Implementations of the Tox protocol not done by the project exist. The core of Tox is an implementation of the Tox protocol, an example of the application layer of the OSI model and arguably the presentation layer. Technical documents describing the design of the Core, written by the core developer irungentoo, are available publicly. Anyone can create a client utilizing the core. User front-ends, or clients, are built on the top of the core. The Tox core is a library establishing the protocol and API. The Tox enabled messengers deal with this in separate ways, some prevent the user from sending the message if the other party has disconnected while others show the message as being sent when in reality it is stored in the sender's phone waiting to be delivered when the receiving party reconnects to the network. Though several apps that use the Tox protocol seem similar in function to regular instant messaging apps, the lack of central servers similar to XMPP or Matrix currently has the consequence that both parties of the chat need to be online for the message to be sent and received. Screenshot of the qTox messenger, which uses the Tox protocol, a message has been sent by "Joeri" while the receiving party is offline, the client shows the user that the message is still in transit, when in reality the qTox client is waiting for the receiver of the message to come back online Client developers are strongly encouraged to adhere to the Tox Client Standard in order to maintain cross-client compatibility and uphold best security practices. Features that are not related to the core networking system are left up to the client. Additional features can be implemented by any client as long as they are supported by the core protocol. Tox clients aim to provide support for various secure and anonymised communication features while every client supports messaging, additional features like group messaging, voice and video calling, voice and video conferencing, typing indicators, message read-receipts, file sharing, profile encryption, and desktop streaming are supported to various degrees by mobile and desktop clients. All traffic over Tox is end-to-end encrypted using the NaCl library, which provides authenticated encryption and perfect forward secrecy. Users have the ability to message friends, join chat rooms with friends or strangers, voice/video chat, and send each other files. Users are assigned a public and private key, and they connect to each other directly in a fully distributed, peer-to-peer network. Their current goals are to continue slow iterative development of the existing core implementation, along with in-parallel development of a new reference implementation in Rust. They describe their mission as to "to promote universal freedom of expression and to preserve unrestricted information exchange". This caused the project to split, with those interested in continuing the development creating a new fork of Tox core called "c-toxcore" around the end of September 2016.Ĭurrently, c-toxcore is being developed by a collective known as a TokTok Project. On July 12, 2014, Tox entered an alpha stage in development and a redesigned download page was created for the occasion.ĭuring 2016, original Github project saw a steady decline in development activity by irungentoo, with the last known commit currently dated Oct 2018. Pre-alpha testing binaries were made available for users from February 3, 2014, onward. The initial commit to GitHub was pushed on June 23, 2013, by a user named irungentoo. A reference implementation of the protocol is published as free and open-source software under the terms of the GNU GPL-3.0-or-later. The stated goal of the project is to provide secure yet easily accessible communication for everyone. Tox is a peer-to-peer instant-messaging and video-calling protocol that offers end-to-end encryption. VoIP, Instant messaging, Videoconferencing Windows, Linux, OS X, Android, iOS, FreeBSD, OpenIndiana, Sailfish OS
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