Going to war with Twitter, Trump threatens critical social media legal protections

Accusing Twitter of censorship for adding a contextual label to false claims he made about the 2020 election process, President Trump has again declared war on social media companies.

After the White House told reporters that the president would soon announce an executive order “pertaining to social media,” the draft of that order is out in circulation. We’ve reviewed the draft, and while its contents are somewhat shocking by the standards of a normal administration, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen the Trump administration lash out at social media companies over accusations of political bias. In fact, we may be seeing the same executive order now that circulated in draft form last year.

A draft of an executive order is just that: a draft. Until the administration actually introduces or signs an order, its wishes — and threats — should be taken with a grain of salt. But we can get an idea of what this White House has in mind for punishing social media companies for ongoing unfounded claims of anti-conservative censorship.

Jack Dorsey explains why Twitter fact-checked Trump’s false voting claims

The president’s draft order tries to exert control over social media companies in a few ways. The most ominous of those is by attacking a law known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. That law, often regarded as the legal infrastructure for the social internet, shields online platforms from legal liability for the content their users create. Without the law, Twitter or Facebook or YouTube (or Yelp or Reddit or any website with a comments section, including this one) could be sued for the stuff their users post.

Whether you think they should be held more accountable for their content or not, in a world without Section 230, social media companies would never have been able to scale into the services we use today.

The draft order attacks this legal provision by claiming that that part of the law means that “an online platform that engaged in any editing or restriction of content posted by others thereby became itself a ‘publisher,'” implying that a company would then be legally liable for things its users say.

This interpretation appears to be a willful inversion of what the law really intends. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who co-authored Section 230, often says that the law provides companies with both a sword and a shield. The “shield” protects companies from legal liability and the “sword” allows them to make moderation decisions without facing liability for that either.

While Trump is trying to intimidate social media companies into doing even less moderation — such as Twitter labeling the falsehood he tweeted — the consensus beyond this politically expedient viewpoint is that social media should actually be removing and contextualizing more of the potentially harmful content on their platforms.

Twitter adds a warning label fact-checking Trump’s false voting claims

“Members across the spectrum, including far-right House and Senate leaders, are agitating for government regulation of internet platforms,” Wyden wrote in a prescient TechCrunch op-ed two years ago calling for tech companies to step up or face an existential threat.

“Even if the government doesn’t take the dangerous step of regulating speech, just eliminating the [Section] 230 protections is enough to have a dramatic, chilling effect on expression across the internet.”

Beyond attacking Twitter’s moderation decisions through Section 230, the draft executive order says the White House will reestablish a “tech bias” reporting tool, presumably so it can unsystematically collect anecdotal evidence that he and his supporters are being unfairly targeted on social platforms. According to the order, the White House would then submit those reports to the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The order would further rope in the FTC to make a public report of complaints and “consider taking action” against social media companies that “restrict speech.”

It’s not clear what kind of action, if any, the FTC would have legal ground to take.

The order also asks the Commerce Secretary to file a petition that would require the Federal Communications Commission to “clarify” parts of Section 230 — a role the commission isn’t likely eager to embrace.

“Social media can be frustrating. But an executive order that would turn the FCC into the president’s speech police is not the answer,” Democratic FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel tweeted on Thursday morning.

The order also calls for the U.S. Attorney General William Barr to form a working group of state attorneys general “regarding the enforcement of state statutes” to collect information about social media practices, another presumably legally unsound exercise in partisanship. Barr, a close Trump ally, has expressed his own appetite for dismantling tech’s legal protections in recent months.

US threatens to pull big tech’s immunities if child abuse isn’t curbed

While Trump’s executive order may prove toothless, there is some appetite for dismantling Section 230 among tech’s critics in Congress — a branch of the government with much more power to hold companies accountable.

The most prominent of those threats is currently the EARN-IT Act, a Senate bill introduced in March that would amend Section 230 “to allow companies to “‘earn’ their liability protection” under the guise of pressuring them to crack down on enforcement against child sexual exploitation. The executive order doesn’t directly connect to that proposal, but sounding the war drums against the tech industry’s key legal provision will likely signal Trump’s Republican allies to double down on those efforts.

In response to the circulating draft executive order, Twitter declined to comment when reached by TechCrunch, and Facebook and Google did not respond to our emails. The Internet Association, the lobbying group that represents the interests of internet companies, was out with a statement opposing the president’s efforts on Thursday morning:

“Section 230, by design and reinforced by several decades of case law, empowers platforms and services to remove harmful, dangerous, and illegal content based on their terms of service, regardless of who posted the content or their motivations for doing so.

“Based on media reports, this proposed executive order seems designed to punish a handful of companies for perceived slights and is inconsistent with the purpose and text of Section 230. It stands to undermine a variety of government efforts to protect public safety and spread critical information online through social media and threatens the vibrancy of a core segment of our economy.”

The group also pointed to the fact that political figures rely on social media to successfully broadcast their thoughts to millions of followers every day—80 million, in Trumps’ case.

The ACLU also weighed in on the executive order Thursday morning. “Much as he might wish otherwise, Donald Trump is not the president of Twitter,” said ACLU Senior Legislative Counsel Kate Ruane. “This order, if issued, would be a blatant and unconstitutional threat to punish social media companies that displease the president.”

“Ironically, Donald Trump is a big beneficiary of Section 230. If platforms were not immune under the law, then they would not risk the legal liability that could come with hosting Donald Trump’s lies, defamation, and threats.”

The consequences of indecency

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Daily Crunch: Twitter vs. Trump

Tensions escalate between President Trump and his favorite social media platform, Google and Microsoft considering investing in the Indian telecom market and the Raspberry Pi foundation announces a new Raspberry Pi.

Here’s your Daily Crunch for May 28, 2020.

1. Jack Dorsey explains why Twitter fact-checked Trump’s false voting claims

After Twitter flagged a pair of President Trump’s tweets with a fact-checking label on Tuesday, White House officials denounced a specific Twitter employee and said that the president will soon sign an executive order “pertaining to social media.”

Meanwhile, in a series of tweets, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey resisted the idea that the platform is becoming an “arbiter of truth” and instead said, “Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves.” He also said, “There is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that’s me. Please leave our employees out of this.”

2. Google and Microsoft reportedly considering stakes in telecom firms in India after Facebook deal

Weeks after Facebook acquired a 9.9% stake in India’s Reliance Jio Platforms, two more American firms are reportedly interested in the Indian telecom market. Google is considering buying a stake of about 5% in Vodafone Idea, the second largest telecom operator in India, according to Financial Times. Separately, Microsoft is in talks to invest up to $2 billion in Reliance Jio Platforms, Indian newspaper Mint reported Friday.

3. Raspberry Pi Foundation announces Raspberry Pi 4 with 8GB of RAM

As always, you get a single-board computer that is the size of a deck of cards. It has an ARM-based CPU, many ports, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and a big community of computer enthusiasts. The 8GB model costs $75, which makes it the most expensive Raspberry Pi out there.

4. Providing card services to fintech companies around the world gives Marqeta a $4.3 billion valuation

This could have been Marqeta’s year to list as a public company on a major American stock exchange. Instead, in the wake of an American economy pushed over the edge by a global pandemic, the company has turned to an undisclosed financial services firm for another $150 million in equity funding.

5. Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg shares his COVID-19 strategy and tactics

Hans Vestberg, CEO of TechCrunch’s parent company Verizon, joined us for an episode of Extra Crunch Live. In our discussion, he spoke about how he’s managing the organization during this global crisis, his thoughts on work-from-home, acquisition strategy and the ways in which 5G will change the way we work and live. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

6. SpaceX’s first astronaut launch is scrubbed due to weather – next attempt set for Saturday

SpaceX and NASA made the call to scrub the launch since there were a couple of weather issues that prevented the attempt from taking place. The next window for the launch is Saturday, May 30 at 3:22 PM EDT.

7. Netflix, Disney+ or HBO Max? The best streaming service for your watching habits

Don’t waste any time arguing! These recommendations are 100% objectively correct.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.

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The 10 Best Free Pandora Alternatives for Streaming Music

Pandora is one of the most recognizable music streaming services available. And most people who use Pandora love Pandora. However, if you’ve landed here it’s because you’re looking for the best Pandora alternatives. So, let’s start by explaining how Pandora works…

You open Pandora, select the genre or mood of music you want, and let the “radio” play some tunes. If you like a song, you hit the thumbs-up icon to add similar tracks to the radio station. If you don’t, you hit the thumbs-down icon, and the radio station plays less of that style.

It’s a classic, and very user-friendly, setup. However, not only is Pandora not available in many countries, there are tons of other music streaming services available. So, in this article, we list the best free Pandora alternatives. Presented in no particular order.

1. YouTube Music

How it Compares. YouTube Music is a music streaming service that is slowly replacing Google Play Music. Where Google Play Music featured as standard on all new Android devices, users will now find the YouTube Music app instead (on new devices—Google Play Music won’t suddenly disappear into the ether).

YouTube Music doesn’t supply an official number of available songs, because it draws on its deals with record labels, uploads to YouTube, mashups, remixes, and much more. The depth of the YouTube Music library is substantial. Library-wise, it has Pandora beat hands-down. But then again, it has most other services beat too, so that’s no shame on Pandora’s part.

The YouTube Music interface is easy to navigate, although it is far from the prettiest music streaming service around.

Notable Features. The incredible catalog of music is one of the most notable YouTube Music features, without a doubt. Aside from that, YouTube Music also plays host to live music streams from a wide range of artists. There’s also a YouTube Music integration for the Google Clock, which allows you to wake up to your favorite artist or playlist.

Cost. YouTube Music has three different subscription levels. The free version is YouTube Music, which is ad-supported (you’ll see or hear an advert every three to six songs), runs at a lower bitrate, and if you’re using the mobile app, it requires the screen to remain on at all times. The latter is a definite major downside to YouTube Music.

You can (and probably should) upgrade to one of YouTube Music’s premium tiers to unlock more features. YouTube Music Premium stops the ads, allows you to listen to music in the background on mobile devices, and to download music for offline listening. A YouTube Music Premium subscription costs $9.99/month.

Then there is the YouTube Premium subscription, which includes everything in the previous tier as well as access to YouTube Originals (YouTube’s original programming channels). The YouTube Premium subscription also removes ads from the main YouTube site, too. The YouTube Premium subscription comes in at $11.99/month. Is YouTube Premium value for money? It all depends on how you use YouTube.

Regional Availability. YouTube Music and its premium counterparts are available in over 70 countries.

2. Deezer

How it Compares. Deezer’s library consists of over 57 million tracks, blowing most competitors out of the water, including Pandora. User interface updates in recent years have made Deezer easier to use. Still, there’s nothing particularly special about the interface. Is that familiarity a bad thing? Perhaps not if you’re jumping from service to service.

Notable Features. At the time of writing, Deezer has over 30,000 public radio channels available, as well as 100 million publicly available playlists. Of course, you’re not going to sift through all of those. Thankfully, Deezer’s search integration is useful and helps you find what you want.

Deezer Flow creates a personalized playlist that combines all of your favorite music, as well as new recommendations and those tunes you might have forgotten about. You can find exclusive DJ mixes, unique podcasts, and other Deezer Original recordings, too. You could also check out Deezer Next to see the artists the music streaming service is tipping for future success.

Cost. Deezer operates four subscription types. The free version of Deezer is ad-supported, restricts you to a single listening profile, and offers a limited number of track skips per day. The free version doesn’t allow offline playback, either, which is fairly standard for music streaming services.

The second tier is Deezer Premium, which removes adverts from the listening experience, introduces unlimited skips per day, as well as offline listening. Deezer Premium comes in at $9.99/month.

However, although you have “unlimited skips,” the Deezer forums have several posts from angry users wondering why they can only skip 150 tracks/hour. You could be making a playlist and skipping through tracks, only to suddenly find your account locked, so it is something to consider. The issue relates to how the Deezer development team attempts to stop account sharing.

Then there is a final subscription tier that contains two slightly different offerings. Deezer Family includes everything from the previous tier and also allows you to create six different listening profiles.

Whereas, Deezer HiFi includes everything from the previous tier but instead of additional listening profiles, unlocks 16-bit FLAC quality audio. Deezer HiFi is a brilliant option if you value high-quality audio, which many music streaming services eschew.

Both Deezer Family and Deezer HiFi will set you back $14.99/month.

Regional Availability. Deezer is available in over 185 countries.

3. Jango

How it Compares. Jango is one of Pandora’s long-standing direct competitors, operating since 2007. Both Jango and Pandora operate in a similar manner. But whereas Pandora’s song choices are based on the Music Genome Project, Jango’s recommendations are based on its users’ behaviors.

Notable Features. Each Jango radio station is customizable via the Variety settings. You can opt to add the most popular user choices to expand the radio station, or to add More Variety, or the Most Variety. You can also add specific artists to the currently playing radio station, too.

Jango highlights and promotes independent artists across its radio stations. When an independent artist comes up, you can leave feedback. Interestingly, Jango uses an internal cryptocurrency, known as NeuCoin. You can use NeuCoin to tip independent artists, helping them receive a small payment for their music.

Cost. There is no premium version of Jango. The entire platform is ad-funded. That said, Jango doesn’t bombard you with adverts and ruin your listening experience. The adverts are few and far between. Plus, you can reduce the number of ads per day to a single instance if you link your Facebook account.

Better still (and this is really impressive), Jango doesn’t interrupt the Android or iOS apps with any form of advertising.

Regional Availability. All countries worldwide.

4. Spotify

How it Compares. Spotify has a lot going for it. With over 50 million tracks, 700,000 podcasts, and nearly 300 million users, Spotify has become the byword for music streaming services. At this point, Spotify also has a recognizable and familiar user interface. It definitely isn’t the most exciting interface, but it is extremely easy to use.

The biggest downside to Spotify is the poor audio quality. Spotify’s maximum audio streaming rate is a miserly 320kbps. In comparison, the premium Deezer HiFi option offers 1,411kbps (which is uncompressed CD audio quality), and Amazon Music Unlimited offers an average of 850kbps. Spotify’s offering is hardly “Premium.”

Notable Features. Spotify offers so much more than internet radio. Want on-demand streaming? Spotify is one of the best at it. Want to expand your tastes? Check out Spotify’s music discovery tools. You’ll also find lots of non-music content, including stand-up comedy and podcasts. And that’s not forgetting the end of year roundups detailing your listening habits, along with your best of playlist.

Spotify is stepping up the fight to Pandora in other ways, too. The Spotify Stations playlist app offers a Pandora-like experience, complete with thumbs-up and thumbs-down, and music suggestions.

Cost. Spotify offers two subscription types: free and premium. The free Spotify version is ad-supported, does not allow offline playback, and does not allow access to the highest quality audio playback Spotify offers.

A Spotify Premium subscription unlocks offline music playback, all smartphone app features, removes any ad interruptions, and unlocks Spotify’s highest music quality playback option. A Spotify Premium subscription comes in at $9.99/month.

There are two variations to the Spotify Premium subscription. A Spotify Student subscription unlocks everything in the Premium subscription but only costs $4.99/month (with a working student email account).

There is also the option of Spotify Family, which offers everything in the Premium subscription for up to six accounts living at the same address. The Spotify Family account costs $14.99/month.

Regional Availability. Spotify is available in over 80 countries.

5. AccuRadio

How it Compares. AccuRadio is one of the oldest internet radio streaming services still active, serving users since 2000. At the core of AccuRadio’s long-running success is simplicity. The AccuRadio interface is simple and easy to use, allowing a reasonable amount of user station customization. AccuRadio doesn’t have the largest music catalog, but it is more than enough to keep you listening.

Notable Features. You can blend up to 15 channels together to create a specialized listening experience. You can also rate songs on a five-star scale, then use the Five Star Radio feature to listen only to your absolute favorite songs. One of AccuRadio’s best features, especially in comparison to Pandora, is unlimited skipping for all accounts.

Cost. AccuRadio doesn’t offer a premium account or subscription service. The platform is ad-supported, although you can reduce the ad frequency if you create a free account.

Regional Availability. All countries worldwide.

6. TuneIn

How it Compares. Music is only a small portion of what TuneIn Radio does. This service is all about internet radio in the truest sense: tapping into live radio stations through the internet. Online-only music stations do exist, and they’re perfectly fine, but TuneIn Radio’s selling point is its live radio streams.

As a Pandora alternative, it definitely lives up to the radio streaming service moniker.

Notable Features. TuneIn features over 100,000 radio stations from around the world, plus thousands of podcasts. You can filter your streaming selections by music, sports, talk, and trending stations, as well as kids’ radio and podcasts.

Cost. TuneIn offers a Free or Premium subscription. The TuneIn free subscription is ad-supported, playing an ad when you launch a radio station or podcast.

The TuneIn Premium subscription removes banner ads from the TuneIn site and desktop clients. It also enables you to listen to live play-by-play coverage of every NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL game. A TuneIn Premium subscription removes adverts from the MSNBC, Fox News Talk, and CNBC radio stations.

A TuneIn Premium subscription costs $9.99/month.

Regional Availability. All countries worldwide. TuneIn Premium accounts are only available in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

7. iHeartRadio

How it Compares. iHeartRadio brings radio streams from over 850 local stations under one roof, plus podcasts, music playlists, and more. The result is a Pandora alternative that covers a wide range of content types. iHeartRadio is easy to use, similarly to Pandora. One plus side to iHeartRadio is the user library, which allows you to customize and edit your recently listened to stations, podcasts, and artists.

Notable Features. The aforementioned user library, known as Your Library, is a useful tool for customization. There is also a handy suggestions section that offers up new music, podcasts, and radio stations you might enjoy. As iHeartRadio is an umbrella for the iHeartMedia network, you can listen to hundreds of live radio stations from across the US.

Cost. There are three iHeartRadio subscription types.

The free subscription offers free live radio at any time, personalized artist radio stations, and access to the iHeartRadio podcast selection. Free iHeartRadio accounts may skip six tracks per hour, per station, for a maximum of 15 skips per day across all artist stations.

An iHeartRadio Plus subscription allows unlimited song skipping across all stations, on-demand song and artist play, and the option to save and replay music from the radio. The Plus subscription comes in at $4.99/month.

Finally, the iHeartRadio All Access subscription includes everything in the previous tier, as well as unlimited access to every single iHeartRadio song, plus you can create an unlimited number of playlists. An All Access subscription costs $9.99/month.

8. Radio.Garden

How it Compares. Radio Garden is an almost-unique music streaming option on this list. Instead of selecting artist or genre radio stations, you spin the globe and find radio stations broadcasting all around the world.

In comparison to Pandora, Radio Garden brings the entire world of music to your mouse clicks. You can tune into tens of thousands of radio stations, listening to every genre, style, artist, and more.

Notable Features. Radio Garden features an incredible number of radio stations. There is no user curation or individual station management, as these are live radio stations. You can add radio stations to your favorites list, as well as search for a specific radio station, city, country, or region.

Radio Garden keeps a list of weird and wonderful radio stations, too. You can tune in to an ambient nature sound broadcast, the sounds of a theatre organ, and even listen to truckers chatting.

Cost. Radio Garden is free to use. You may hear local advertising, depending on the radio stations you tune in to.

Regional Availability. All countries worldwide.

9. Radio4000

How it Compares. Radio4000 is a different proposition to Pandora. Instead of skipping and liking tracks, you can move around a world map and listen to radio stations curated by individuals. The result is a music streaming experience that exposes you to lots of new music without the restrictions of skips or missing artists.

The user interface is basic but simple to navigate, offering two web player options.

Notable Features. Radio4000 lets you build a personal radio station that you can broadcast to other people that click on your location, which is a nice feature. All of Radio4000’s tracks come from YouTube, which means you have access to the vast YouTube catalog. The downside to that is the potential for a track to disappear, and there is no consistency for audio quality. Still, the range of music available more than makes up for that.

Cost.Radio4000 is completely free.

Regional Availability. All countries worldwide.

10. Amazon Music

How it Compares. Pandora’s drastically increasing catalog size means Amazon Music is now the slimmer option. However, many users prefer the more traditional music streaming service interface found with Amazon Music, instead of Pandora’s sometimes tricky streaming stations.

Notable Features. The Amazon Music catalog consists of 2 million songs. In music streaming service terms, that is a tiny number. Still, the Amazon Music catalog updates frequently to introduce the latest tracks, sometimes long before Pandora. There are options to filter playlists according to mood, genre, and activity.

Cost. Amazon Music is Amazon’s free subscription to the Amazon Prime Music service. The free subscription allows anyone with an Amazon account to listen to ad-supported music via the Amazon Music service. The free subscription was previously only available to Amazon Echo owners. However, this free version of Amazon Music is only available to the US, UK, and Germany at the time of writing.

Those with an Amazon Prime subscription can use Amazon Prime Music. If you already use Amazon Prime for its many other benefits, then you can think of Prime Music as a free bonus.

Then, there is Amazon Music Unlimited, which unlocks around 60 million tracks, unlimited ad-free on-demand listening, variable bitrate control, offline downloads, and much more. An Amazon Music Unlimited subscription costs $7.99/month for Amazon Prime subscribers, or $9.99/month without Amazon Prime.

Finally, there is Amazon Music Unlimited HD, which includes everything from the previous tiers, but allows users to stream music in Ultra HD quality. Amazon’s Ultra HD quality streaming means audio playback with an average bitrate of 3730kbps, significantly higher than any other music streaming option. An Amazon Music Unlimited HD subscription costs $12.99/month for Amazon Prime members, or $14.99/month for those without.

Regional Availability. Amazon Music free is only available in the US, UK, and Germany at the time of writing. Amazon Music services availability varies by subscription type and region.

What Are the Best Pandora Alternatives?

I’m a very long-term Spotify user and will continue to be so. But the beauty of services like Pandora, Jango, and Radio Garden is uncovering new music, which they offer in spades. However, if the quality of the audio is important to you, try Deezer HiFi or Amazon Music Unlimited HD. Along with these other music sites for audiophiles.

Read the full article: The 10 Best Free Pandora Alternatives for Streaming Music

5 Free Positivity Apps to Manage Mental Health and Boost Your Spirits

The hustle and bustle of everyday life can really wear you down. Try these free positivity apps that can manage your mental health and boost your spirits.

These tools have a mix of science and age-old wisdom and focus on bringing about positive thinking. Whether it’s through proven self-care or mind hacks to manage depression, you will be able to find something worth incorporating into your routine and thus lead a better life.

1. No Zero Days (Android, iOS): One Small Step Every Day

No Zero Days has a fresh and productive take on life. The philosophy of the free positivity app is to recognize that no matter how useless a day seems, you can make a difference by doing one small step.

It divides your day into four steps: Created, Helped, Learned, and Health. Every day, when you do the smallest thing that goes towards any one of these four categories, tap that button. You can long-press the button to write a note about what you did, or even change the category altogether. At the outset, you can go back a week to add what you achieved in days before installing the app.

The idea is to recognize that even when a day feels truly useless, you can turn it around by accomplishing just a little. Get out of the feeling of having a “zero day” where you achieve nothing. And just like that, the app adds positivity to how you think.

Even with ten minutes left on the clock, you can do ten squats or write a journal or learn something on the internet. That’s all it takes to start a chain of “no zero days” and keep at it.

Download: No Zero Days for iOS (Free)

For Android users: No Zero Day is no longer available on the Google Play Store, but you can download the APK and manually install or sideload the app. Download the free No Zero Days APK and follow the steps in the article.

2. Happy (Web, Android, iOS): 5 Techniques to Seek Positivity

Journaling app Good Night Journal developed a free positivity mindset app that even unregistered users can download. Happy seeks to change your mood, calm your anxiety, or lift your spirits in five simple ways.

1. Breathing: Breathing exercises are shown to be successful at calming your mind. Happy includes four different patterns of breathing exercises, so choose the one that works for you or mix it up.
2. Teleport: Happy opens up a nature landscape to add some positivity.
3. Affirmation: When you’re doubting yourself or feeling negative energy build-up, read these messages to remind yourself of how awesome you are.
4. Sleeping: The positivity app displays a few tips and reminders about general healthy practices. You already know these, but nudges like this can help arrest you before you veer off course.
5. Music: A soothing musical score plays on loop, to gently calm and relax you. It’s instrumental, so you can even play it while working.

Although it’s meant for phones, Happy can also be used as a free positivity web app. The mix of different methods is a nice touch because you need to start only one app and choose whichever way will bring about a positive change at that time.

Download: Happy for Android | iOS (Free)

3. Empty Your Cup (Web): Daily Micro-Blogs of Positive Wisdom

It’s an old Bruce Lee story. A learned man goes to a Zen teacher, and constantly interrupts him. The Zen master pours tea, and keeps pouring even when it overflows. The man protests, and the master points out the man is much like the teacup. “If you do not first empty your cup, how can you taste my tea?”

Niklas Goeke offers such stories of wisdom and positivity in a daily micro-blog at Empty Your Cup. You can visit the blog or subscribe to have it delivered to your inbox. Goeke covers a range of topics every day, including weekends. It’s a small dose of goodness in the trials and tribulations that life throws at you.

Of course, Goeke isn’t the only one to offer this. If his stories are not to your liking, try these other inspirational websites for your days.

4. Skills (Android, iOS): Mindfulness and Stress Reduction Games

Skills is a positivity app that groups 13 games focusing on mindfulness and stress tolerance. The games are based on the work of Dr. Martin Bohus, one of the leading psychotherapy researchers in dialectical behavior therapy. A clinical study shows that these Skills games were helpful in 82% of players.

The 13 games vary significantly, tackling different aspects of mental health. For example, in one game, you have to tilt your phone to make a ball fall on to the next level, or use the ball to crash into bubbles and burst them. In another game, a progress bar starts filling up or a countdown timer starts and then the screen goes black; you need to guess when it will end and tap at that time.

Each game has different purposes. The app restricts you to one game at the start, but you can unlock them all for free if you play the given games repeatedly. While it’s a free positivity app, you can pay a small fee to unlock all games immediately. If you stick to the free mode, the more you play, the more games will unlock, and you’re getting some mental health relief along the way.

Download: Skills for Android | iOS (Free)

5. Care Cards (Web): Positive Self-Care Reminders

When you’re caught in the rat race, you are going all out to be more productive and do as much as possible. But while you take care of your tasks, you might forget to take care of yourself. Care Cards is here to send self-care reminders.

Care Cards is a free positivity-focused web app optimized for mobile, which you can turn into an app on your phone too. The cards have a soothing and calming design and have helpful tips to look after yourself.

For example, it might be an ego boost, like a card that says you’re a strong person who can achieve anything. Or it can be a reminder to simply smile since science says this small act makes your body release chemicals that make you happy.

It might be a good idea to turn Care Cards into your homepage or New Tab page to get a few pick-me-ups every time. I’d also suggest making it an app on your phone and keeping it on the home screen, so you can infuse some positivity with a quick tap.

Scheduled Healthy Reminders

No matter which app is ideal for you to manage your mental health and get a positive outlook, starting that app and going through the process is up to you. That’s why you need to focus on self-care and set up reminders for healthy practices.

Care Cards is just one of the many apps offering to tap your shoulder and tell you to take a break for your own sake. You will find others on social networks as well as dedicated apps in our list of self-care tools for positive and healthy reminders.

Read the full article: 5 Free Positivity Apps to Manage Mental Health and Boost Your Spirits

What Are Facebook Stickers? Everything You Need to Know

Facebook stickers are images that you can send to your friends and family. They make for a fun, easy way to express yourself.

You can use stickers in various places on Facebook, including in comments, on photos, and on Facebook Messenger.

In this article, we explain what Facebook stickers are and how you can use them to express yourself on Facebook.

What Are Facebook Stickers?

Facebook stickers are much like emojis in that they are visual ways to express how you’re feeling, or they depict a particular object or scene. Some stickers feature characters from movies or TV shows, while others are people or animals from different artists.

Facebook defines a sticker as, “Stickers are different than emoticons. They’re detailed illustrations of characters with personality. Sending stickers is a way to share how you’re feeling with your friends.”

Note: If you’re wondering what the differences are between emoticons and emojis, we’ve got you covered.

Technically speaking, a sticker is just an image. One of the ways they are different to emojis is that they are larger. Also, they can’t be placed inline alongside some text—sending a sticker counts as a single message.

The term “sticker” is perhaps a bit deceiving. These aren’t physical stickers, nor can you stick them wherever you want on Facebook. However, much like real stickers, they are usually bold and colorful.

Facebook has thousands of different stickers available. Below, we’ll show you how to use them and add more to your collection.

How to Use Facebook Stickers

There are multiple places on Facebook that you can use stickers.

When you open the sticker interface, it will open by default on the Search tab. You can use the Search stickers text field to look for specific stickers. Search either by the name of the sticker pack or the emotion represented by the sticker.

This section also contains themes (like Happy or Angry) that you can click to browse stickers relating to that, across all of your packs.

The clock icon is a tab containing all of your recently used stickers. This is handy if you have some favorite stickers that you like to use often.

The other icons represent the sticker packs. Click one of the icons to browse the stickers within that pack. If you have multiple packs, you will see an arrow icon that you can click to scroll.

The plus icon is how you access the Sticker Store, which we will detail further below.

When you find a sticker that you want, just click on it to select it.

How to Send a Sticker in Messages or Comments

To send a sticker while in chat or Messenger, or when replying to a post, click the sticker icon near the text field.

Once you have selected a sticker, it will send. You can’t add text on the same message, though you can of course send a follow-up message.

How to Add a Sticker to a Photo

When adding a photo to a post, you can customize it with stickers. You can only do this when sharing the post. To do so, click Photo/Video, then upload a photo. Next, hover over the photo and click the pencil icon. Then, on the left pane, click Stickers > Add Sticker.

You can place multiple stickers on your photo. Click and drag to move the sticker, then use the arrow icon to rotate and resize the sticker. When done, click Save.

How to Get More Facebook Stickers

It’s simple to add more stickers to your collection. There are hundreds of different sticker packs available, which are just a collection of stickers under a common theme or brand (like Lunar New Year or The Avengers). Each pack usually contains around 20 stickers.

These sticker packs are available from the Sticker Store. Despite the name, and since being on the platform since 2013, Facebook has never directly charged money for sticker packs.

To access the Sticker Store, follow the steps above as if you were going to send a sticker. Instead of selecting a sticker, click the blue plus icon in the top right. This will open the Sticker Store. Alternatively, visit the Facebook Sticker Store directly.

Here you can browse all of the packs available for download. Click Preview to see all the stickers in the pack. Click Free to add the sticker pack to your collection. It can then be used immediately.

How to Remove Facebook Stickers

You can’t disable the Facebook stickers feature entirely. The only thing you can do is remove sticker packs that you have added to your collection. Note that this will remove every single sticker in that pack—you can’t remove an individual sticker.

To do so, navigate to the Sticker Store. Packs that you have downloaded will no longer have a Free button. Instead, there will be a Remove button in its place. Click this to immediately remove the sticker pack from your collection.

Join the Facebook Stickers Group

If you want to stay up-to-date with the world of Facebook stickers and find out when new packs are added to the platform, you should join the Facebook Stickers group.

This official group announces new packs and also provide a handy link for you to click to instantly add the new stickers to your collection.

Avoid Sticker Apps

You might come across apps on the Android and iOS stores that claim to expand your sticker selection on Facebook. While Facebook has partnered with external apps in the past to provide sticker packs, the company no longer does. The best way to acquire new stickers is just to use the Sticker Store on Facebook.

These apps are often riddled with annoying adverts and are simply a clunky way of adding images into your posts or messages, which you can do directly from the Facebook interface anyway. They aren’t official sticker packs and therefore aren’t worth downloading.

More Things to Do With Facebook Messenger

That’s everything you need to know about Facebook stickers, including what they are and how to use them. So why not go grab some sticker packs and use them to express yourself on Facebook.

Stickers are just one of the many things you can do with Facebook and Messenger. For more, check out our list of hidden Facebook Messenger tricks you should try.

Read the full article: What Are Facebook Stickers? Everything You Need to Know

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The 10 Best Free Pandora Alternatives for Streaming Music

Pandora is one of the most recognizable music streaming services available. And most people who use Pandora love Pandora. However, if you’ve landed here it’s because you’re looking for the best Pandora alternatives. So, let’s start by explaining how Pandora works…

You open Pandora, select the genre or mood of music you want, and let the “radio” play some tunes. If you like a song, you hit the thumbs-up icon to add similar tracks to the radio station. If you don’t, you hit the thumbs-down icon, and the radio station plays less of that style.

It’s a classic, and very user-friendly, setup. However, not only is Pandora not available in many countries, there are tons of other music streaming services available. So, in this article, we list the best free Pandora alternatives. Presented in no particular order.

1. YouTube Music

How it Compares. YouTube Music is a music streaming service that is slowly replacing Google Play Music. Where Google Play Music featured as standard on all new Android devices, users will now find the YouTube Music app instead (on new devices—Google Play Music won’t suddenly disappear into the ether).

YouTube Music doesn’t supply an official number of available songs, because it draws on its deals with record labels, uploads to YouTube, mashups, remixes, and much more. The depth of the YouTube Music library is substantial. Library-wise, it has Pandora beat hands-down. But then again, it has most other services beat too, so that’s no shame on Pandora’s part.

The YouTube Music interface is easy to navigate, although it is far from the prettiest music streaming service around.

Notable Features. The incredible catalog of music is one of the most notable YouTube Music features, without a doubt. Aside from that, YouTube Music also plays host to live music streams from a wide range of artists. There’s also a YouTube Music integration for the Google Clock, which allows you to wake up to your favorite artist or playlist.

Cost. YouTube Music has three different subscription levels. The free version is YouTube Music, which is ad-supported (you’ll see or hear an advert every three to six songs), runs at a lower bitrate, and if you’re using the mobile app, it requires the screen to remain on at all times. The latter is a definite major downside to YouTube Music.

You can (and probably should) upgrade to one of YouTube Music’s premium tiers to unlock more features. YouTube Music Premium stops the ads, allows you to listen to music in the background on mobile devices, and to download music for offline listening. A YouTube Music Premium subscription costs $9.99/month.

Then there is the YouTube Premium subscription, which includes everything in the previous tier as well as access to YouTube Originals (YouTube’s original programming channels). The YouTube Premium subscription also removes ads from the main YouTube site, too. The YouTube Premium subscription comes in at $11.99/month. Is YouTube Premium value for money? It all depends on how you use YouTube.

Regional Availability. YouTube Music and its premium counterparts are available in over 70 countries.

2. Deezer

How it Compares. Deezer’s library consists of over 57 million tracks, blowing most competitors out of the water, including Pandora. User interface updates in recent years have made Deezer easier to use. Still, there’s nothing particularly special about the interface. Is that familiarity a bad thing? Perhaps not if you’re jumping from service to service.

Notable Features. At the time of writing, Deezer has over 30,000 public radio channels available, as well as 100 million publicly available playlists. Of course, you’re not going to sift through all of those. Thankfully, Deezer’s search integration is useful and helps you find what you want.

Deezer Flow creates a personalized playlist that combines all of your favorite music, as well as new recommendations and those tunes you might have forgotten about. You can find exclusive DJ mixes, unique podcasts, and other Deezer Original recordings, too. You could also check out Deezer Next to see the artists the music streaming service is tipping for future success.

Cost. Deezer operates four subscription types. The free version of Deezer is ad-supported, restricts you to a single listening profile, and offers a limited number of track skips per day. The free version doesn’t allow offline playback, either, which is fairly standard for music streaming services.

The second tier is Deezer Premium, which removes adverts from the listening experience, introduces unlimited skips per day, as well as offline listening. Deezer Premium comes in at $9.99/month.

However, although you have “unlimited skips,” the Deezer forums have several posts from angry users wondering why they can only skip 150 tracks/hour. You could be making a playlist and skipping through tracks, only to suddenly find your account locked, so it is something to consider. The issue relates to how the Deezer development team attempts to stop account sharing.

Then there is a final subscription tier that contains two slightly different offerings. Deezer Family includes everything from the previous tier and also allows you to create six different listening profiles.

Whereas, Deezer HiFi includes everything from the previous tier but instead of additional listening profiles, unlocks 16-bit FLAC quality audio. Deezer HiFi is a brilliant option if you value high-quality audio, which many music streaming services eschew.

Both Deezer Family and Deezer HiFi will set you back $14.99/month.

Regional Availability. Deezer is available in over 185 countries.

3. Jango

How it Compares. Jango is one of Pandora’s long-standing direct competitors, operating since 2007. Both Jango and Pandora operate in a similar manner. But whereas Pandora’s song choices are based on the Music Genome Project, Jango’s recommendations are based on its users’ behaviors.

Notable Features. Each Jango radio station is customizable via the Variety settings. You can opt to add the most popular user choices to expand the radio station, or to add More Variety, or the Most Variety. You can also add specific artists to the currently playing radio station, too.

Jango highlights and promotes independent artists across its radio stations. When an independent artist comes up, you can leave feedback. Interestingly, Jango uses an internal cryptocurrency, known as NeuCoin. You can use NeuCoin to tip independent artists, helping them receive a small payment for their music.

Cost. There is no premium version of Jango. The entire platform is ad-funded. That said, Jango doesn’t bombard you with adverts and ruin your listening experience. The adverts are few and far between. Plus, you can reduce the number of ads per day to a single instance if you link your Facebook account.

Better still (and this is really impressive), Jango doesn’t interrupt the Android or iOS apps with any form of advertising.

Regional Availability. All countries worldwide.

4. Spotify

How it Compares. Spotify has a lot going for it. With over 50 million tracks, 700,000 podcasts, and nearly 300 million users, Spotify has become the byword for music streaming services. At this point, Spotify also has a recognizable and familiar user interface. It definitely isn’t the most exciting interface, but it is extremely easy to use.

The biggest downside to Spotify is the poor audio quality. Spotify’s maximum audio streaming rate is a miserly 320kbps. In comparison, the premium Deezer HiFi option offers 1,411kbps (which is uncompressed CD audio quality), and Amazon Music Unlimited offers an average of 850kbps. Spotify’s offering is hardly “Premium.”

Notable Features. Spotify offers so much more than internet radio. Want on-demand streaming? Spotify is one of the best at it. Want to expand your tastes? Check out Spotify’s music discovery tools. You’ll also find lots of non-music content, including stand-up comedy and podcasts. And that’s not forgetting the end of year roundups detailing your listening habits, along with your best of playlist.

Spotify is stepping up the fight to Pandora in other ways, too. The Spotify Stations playlist app offers a Pandora-like experience, complete with thumbs-up and thumbs-down, and music suggestions.

Cost. Spotify offers two subscription types: free and premium. The free Spotify version is ad-supported, does not allow offline playback, and does not allow access to the highest quality audio playback Spotify offers.

A Spotify Premium subscription unlocks offline music playback, all smartphone app features, removes any ad interruptions, and unlocks Spotify’s highest music quality playback option. A Spotify Premium subscription comes in at $9.99/month.

There are two variations to the Spotify Premium subscription. A Spotify Student subscription unlocks everything in the Premium subscription but only costs $4.99/month (with a working student email account).

There is also the option of Spotify Family, which offers everything in the Premium subscription for up to six accounts living at the same address. The Spotify Family account costs $14.99/month.

Regional Availability. Spotify is available in over 80 countries.

5. AccuRadio

How it Compares. AccuRadio is one of the oldest internet radio streaming services still active, serving users since 2000. At the core of AccuRadio’s long-running success is simplicity. The AccuRadio interface is simple and easy to use, allowing a reasonable amount of user station customization. AccuRadio doesn’t have the largest music catalog, but it is more than enough to keep you listening.

Notable Features. You can blend up to 15 channels together to create a specialized listening experience. You can also rate songs on a five-star scale, then use the Five Star Radio feature to listen only to your absolute favorite songs. One of AccuRadio’s best features, especially in comparison to Pandora, is unlimited skipping for all accounts.

Cost. AccuRadio doesn’t offer a premium account or subscription service. The platform is ad-supported, although you can reduce the ad frequency if you create a free account.

Regional Availability. All countries worldwide.

6. TuneIn

How it Compares. Music is only a small portion of what TuneIn Radio does. This service is all about internet radio in the truest sense: tapping into live radio stations through the internet. Online-only music stations do exist, and they’re perfectly fine, but TuneIn Radio’s selling point is its live radio streams.

As a Pandora alternative, it definitely lives up to the radio streaming service moniker.

Notable Features. TuneIn features over 100,000 radio stations from around the world, plus thousands of podcasts. You can filter your streaming selections by music, sports, talk, and trending stations, as well as kids’ radio and podcasts.

Cost. TuneIn offers a Free or Premium subscription. The TuneIn free subscription is ad-supported, playing an ad when you launch a radio station or podcast.

The TuneIn Premium subscription removes banner ads from the TuneIn site and desktop clients. It also enables you to listen to live play-by-play coverage of every NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL game. A TuneIn Premium subscription removes adverts from the MSNBC, Fox News Talk, and CNBC radio stations.

A TuneIn Premium subscription costs $9.99/month.

Regional Availability. All countries worldwide. TuneIn Premium accounts are only available in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

7. iHeartRadio

How it Compares. iHeartRadio brings radio streams from over 850 local stations under one roof, plus podcasts, music playlists, and more. The result is a Pandora alternative that covers a wide range of content types. iHeartRadio is easy to use, similarly to Pandora. One plus side to iHeartRadio is the user library, which allows you to customize and edit your recently listened to stations, podcasts, and artists.

Notable Features. The aforementioned user library, known as Your Library, is a useful tool for customization. There is also a handy suggestions section that offers up new music, podcasts, and radio stations you might enjoy. As iHeartRadio is an umbrella for the iHeartMedia network, you can listen to hundreds of live radio stations from across the US.

Cost. There are three iHeartRadio subscription types.

The free subscription offers free live radio at any time, personalized artist radio stations, and access to the iHeartRadio podcast selection. Free iHeartRadio accounts may skip six tracks per hour, per station, for a maximum of 15 skips per day across all artist stations.

An iHeartRadio Plus subscription allows unlimited song skipping across all stations, on-demand song and artist play, and the option to save and replay music from the radio. The Plus subscription comes in at $4.99/month.

Finally, the iHeartRadio All Access subscription includes everything in the previous tier, as well as unlimited access to every single iHeartRadio song, plus you can create an unlimited number of playlists. An All Access subscription costs $9.99/month.

8. Radio.Garden

How it Compares. Radio Garden is an almost-unique music streaming option on this list. Instead of selecting artist or genre radio stations, you spin the globe and find radio stations broadcasting all around the world.

In comparison to Pandora, Radio Garden brings the entire world of music to your mouse clicks. You can tune into tens of thousands of radio stations, listening to every genre, style, artist, and more.

Notable Features. Radio Garden features an incredible number of radio stations. There is no user curation or individual station management, as these are live radio stations. You can add radio stations to your favorites list, as well as search for a specific radio station, city, country, or region.

Radio Garden keeps a list of weird and wonderful radio stations, too. You can tune in to an ambient nature sound broadcast, the sounds of a theatre organ, and even listen to truckers chatting.

Cost. Radio Garden is free to use. You may hear local advertising, depending on the radio stations you tune in to.

Regional Availability. All countries worldwide.

9. Radio4000

How it Compares. Radio4000 is a different proposition to Pandora. Instead of skipping and liking tracks, you can move around a world map and listen to radio stations curated by individuals. The result is a music streaming experience that exposes you to lots of new music without the restrictions of skips or missing artists.

The user interface is basic but simple to navigate, offering two web player options.

Notable Features. Radio4000 lets you build a personal radio station that you can broadcast to other people that click on your location, which is a nice feature. All of Radio4000’s tracks come from YouTube, which means you have access to the vast YouTube catalog. The downside to that is the potential for a track to disappear, and there is no consistency for audio quality. Still, the range of music available more than makes up for that.

Cost.Radio4000 is completely free.

Regional Availability. All countries worldwide.

10. Amazon Music

How it Compares. Pandora’s drastically increasing catalog size means Amazon Music is now the slimmer option. However, many users prefer the more traditional music streaming service interface found with Amazon Music, instead of Pandora’s sometimes tricky streaming stations.

Notable Features. The Amazon Music catalog consists of 2 million songs. In music streaming service terms, that is a tiny number. Still, the Amazon Music catalog updates frequently to introduce the latest tracks, sometimes long before Pandora. There are options to filter playlists according to mood, genre, and activity.

Cost. Amazon Music is Amazon’s free subscription to the Amazon Prime Music service. The free subscription allows anyone with an Amazon account to listen to ad-supported music via the Amazon Music service. The free subscription was previously only available to Amazon Echo owners. However, this free version of Amazon Music is only available to the US, UK, and Germany at the time of writing.

Those with an Amazon Prime subscription can use Amazon Prime Music. If you already use Amazon Prime for its many other benefits, then you can think of Prime Music as a free bonus.

Then, there is Amazon Music Unlimited, which unlocks around 60 million tracks, unlimited ad-free on-demand listening, variable bitrate control, offline downloads, and much more. An Amazon Music Unlimited subscription costs $7.99/month for Amazon Prime subscribers, or $9.99/month without Amazon Prime.

Finally, there is Amazon Music Unlimited HD, which includes everything from the previous tiers, but allows users to stream music in Ultra HD quality. Amazon’s Ultra HD quality streaming means audio playback with an average bitrate of 3730kbps, significantly higher than any other music streaming option. An Amazon Music Unlimited HD subscription costs $12.99/month for Amazon Prime members, or $14.99/month for those without.

Regional Availability. Amazon Music free is only available in the US, UK, and Germany at the time of writing. Amazon Music services availability varies by subscription type and region.

What Are the Best Pandora Alternatives?

I’m a very long-term Spotify user and will continue to be so. But the beauty of services like Pandora, Jango, and Radio Garden is uncovering new music, which they offer in spades. However, if the quality of the audio is important to you, try Deezer HiFi or Amazon Music Unlimited HD. Along with these other music sites for audiophiles.

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The 6 Best Facebook Messenger Alternatives for Private Chats

If you’re trying to cut Facebook out of your life, Messenger is one of the apps you need to replace.

Its chats are not end-to-end encrypted by default, meaning that Facebook could access your chats if it wanted to. And because Facebook thrives on collecting as much data as possible, you’re probably not comfortable with the company spying on what you say to your friends.

So, with that in mind, we have compiled a list of Facebook Messenger alternatives which allow you to chat privately with family and friends. Once you’ve chosen one you’ll just have to convince your friends to sign up to it too.

1. Signal

If you’re looking for a super secure messaging client that’s also easy to use, Signal could be the one for you. Signal is an open source messaging service available on Android, iPhone, Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Signal is developed by Signal Foundation, a successor to Open Whisper Systems. The best part about Signal’s privacy is that the backend code is also open source and verifiable. A lot of secure messaging services only open source the frontend application code (“client-side”) while keeping the backend platform proprietary (“server-side”).

That’s not the case with Signal. This might seem like a small thing, but this layer of transparency adds more confidence and trust to the system. It’s one of the reasons why Edward Snowden has endorsed Signal. Regardless of how you feel about him, he certainly knows about privacy.

With the application itself, you’ll find all the features you’d look for in a messaging service. You can text, make voice calls, send pictures and videos, share documents, create group chats, and similar.

Signal is extremely simple to use. You sign up using your phone number and a one-time password that’s sent to you via SMS. Then, just give your name and you’re all set. There’s no email address or password to worry about.

Signal will ask your permission to look up your contacts, but it only uses this temporarily to see who you also know on Signal. Those details aren’t kept on Signal’s servers.

Download: Signal for Android | iOS (Free)

2. Telegram

Telegram has arisen as a hugely popular alternative to the more mainstream messaging apps. With over 400 million monthly active users at the time of writing, there’s clearly lots to love about Telegram.

You’ll find its interface familiar to Facebook Messenger, with a lot of the same features and characteristics—minus the bad parts. Telegram is available on every major platform including iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and the web. The app’s UI is clean and simple to use.

When you’re looking for secure and private alternatives to popular messaging clients, Telegram is usually one of the first options to pop up. But while Telegram is open source, only the client-side code is available to the public. The server-side code is all proprietary, so you have to trust the company’s word on its security.

Some security experts criticize Telegram because it doesn’t use end-to-end encryption by default. For this, you need to open a Secret Chat with every person you’re talking to. Without it, Telegram works just like every other messaging service: keeping your messages protected on its servers, where it has access to all of your data. This conveniently allows you to use it on all your devices, though.

So why is Telegram on this list? Because it’s way better than Facebook Messenger. There are no annoying ads or stories. And Telegram boasts some really useful bots. Because the service is so popular, you’ll probably find that your friends are already using Telegram. If not, you can hopefully convince them to jump ship.

Download: Telegram for Android | iOS (Free)

3. Threema

Threema is a paid messaging app with a focus on privacy and gimmick-free features. It includes all of the essentials you’d expect, like group chats, voice calls, media sharing, and more. In addition to these standard tools, Threema lets you protect sensitive chats with a PIN, agree or disagree with messages using reactions, and choose whether to sync your contacts.

Everything is end-to-end encrypted to protect your privacy. However, Threema goes one step further, as it doesn’t require you to use your phone number or email address to sign up. The app provides you with a random ID instead, which can’t be connected to you. See Threema’s Security page for more information.

The app costs a one-time fee of $3, and doesn’t include any ads or other nonsense once you’re in. You can also use the app on the web after installing it on your phone.

Download: Threema for Android | iOS ($2.99)

4. Wire

Wire is intended for business-level collaboration, but features a basic free tier for personal use. It’s completely open source and features end-to-end encryption across all communication. The service has received independent audits from many security firms, so you can trust that it’s secure.

For chatting one-on-one or with a few friends, Wire is probably overkill since it’s intended as something more akin to Slack. But if you have a bigger group and want to set up secure communication with them, Wire could work.

Download: Wire for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)

5. WhatsApp

With over two billion monthly users, WhatsApp is certainly the biggest messaging platform in the world. It’s owned by Facebook which may rightfully give you pause for thought. But for now, the app has managed to stay mostly independent from Facebook.

WhatsApp’s Status feature isn’t in your face all the time. There are no ads in the app. And even its business features are tastefully implemented.

There are two big reasons WhatsApp makes for a solid alternative to Facebook Messenger. First, WhatsApp uses end-to-end AES 256-bit encryption by default on all chats. As long as you (and the person you’re talking to) are running the latest version of WhatsApp, your chats are encrypted.

WhatsApp states its position on encryption clearly in the WhatsApp FAQs:

“WhatsApp has no ability to see the content of messages or listen to calls on WhatsApp. That’s because the encryption and decryption of messages sent on WhatsApp occurs entirely on your device. Before a message ever leaves your device, it is secured with a cryptographic lock, and only the recipient has the keys.

In addition, the keys change with every single message that is sent. While all of this happens behind the scenes, you can confirm your conversations are protected by checking the security verification code on your device.”

Also, WhatsApp uses the Signal Protocol end-to-end encryption system, which is the same open source setup used by Signal. Furthermore, you can use two-step authentication to secure the WhatsApp data on your phone.

So the world’s most popular messaging app, which is owned by Facebook, is also one of the most secure and privacy-focused messaging apps. This is ironic, but means that WhatsApp is better for privacy than you might at first think.

Download: WhatsApp for Android | iOS (Free)

6. Messenger Lite (Android) or Friendly (iOS)

If you can’t pull yourself away from Facebook Messenger because all your friends and family use it, you could try Messenger Lite instead.

The lightweight version of Messenger gives you all the essential messaging features (including media sharing) but does away with everything unnecessary. There are no ads, Messenger Day stories section, third-party apps, sticker store, or other such nonsense.

After switching to Messenger Lite, make sure you’re not continuously uploading your contact book to Facebook by going to Profile > People > Sync Contacts.

Messenger Lite is optimized to take up less space on your phone and use mobile data more efficiently, so it’s also great for older devices. While you’re still using Facebook’s service, it’s a better way to use Facebook Messenger if and when you have to.

Unfortunately, it’s not available for iOS outside of Turkey. We recommend trying Friendly instead, which is a lightweight wrapper on the mobile Facebook website. It lets you access Messenger without all the usual bloat. It’s free, with a small purchase available to remove ads.

Download: Messenger Lite for Android (Free)
Download: Friendly for iOS (Free, in-app purchase available)

More Facebook Messenger Alternatives to Try

In this article, we’ve looked at several apps like Messenger which focus on privacy. Hopefully, you can abandon Facebook Messenger and convince everyone you chat with to join you on an alternative app. But if that’s not an option, remember that you can use Messenger without Facebook.

However, if you still want to move away from Messenger but don’t like any of these options, here are some more Facebook Messenger alternatives to try.

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