There is still one good class of apps to socialize over: distributed/mesh peer-to-peer messaging to replace your surveiled lines of communication. Four excelle

There is still one good class of apps to socialize over: distributed/mesh peer-to-peer messaging to replace your surveiled lines of communication. Four excellent examples in order of favoritism for me: 1) Briar. What can I say? Briar is well built and hardly hiccups. It's annoying that the desktop client is in forced upgrade beta still, no single-profile on multi-device, and there will likely never be an iOS version (iOS' fault), but aside from that for Android users it is bar none number 1. Where it lacks voice/video, it has groups, forums, blogs, and is modular with its transports (Tor, LAN, Bluetooth, Sneaker Net). It will absolutely work in a zero internet situation; for emergencies at minimum android-owning families really ought to install it and add each other. It will work with no internet! 2) Session. Session started as a fork/clone of Signal which did not require an associated phone number to use. It has since evolved to use Oxen (Lokinet, an onion network like Tor/I2P) for messaging. Session has multi-device profiles. Unlike Briar, Session has voice and video (and it is stable most of the time, over mullvad vpn). Voice and video rely on a clearnet Oxen introduction server still (this will eventually change) and the two participants stream p2p; if anonymity is desired then a trustworthy obfuscator is a must for voice/video. Session can be used metadata free if voice/video are avoided for the time being and Slow Mode is selected (no push notification services used). Session is my second because it is more feature rich for normies, works on iphone (that abomination*), and is quite stable. 3) Tox. Tox makes the list as #3 for being around a while and having a lot of client choices. Tox seems a little less stable, but that's more the fault of the various clients being buggy sometimes. It has voice and group voice (I think). Tox is not anonymous, so an obfuscator will be needed if anonymity is desired. 4) Jami. Jami is a GNU project application (formerly Ring) which I think could substitute for Zoom potentially. It can be a bit buggy sometimes dropping calls or video not working right sometimes [though I haven't used it enough to say it's not PEBKAC here at this point]. I make mention of this because it underwent heavy improvement during COVID to try to offer some competition to the dismal (proprietary, China) video conference landscape. It too can do multi-device profiles. All of the above are short listed because they are easy to install, really quick to generate a locally stored and used set of identity tokens, and then trade strings with friends to link with them. Honorable mention because it's not a messenger but it is in the same vein as the rest spiritually: SyncThing. Ditch the cloud, sync headache-free! (MS should have used this to replicate their windows domain controller file stores IMO, no joke!) We are soon entering the age of The Basilisk... except The Basilisk will be leashed, tethered to men who dictate upon whom The Basilisk gazes. Stop being an NPC when it comes to your data and privacy habits, and start acting like a strategic player... always practice all of the Safe SECs! (* Disclosure: I daily drive Qubes OS and GrapheneOS.)