Naven
Use case
Organising a group without handing out phone numbers
Naven is not end-to-end encrypted and should not be used where that is the requirement. Anybody organising under real threat should use Signal — this is for the ordinary case where the concern is privacy from other members rather than from a state.
Who this is for
Campaign groups, tenants' associations and mutual aid networks whose members are not close friends.
The problem
The group chat requires everybody's phone number, which means every member has a permanent personal identifier for thirty strangers. People decline to join, or join with a burner, and the organising suffers either way.
How Naven handles it
- Nobody exchanges a number. Members are added by an email address, or join a channel by link.
- No public directory, so nobody can enumerate who is in the group by browsing.
- It runs in a browser, so a member with an old phone or a work laptop is not excluded.
What it costs
Nothing. Naven is free, with no advertising, no paid tier and no data sale. There is no card, no trial and no phone number.