VIPole is another entry to the secure messenger list that's privacy-focused, cross-platform, and comparatively light on system resources (it's not Electron). the free version includes audio conferencing, a mobile version + device sync, group chat, and 1 GB storage.
In addition to the security, it offers some workgrouping features like calendars, tasks, password manager, and contact management. There are a lot of security and privacy features under the hood like message hiding, IP hiding, message destruction, blacklisting, multiple accounts with dual passwords, virtual keyboard with keylogger prevention, and careful notification management.
The comparison of features is present on the pricing page: https://www.vipole.com/en/pricing
Sadly, desktop sharing is not available in the free version. That's not unreasonable compared to its competition but I do a huge amount of collaboration work while sharing my desktop so this is really harmful to my adoption.
Pros
- Doesn't require a phone number unlike so many similar services
- A LOT more functionality around tasks, calendar, and other goodies. If development continues at it's current pace with the current attention to detail, this could be an excellent alternative to Outlook and similar programs.
- Something resembling email that's both more informal and probably more than adequate via "notes"
- While there's a lot of attention to detail here and a lot of understanding of good interfaces, the setup feels a little cluttered. I would not call navigation between various elements intuitive.
- There are a fair number of innocuous extras (like deleting something from your recent list) that require pro access. That just seems capricious.
Sites
https://www.vipole.com/en/
https://www.vipole.com/en/download
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/C ... Pole.shtml
Status: Not portable. There's a portable version available from the download page that writes to the User folder. Although there's some detailed settings management that seems to enable local folder usage, I couldn't figure out how to get it to enable that.
I'm leaving this in the Submission sub-thread to give someone the opportunity to resolve the settings issue.