Like your Android, but dislike phone company or government snooping? Good news: if you have an Android, privacy apps can make your communication understandable only to you and whoever you’re talking to. By using encryption, the signals are encoded in a way that only the sender and receiver of a message or a call can understand it, not another person snooping.
Here are six great easy-to-use Android privacy apps for you to communicate securely:
RedPhone, a free app developed by the security company Open Whisper Systems, gives end-to-end encrypted calling to Android users after they install it. Originally designed for Egyptian Revolution activists, the app will keep your calls private from totalitarian governments or a plain old phone company. Get it from Google Play.
Using public-key cryptography, TextSecure makes your SMS a secret to everyone but you and their receiver. The Electronic Frontier Foundation gave the app a perfect score in its last Secure Messaging Scorecard. Available on Google Play.
According to its website, Disconnect’s software is used by more than 10 million people to “protect themselves from hackers and trackers.” The basic app is free, though paid plans are also available. Because of a dispute between Disconnect and Google, the app is not available on Play but installation instructions are on its website.
Connecting to the Internet with Tor Browser, Orbot encrypts your Internet traffic and routes it through a network of computers all over the world. As even the NSA has trouble monitoring Tor users, you can feel quite sure about the privacy Orbot will give you. Available on Google Play.
Like TextSecure, this privacy app allows users to communicate privately as long as it is installed and configured. But because ChatSecure uses off-the-record messaging instead of SMS, users of both iPhones and Androids with the app installed can communicate privately. Available on Google Play.
While the apps mentioned above mostly provide a single function like voice or SMS encryption – Wickr provides both of these as well as the kind of private voice and video messaging. In the glowing words of PC Magazine’s Max Eddy: “Snapchat may have introduced the world to self-destructing messages, but it’s Wickr that’s showing the world what an ephemeral, secure messaging service looks like.” Available on Google Play.
