Ricochet - a Tor chat client

[webfork]

... nobody I know really has a computer connected to the Internet 24/7 anymore, which is what people expect from a file server.

RetroShare is not a file sharing server, it is a P2P private file sharing and communication program

True. I was mostly referring to the ability for it to behave like a file server, which I think was one of the most compelling elements; it’s the best alternative I’ve yet found to the old WASTE secure messaging and file sharing tool.

... would be very hard to bring a lawsuit surrounding a security failure with a notice like THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS".

Game over! you got me here.

Apologies ... as someone who pays a lot of attention to licenses, it’s something I may over-focus on. I'm not trying to beat anyone down with some superior knowledge; I am not a lawyer and don't really know the full status.

[smaragdus]

Ricochet at version 1.1.4, changes:

Changes

• Added translations for Albanian, Chinese (Hong Kong), Estonian, Italian (Italy), Norwegian Bokmål, and Portuguese (Portugal)
• Updated translations for Danish, German, Russian, Czech, and Turkish
• Use a software-only render to hopefully fix graphical and text issues (#367)
• Also resolves #365, #358, #348, #375, #331, #389, #411, #454, #409, #442, #445, #447
• Fix parsing of links containing certain sequences (#403, #372, no security impact)
• Fix 'dead keys' and other compose/ibus input methods with Linux binaries (#60)
• Fix Tor configuration with HTTP proxies (#418)
• Fix copying links with right click (#429)
• Use combined chat window by default (#355)
• Use an external tor instance when TOR_CONTROL_{HOST,PORT,PASSWD} is set
• Fix visual bugs with window resizing during network setup
• Properly display the "X is already your contact" error (#439)
• Revise language selection UI to fit all of our languages (#473)
• Store identity keys in ricochet.json when Tor is new enough (#227)
• Disable ASAN by default for release builds (#341)
• Attempt to disable use of RWX memory for improved security
• Display configuration parsing errors correctly
• Add support for OpenSSL 1.1 (#444)
• Updated builds with Qt 5.6.2, OpenSSL 1.0.2j, and Tor 0.2.8.9
• Windows builds can now be cross-compiled with MinGW
• Re-issued macOS build as 1.1.4.1 to fix #480 (thanks @taoeffect!)

Besides the installer (ricochet-1.1.4-win-install.exe) which offers extraction during installation- Extract (Portable), there is also an archive (ricochet-1.1.4-win-portable.zip) but the contents of the extracted installer and the extracted archive do not match and LICENSE file is present only inside the installer.

Downloads for Ricochet version 1.1.4:
from Ricochet.IM - both archive and installer
from GitHub - installer only

All Downloads:
from Ricochet.IM
from GitHub

I had the feeling that Ricochet version 1.1.4 connects to Tor a tad slower than Ricochet version 1.1.2 but I am not sure. This is only a maintenance, bug-fix release with no new features, for example the program still cannot be minimized/closed to tray (without the help of external tools) which is annoying for me. Developer's (John Brooks) explanation:

Ricochet 1.1.4 fixes some common bugs and usability issues, updates Tor and other important dependencies, contains new and updated translations, and has other minor fixes. All users should update.

You didn't miss 1.1.3 -- it was used to solve a packaging problem, but wasn't ready for a full release. The changelog below includes all changes since version 1.1.2.

I apologize that this isn't the exciting-new-features release we've all been waiting for. Ricochet's development is volunteer-based, and in particular I haven't been able to dedicate as much energy to it as I've wanted to. There's a lot of interest and activity happening right now, and I think there will be some more interesting progress soon.

The fact that the program is still in development is promising.

[webfork]

Great news, particularly the cross-platform element.

[smaragdus]

Ricochet has been added to the database.

I added it because TorChat seems to be abandoned while Ricochet is in active development. Note that Ricochet does not support message logging. Currently Ricochet is extremely basic but it is cross platform and I hope that more features will be added in the future (file transfer, message history, minimize to tray, etc). The development seems to be a bit slow.

@webfork
Since licenses are a murky matter for me I need your help with Ricochet license, it (LICENSE, a file without extension] is not included in the archive, in order to get it you need to use the installer. If you have time please have a look.

[webfork]

I added it because TorChat seems to be abandoned while Ricochet is in active development.

Thanks for doing that. I voted and did an entry rewrite. I tried to cover the serverless and peer-to-peer bit because Tor's onion routing system (as I understand it) blurs the lines between server vs. peer-to-peer structures. There are Tor servers but they're distributed and function similar to P2P.

If I've got that wrong please feel free to re-add.

Since licenses are a murky matter for me I need your help with Ricochet license

It's multiple standard BSD licenses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template%3ABSD and an LGPL license. The OpenSSL License isn't that far from either of those, with a few minor differences. Fairly standard stuff. Wikipedia is listing the whole thing as BSD-licensed, which is probably the most accurate.

[smaragdus]

@webfork
Thank you for the edit, for your vote and for the clarification about the license.
I suppose that anonymity, privacy and encryption have no longer any value for the users of this site and for the computer users in general.
For backing-up of Ricochet identity the user needs to go to config sub-folder and copy ricochet.json file.

[Midas]

I suppose that anonymity, privacy and encryption have no longer any value for the users of this site and for the computer users in general.

• I beg (very loudly) to differ. I'm only not that much into chat and IM...