Messengers
Ricochet Refresh privacy rating
Desktop instant messenger that runs each user as a Tor onion service and connects contacts peer to peer, hiding identity, IP address and metadata. Maintained by Blueprint for Free Speech.
Summary
Ricochet Refresh scores 94 out of 100 (grade A) on the messengers criteria. It meets 7 of 8 criteria: open source, no trackers or telemetry, no ads or data sales, end-to-end encrypted by default, no phone number needed, metadata protection and decentralized. It partly meets independent audit.
Score 94 out of 100. How scoring works
Criteria
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Yes
Open source Weight 3 of 3
Is all the source code needed to run the product public?
LGPL-2.1 and BSD-3-Clause.
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Yes
No trackers or telemetry Weight 3 of 3
Are the website and apps free of third-party trackers, with any analytics anonymous and any telemetry off by default?
No telemetry or analytics in the source code.
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Yes
No ads or data sales Weight 2 of 3
Is the product funded without advertising, ad targeting or selling user data?
Non-profit project funded by grants such as the NGI Assure Fund, with no ads.
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Partial
Independent audit Weight 2 of 3
Has an independent security or privacy audit been published within the last three years?
A full NCC Group audit of the original Ricochet, which this project forks, is public but is older than three years.
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Yes
End-to-end encrypted by default Weight 3 of 3
Are all chats, including groups, end-to-end encrypted by default?
All chats run over end-to-end encrypted Tor onion service connections.
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Yes
No phone number needed Weight 2 of 3
Can an account be created without a phone number?
The identity is a Tor onion address generated on the device.
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Yes
Metadata protection Weight 2 of 3
Does the service minimize who-talks-to-whom metadata (for example sealed sender or no user identifiers)?
There are no servers, and connections go through Tor circuits so no node knows both sender and recipient.
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Yes
Decentralized Weight 1 of 3
Can people run their own server or talk peer to peer?
Peer to peer over Tor with no servers.