NOLOSS is an Android chat app that lets you talk with people nearby, even where there is no cell signal and no Wi-Fi. Phones connect directly over Bluetooth, and the phones of people in between relay your message along, so it can reach someone who is out of direct range.
It is a fork of the open-source bitchat, and the wire protocol was left unchanged. A NOLOSS user and a bitchat user in the same place are in the same chat: public and private messages cross in both directions, and nobody has to install anything extra.
No account is needed. No phone number, no email address. Open the app and you are in; a name is given to you automatically.
What NOLOSS adds on top of bitchat:
- Pay It Forward: if one person nearby has mobile data, others can share that internet connection through the same relay of phones.
- Invitations: when the internet is available, you can invite someone far away into your chat area and link groups in different places.
- 15 languages, including English, Japanese, Indonesian, Filipino, Thai, Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese, Hindi and Arabic.
Private messages are encrypted between devices. There are no servers.
Useful in the mountains, at campsites, festivals and concerts, underground, on boats, in the countryside, and on days when the network goes down.
Free, with a single banner ad on the Settings screen only (no ads on the chat screen). Source code is published under GPL-3.0. Requires Android 8.0 or later.
No comments or reviews, maybe you want to be first?