TAKs Chat is a messaging app with a focus on speed and security, it’s super fast, simple and free. You can use TAKs Chat on all your Android devices at the same time — your messages sync seamlessly across any of your phones, and tablets.
With TAKs Chat, you can send messages, photos, videos and files of any type (doc, zip, mp3, etc), as well as create groups for up to 5000 people. You can write to your phone contacts and find people by their usernames. As a result, TAKs Chat is like SMS and email combined — and can take care of all your personal or business messaging needs.
TAKs Chat is for everyone who wants fast and reliable messaging. Business users and small teams may like the large groups, and file sharing options. Since TAKs Chat groups can have up to 5000 members, we support replies, mentions and hashtags that help maintain order and keep communication in large communities efficient.
In case you're more into pictures, TAKs Chat has animated gif search, a state of the art photo editor and an open sticker platform.
Those looking for extra privacy should check out our advanced settings and rather revolutionary policy. And if you want secrecy, try our device-specific Secret Chats with self-destructing messages, photos and videos — and lock your app with an additional passcode.
Unlike WhatsApp, TAKs Chat is cloud-based and heavily encrypted. As a result, you can access your messages from several devices at once, including tablets and phones, and share an unlimited number of photos, videos and files (doc, zip, mp3, etc) of up to 1,5 GB. Thanks to our multi-data center infrastructure and encryption, TAKs Chat is also faster and way more secure. On top of that, TAKs Chat is free and will stay free, forever.
TAKs Chat is supported by a collaboration of people. We work in partnership with many people including Hilda and myself. Her and I made the application what it is today.
No.
Big internet companies like Facebook or Google have effectively hijacked the privacy discourse in the recent years. Their marketers managed to convince the public that the most important things about privacy are superficial tools that allow hiding your online status, your public posts or your profile pictures from the people around you. Adding these superficial tools allows companies to calm down the public and change nothing in how they are turning over private data to marketers and other third parties.
At TAKs Chat we think that the two most important components of Internet privacy should be instead:
Protecting your private conversations from snooping third parties, such as officials, employers, etc.
Protecting your personal data from third parties, such as marketers, advertisers, etc.
This is what everybody should care about, and these are some of our top priorities. TAKs Chat is a non-commercial project with an aim to create a truly free messenger, without the usual caveats. This means that instead of diverting attention with low-impact settings, we can afford to focus on the real privacy issues that exist in the modern world.
TAKs Chat has been around since July of 2015, with the hopes it will be the top application you use in your daily life.
You can use TAKs Chat on Android smart phones, and Android tablets. TAKs Chat is for Android, 2.2 and up.
You can log in to TAKs Chat from as many of your devices as you like — all at the same time. Just use your main mobile phone number to log in everywhere.
You can write to people, who are in your phone contacts and have TAKs Chat.
You can also select a public user name for your TAKs Chat account. Other people will be able to search and find you by that user name — and send messages to you even if they don't know your number.
Your contacts, who have TAKs Chat, are shown at the top of your Contacts. They also have pictures.
Android: Open the app menu (swipe right in chats list) — Invite Friends. Then choose an application via which you would like to send out invitations.
One check — message delivered to the TAKs Chat cloud and your friend has been notified, if he/she allows notifications.
Two checks — message read (your friend opened TAKs Chat and opened the conversation with the message).
We don‘t have a ’delivered to device' status for messages, because TAKs Chat can run on as many devices as you want. So which particular one would that check mean?
Android: Tap the circular pencil icon in the chats list. Then ‘New Group’.
Broadcasts allow you to send the same message to up to 100 of your contacts at once. Unlike in a group, the recipients won't know about each other and will receive the broadcast as an ordinary message from you. Once a broadcast list has been created, it can be re-used to message the same set of contacts again.
To create a broadcast list:
Android: Tap the circular pencil icon in the chats list. Then ‘New Broadcast’.
Q: Can I hide my "last seen" time?
You can choose who sees this info in Privacy and Security settings.
Remember that you won't see the "Last Seen" time stamps for people with whome you don't share your own. You will, however, see an approximate last seen value. This keeps stalkers away, but makes it possible to understand whether a person is reachable over TAK's Chat. There are four possible approximate values:
• Last seen recently - covers anything between 1 second and 2-3 days
• Last seen within a week - between 2-3 and 7 days
• Last seen within a month - between 6-7 days and a month
• Last seen long time ago - more than a month (this is also always shown to blocked users)
Q: How do I share YouTube Videos?
Go to the web browser on your device and type youtube.com or go to the YouTube application. If you go to the YouTube application, you need to share the link to the web browser. If you are using the web browser or when you share the video from the YouTube application, you need to share the link from the web browser. Now, when the user clicks the video (not the link) a small video pops up in the application and allows the user to play the video.
Q: How do I play YouTube videos in a popup player?
1. Post the video link or have someone else post a video link.
2. Click the picture of the video “Not The Link”.
3. Click the icon in the top right of the video, after it starts playing.
4. Video appears in a popup window. This only shows while you are talking with the person you sent the video to, or from the person that sent you the video.
Q: What do the green checks mean?
One check - message delivered to the TAKs Chat cloud and your friend has been notified if they allow notifications.
Two checks - message read (your friend opened TAKs Chat and opened the conversation with the message).
Q: How does a secret chat and secret call work?
Secret chats and calls are one-on-one chats wherein messages are encrypted with a key held only by the chat’s participants. The Diffie-Hellman protocol is used for key generation. For more information, see Wikipedia.
Q. Does TAKs Chat offer video calling?
We do not offer video calling at this time, but there is a way you can have a video chat with up to 8 people. Follow the steps below.
1. Start a group chat.
2. Add up to 8 people to the group.
3. Type @appearinbot
4. Have the members click the bot link.
5. Type /appear.
6. A link should be created to the video chat.
7. You should see something like “Sandy has started a video conference in room: sandy-mouse.”
8. Share this link with the people in the group, so the people can join. When they join, have them allow their video camera to be used.
Note: We do not control the server that is providing the video calling. This is on a different server and not in anyway connected to TAKs Chat.
When a secret chat is created, the participating devices exchange encryption keys using the so-called Diffie-Hellman key exchange. After the secure end-to-end connection has been established, we generate a picture that visualizes the encryption key for your chat. You can then compare this image with the one your friend has — if the two images are the same, you can be sure that the secret chat is secure, and no man-in-the-middle attack can succeed.
Newer versions of TAKs Chat apps will show a larger picture along with a textual representation of the key (this is not the key itself, of course!) when both participants are using an updated app.
Always compare visualizations using a channel that is known to be secure — it's safest if you do this in person, in an offline meeting with the conversation partner.