-to-end encrypted.” Like other chat apps, you can send audio recordings, GIFs, files, photos, or take new photos with the camera. By clicking on the recipient’s profile picture, you can view their profile and shared media, as well as customize the chat a bit. You can set an alias, block screenshots, or turn on disappearing messages so that chats disappear after a set period of time.<\/p>\n
There’s a good level of customization available at the app level too. There are standard light and dark themes, but you can also choose whether swiping left on a message “likes” it or reveals information, such as when the message was sent, whether it was encrypted, or when the recipient saw it. You can also choose from eight different chat app icons, which I always appreciate. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n What do you think so far? I’m in favor of adding end-to-end encryption to XDM, so there are some good things happening here. But it’s a little worrying that a messaging app that advertises itself as a private experience with “no tracking” actually scrapes multiple data points and ties them back to your identity. XChat’s app privacy page reveals that the app reserves the right to take your contact information, contacts, identifiers, device diagnostics and usage data, and link that information directly to you. <\/p>\n It’s a huge improvement over when the app was first announced, including things like location, search history, and user content. Maybe X adjusted these after facing pushback, but it rubs me the wrong way that a “private” chat app would still take so much data. However, if you only care about end-to-end encryption, you can rest assured that X is not reading your messages. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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\n <\/span>\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\nXChat is not as private as it seems<\/h2>\n