Messaging for GrapheneOS Without Google

Which Version It Is

It’s a separate app from the Google Play one, with its own package name, com.truchichat.app.gos. It doesn’t use Google services or Firebase: to notify you with the app closed, it keeps its own connection to our server, with a persistent notification in the status bar. It works on GrapheneOS and on any Android 12 or later without Google Play.

With it you talk just the same with people who use an iPhone or the Google Play version: messages, photos, videos, voice notes, including with a disguised voice, and voice and video calls.

Installing It

1. Open truchichat.com/android in your phone’s browser and download the APK. The steps with screenshots are there too.
2. Open it from the download. Android will ask you to let the browser install apps: allow it just for this and remove it afterward.
3. Before you open it, check that the signature is ours (below).
4. Open TruchiChat and choose your name. The account is created right away and you can start chatting.

Check It’s Ours

Every version is signed with the same key. With AppVerifier, on the phone itself, compare the package name and the certificate’s SHA-256 fingerprint with the ones we publish on the Android without Google page. On a computer, apksigner verify --print-certs gives you the same fingerprint. If anything doesn’t match, don’t install it and write to us.

Notifications and Calls Without Google

• Leave Background Connection on, in TruchiChat’s Settings. That way messages and calls ring with the app closed.
• If Android restricts its battery, remove the restriction.
• If you turn it off, whatever arrives waits for you encrypted on the server, for up to 24 hours, and shows up when you open the app. A call that couldn’t ring shows up as missed in the chat.
• To answer with your phone locked, allow full screen when the app asks.

Updating

When there’s a new version, the app tells you above your chats and brings you to Downloads. Install the new APK over the one you have: don’t uninstall the old one, because that would delete your account and chats, which are only on your phone.

Good to Know

• TruchiChat’s code is private. Your security doesn’t depend on that: your messages are encrypted on your phone with public, well-studied algorithms, the key never leaves it, and the server only sees sealed envelopes. More detail.
• Switching from the Google Play version to this one, or the other way around, means creating a new account: they’re different apps.
• One phone per account, with no cloud backup.