I am upgrading the security of my communications while still being easy to use. I thought I would share what I currently use in case it is helpful to copy and I would appreciate comments.
I want end-to-end encryption so nobody can intercept what I am saying (unless they have infected my phone or computer, but that is another issue), and bonus points for making it so that it is unknown who I am communicating with and when (private metadata and traffic). Skype, phonecalls, sms/texts, slack and email are now known whatsapp lead to not be private (at least by default) thanks to Edward Snowden. This is too bad since I still use these. (Slack is not end-to-end encrypted even for direct messages, which it could and should.) So far I have only partially achieved the first step: end-to-end encryption. I am migrating to:
txt and sms replacement, somewhat phonecalls: Signal for point-to-point instant messaging replacing sms and skype. Free software, free of cost, and open source, works on smart phones.I have donated.
skype texting replacement: Signal for laptops and with a chrome-based desktop Signal app on my Mac (which is what I mostly use). It uses phone numbers as identifiers, which is kind of a pain. EFF friend called this “best of breed” for security. Small development staff. There is a tip for updating it to have names rather than phonenumbers: go to the … menu, go to settings, at the bottom is update contacts.
skype video/slack audiovideo replacement: appear.in for 1-on-1 and small group video chat that is end-to-end encrypted replacing Skype for me. This does not require a download or an account. Go to the homepage, type a bunch of characters to make a meeting room, then send the resulting url to someone and they can use that throw-away meeting room. Super easy. Uses webrtc (now standard in browsers), and https with it, they say it is end-to-end encrypted. They have a iphone app as well, but don’t know about security. This does not seemed designed for super high security, but seems to be pretty good.