Here’s another player in the secure messaging game. Sicher comes from SHAPE, the same team that makes IM+. It’s free, it offers encrypted chat services and safe file transfers, and even has a secure group chat feature. Sicher is pronounced ‘zee-her’ and the face that it comes from the folks behind IM+ should tell you that it’s at least a well-built messaging client. The app has anonymous notifications, doesn’t show an message info on your lock screen besides a notification that you have a new message, and can destroy messages automatically if you set it to do so. The SHAPE team puts it like this: “Only your peer, the holder of original private key, can decrypt the message you sent. Moreover, once your peer receives the message, we delete all of its traces from our servers. And there’s a self-destruction timer for everything you send, as well as an option to force-purge existing conversation. The only way for third-party to see your communication is the app on your smartphone, so if Sicher is your primary secure messaging tool, we recommend to set a device-level password in application settings to prevent unauthorized opening of the app. The password itself and the data stored on device are also heavily encrypted.”
Sicher can be added to the handful of recent secure messaging apps like TextSecure and CyanogenMod’s own WhisperPush. As more companies dive deeper into our personal info, apps like Sicher may become a necessity if you want to keep your messaging private. Even if you don’t have anything to hide, the fact that Facebook, Google, and others can see all of your messaging across multiple apps creates a market for these types of messaging platforms. Thankfully, there are multiple options available for you to choose from.
SHAPE has set up Sicher so that it doesn’t store any of your messages on their servers. All of your encrypted transmissions can only be decrypted and read by the intended recipient. Then that message is wiped and deleted forever. The app uses your existing contact list to populate your chat friends. You’ll have to at least share that info with them, but that makes it easier to find your friends that might already be using the service. Hit the source link and grab Sicher from the Google Play Store. Make sure to drop us a line in the comments and let us know what you think about it.