Maya Okonjo
Saturday · Friends
Saturday · Friends
Trail was completely dry this morning. Anyone up for the long loop next weekend?
Your feed and your group chats, in one app.
Rindit is a social network with a messenger attached — and the messenger is the good one. Turn on end-to-end encryption for any conversation, including groups, which most apps cannot do.
Said here rather than in a footnote: encryption is per
conversation and you switch it on. Most messages are not encrypted until
you do. Encryption hides what was said — never that it was said.
Thursday Runners
14 members
14 members
Long loop it is. 7am at the gate?
I'll bring the spare key
Encrypted · only the 14 of you can read this
Encrypted group chats
Not just one-to-one. Your running club, your year group, your games night — the whole conversation, sealed on the devices in it.
Leaving actually means leaving
When somebody leaves an encrypted group the key changes. They cannot read what is said afterwards. Almost nobody explains this; fewer do it.
One app instead of two
The announcements, the group chat and the feed in one place, so the group stops being split across an app for talking and an app for telling.
On your phone
There is an iPhone app.
The same account, the same conversations, and the encryption running on the phone itself rather than in a browser tab.
- Photos and video from your camera roll, posted or sent
- Clips, vertical and up to ninety seconds
- Notifications, so a message arrives rather than waiting to be found
Where it actually is: the app is built and uploaded, and Apple has not reviewed it yet. Testing is by invitation while that happens. There is no Android version and none is being written.
Inside the app
What it looks like on a phone.
Real screens from the iPhone app.
Why it is two things at once
Every other app made you choose.
A messenger where the social part is decoration, or a social network with a messenger nobody would pick on its own. The group you actually belong to ends up in two places, and half of it never sees the half that matters.
Rindit is one app because the people are the same people. Your feed is the things that can wait. Your chats are the things that cannot. Nothing has to be posted twice.
What you get
A messenger with nothing missing.
- Messages that arrive in order, and reach you when you come back online.
- Groups up to 100 people, with invite links, admins and a pinned message.
- Disappearing messages, edits, retraction, polls, voice notes and replies.
- Stories that are actually gone after a day — swept, not hidden behind a filter.
- Vertical clips, up to 90 seconds, with a feed worth scrolling.
- Communities: one announcement channel and as many group chats as the thing needs.
- Channels in one place: follow twenty and read them on one screen, newest first, instead of opening twenty.
Your timeline is in the order things were posted — nothing ranks it. The clips feed is ranked, because a feed of short video is unwatchable otherwise.
Your feed
In the order things were posted.
Nothing ranks your timeline. What your friends posted appears when they posted it, and the thing you scrolled past yesterday is still where you left it rather than promoted back to the top because you paused on it.
Stories, clips, channels and people you might know sit between the posts as trays you can scroll sideways — and each one can be turned off for good, which means off rather than "show me fewer of these".
One place that is ranked, and it says so: the clips feed.
A feed of short vertical video is unwatchable in posting order. Your
timeline is not ranked, and that is a different screen.
What it costs
Free, and paid for by advertising.
Every part of it: all the messaging, all the encryption, the whole social side. There is no paid tier, no limit that lifts if you subscribe, and nothing held back to sell you later.
You will see ads. They are never targeted using your messages or who you talk to. Not what you said, not who you said it to, not which groups you are in — none of it reaches the advertising.
Two different kinds of assurance, and the difference matters.
An encrypted conversation is out of reach because we cannot read it: the
messages are sealed on the devices in it, and no decision of ours could
change that. Everything else is a promise — one we intend to keep
and one you cannot check from outside. We would rather say which is which
than let the stronger one cover for the weaker.
Your account
No password to steal.
Rindit uses your phone number or your email address, and a passcode we send to it. There is no password to reuse, to leak, or to be phished out of you.
Outside the United States, use an email address. We cannot text every country yet, and we would rather say so here than let you find out at the sign-in screen. An address works anywhere.
A number is worth giving where we can text it, because it is how people who already have you in their contacts find you here. An account with no number works exactly the same and is reached by sharing its link instead.
Two things can go wrong with a number, and both have an answer. Changing carrier or country? Move the account before the old number stops working, and every device stays signed in. Worried somebody could take over your number? Set a registration lock, and the texted passcode alone is no longer enough to claim your account on a new phone.