How Dino Handles Encryption and Privacy

Dino is secure by default: your chats never leave your computer unencrypted. If you want end-to-end encryption, you can enable OMEMO or OpenPGP, after which only you and your chat partners can read your messages — not your server administrator or anyone else. You can also reduce metadata exposure by disabling read and typing notifications, either globally or per contact. These features come from Dino's own description of itself as a privacy-focused desktop chat client built on the XMPP protocol.

What "secure by default" means in Dino

The baseline guarantee is transport-level: messages are encrypted before they leave your machine, so they are not sent in plaintext across the network. This protects against casual interception on the path between you and your server.

That baseline is not the same as end-to-end encryption. With only the default in place, the server that relays your messages is still in a position to see them. To close that gap, you need to turn on end-to-end encryption.

End-to-end encryption: OMEMO and OpenPGP

Dino supports two end-to-end encryption methods:

• OMEMO — the modern XMPP encryption method, designed for multi-device use.
• OpenPGP — the long-established encryption standard.

Once you enable either one, the stated result is that only you and your chat partners can read the messages. Your server administrator, the hosting provider, or anyone else relaying the traffic cannot read the content.

A practical way to think about the difference: default encryption protects the message in transit to the server; end-to-end encryption protects it from everyone in the middle, including the server itself.

Reducing metadata: read and typing notifications

Encryption hides message content, but read receipts and typing indicators reveal activity patterns — when you are online, when you are reading, when you are composing a reply. Dino lets you disable these:

• Globally, turning them off for all conversations, or
• Per contact, so you can stay quiet with specific people while keeping the feature elsewhere.

This is a privacy control rather than a security one: it does not change how messages are encrypted, but it limits what your contacts and, indirectly, the network can infer about your behavior.

How this fits Dino's overall design

Dino is free and open-source software, developed on GitHub by an open community. Anyone can inspect or modify the code, so you do not have to trust a single company or development team — you or others can verify what the client actually does.

It is built on XMPP, an open internet standard for decentralized communication, often described as the instant messaging counterpart to email. Decentralization means you do not depend on one provider: you can use a federated, worldwide infrastructure, or even host your own server. Combined with end-to-end encryption, that means no single party — neither a provider nor a server operator — is positioned to read your conversations.

Quick reference

What to check before relying on it

• End-to-end encryption is opt-in. The default protects messages in transit, but you must enable OMEMO or OpenPGP for the stronger guarantee that only you and your partner can read them.
• Both sides matter. End-to-end encryption only holds if your chat partner's client also supports and uses the same method.
• Notifications are a separate switch. If metadata privacy matters to you, disable read and typing notifications explicitly — encryption alone does not hide them.

If your requirement is a desktop chat client where content is encrypted end-to-end on request, with no single provider in control and code anyone can audit, Dino's stated design matches that need. If you need encryption active without any configuration step, note that the end-to-end layer has to be turned on first.