RetroShare – create your own secure decentralised friend-to-friend social network for chatting, mail, file sharing, forums – does not run on any central server (Windows, Linux, MacOS, Android

Retroshare is designed as a "Secure Social Network". It allows you to communicate and share with your friends. Retroshare provides Instant Messaging and Filesharing with decentralised Forums and Channels. Your stuff is only shared with your trusted friends. No data is stored in the Cloud, and all communications are encrypted. You don’t have to trust a Corporation (e.g Microsoft Skype, Facebook or Google) with your information.

Friend to Friend (F2F) is the new paradigm after peer-to-peer (P2P). In a P2P network you connect to random peers all over the world. A F2F network only connects you with your trusted friends. This makes the network significantly more private and secure. RetroShare allows you to chat with your friends with the guarantee that no third party is able to eavesdrop on you.

RetroShare is partly anonymous. There are anonymous forums and channels where no one can tell who posted something and you can download files from people you are not connected to anonymously, using anonymous tunnels. However, the people you are connected to, know who you are and know your IP address. They can also see which files you are sharing, unless you mark them as not browsable. No one else on the network can see this information.

The software is free and open source. There is no central server to be paid for, nor any central website that can be blocked, no ads, no hidden costs and no terms of service. There is an Android app too on the F-Droid store. This also great software for families wanting their kids and friends to interact safely without 3rd parties interfering. They have also dealt with the issues around dynamic IP addresses and the possibility of the stun/signalling server not being available.

See Retroshare

#opensource #privacy #F2F #social

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Current version: 0.6.5Release notes Retroshare establish encrypted connections between you and your             friends to create a network of computers, and provides various             distributed services on top of it: forums, channels, chat, mail…             Retroshare is fully decentralized, and designed to provide maximum             security and anonymity to its users…