The things people ask first.

No. There is no sign-up. Your identity is created on your phone from twenty-four words, and it stays there. Nothing is registered with us or anyone else.

Send them a one-time invitation link over any channel you already have, or, face to face, scan each other's code. The link stops working the moment it is used.

No, and on purpose: that would mean uploading your address book to a server. Your contacts stay on your phone. You add people one at a time, with a link or a code.

Every contact has a safety number. Compare it in person or scan it from the other phone. If it matches, nobody sits in the middle. How Avano protects you →

No. Messages are encrypted end to end with Signal's published and formally analysed encryption, with post-quantum protection. There is no way for us to add a reader, keep a copy, or open an account, because the mechanism does not exist.

Not from messages: our relay sees sealed, same-size packets under random codes, held in memory only, and it never sees a name, a number or an address, because every message reaches it over Tor. Two exceptions: during a call, the call relay sees both callers' IP addresses and when and for how long; and over time a relay can infer some structure, such as which queues belong to one group (the limits page says how). How it works →

Every message, yes, from inside the app. There is nothing to switch on. Calls are the one exception: call audio and video cannot travel over Tor, so they go through a call relay that sees your network address for the length of the call and up to about a minute after, and the app tells you so before every call.

Nothing that names you, and nothing about who you message; the one exception is a call, whose relay sees both callers' IP addresses while it runs. We keep no accounts, our relays keep nothing on disk, and we collect nothing about you. The one thing we keep about anybody is the email people send us. The privacy policy →

Yes. Your twenty-four words bring your identity back on a new phone, so your contacts can still reach you. Your contact list comes back too, if you chose two trusted people as guardians beforehand. Messages stay on the phone that received them; we keep no copy.

Avano locks itself behind your passphrase whenever it leaves the screen. Locked, everything is sealed and the keys are gone from memory. The one exception is on Android with message alerts on: so that a call can ring you, the key stays in memory while Avano is in the background, for up to 24 hours, unless you turn “Ring me when Avano is in my pocket” off. On Android you can also lock it from the notification shade without opening it.

Not as a second phone: one phone per identity, and a second phone running at the same time is refused (the refusals page says why). A reader in a browser, linked to your phone, is in development. There will be no desktop app. What is coming next →

Voice calls, one to one, encrypted end to end and relayed so that neither caller learns the other's address. Video calls too, one to one, on Android; on iPhone they are not offered yet. Calls →

On Android, yes, and the notification says only the app's name; on iPhone, not yet: a message waits until you open Avano. No push service is involved, so neither Apple nor Google is told a message arrived for you. On Android, with message alerts on, an optional Stay connected setting keeps a backgrounded phone receiving, even while it is locked, for up to 24 hours after you last open Avano.

Yes: create one, invite by link, add and remove members, rename it, hand it over. And every member can check that the whole group sees the same conversation. Groups →

All of them, one to one and in groups. Photos and videos are cleaned on your phone before they leave it: location, camera details and other hidden data are removed, though a video keeps the time it was recorded. Other files go exactly as they are. All features →

On Android, yes: paste a bridge line, or point the app at a proxy you already run. The iPhone screen for this is coming.

Nothing to use. The protection that costs us the most to run, cover traffic, stays free for everyone. Anything paid, later, will be for extras.

The licence is AGPL-3.0 and the code is not yet published. There has been no independent security audit yet. We will say so until both have happened.

An independent, founder-led project with no venture capital and no data business; the company that will operate it is being registered in Estonia. The company →

Avano is pre-release. Write to [email protected] and we will send you the first builds; the signup form on the homepage is not connected yet. Early access →