Topics Discord

Proprietary: Free (as in freedom, not price) software puts the user in control by allowing you to use the software for any purpose, modify it, and redistribute it. Non-free or proprietary software, on the other hand, witholds one or more of these freedoms, giving the developer of the software unjust power over the users.

No End-to-End Encryption (E2EE): Allows two or more end-points to communicate confidentially, such that no one in the middle (including the service operator) has access to the contents of the communication. This represents a baseline requirement for recommendation in this guide.

Centralized: Centralized services are operated and controlled by a single entity, putting the operator in the position of gatekeeper with total power over your use of the service. Centralized systems also suffer from a single point of failure and are vulnerable to censorship both by the operator and by governments with jurisdiction over the operation of the service.

Disallows Alternative Clients: Requires the use of sanctioned software clients with the provided service. This means that if the official client contains anti-features, for example, you cannot avoid them by using an alternative.

Limited Interoperability: Interoperability increases freedom and usefulness by allowing different systems to work together. When a service is hostile to other services interoperating, particularly a communication service, this places users in a walled garden, which limits choice and can make it difficult to switch to or from an alternative.

Does Not Limit Metadata: Metadata is "data about data." In the context of communication, metadata could represent information about who sent or received a message and at what date and time.