Frequently asked questions

A voice and text chat app you run on your own server. Each Anten installation is one server, and people connect to its address.

It has rooms, voice calls, camera and screen sharing, messages, files and direct messages. Voice and video are end-to-end encrypted by default.

Whoever set it up, a person or a community. There is no central service behind it. Your data stays on the server you connect to and is managed by its administrator.

Administration rights are taken with a single-use privilege key made when the server is first set up.

Get the server’s address from the person who runs it and open it in a browser.

The installer for the Windows desktop app also comes from the operator. The app then takes its updates from the server it connects to.

It depends on the room. It cannot read direct messages, which are always end-to-end encrypted. It also cannot read rooms where an administrator has turned on message encryption. It can read messages in other rooms, which is why server-side search and link previews work only there.

The app shows each room’s real state.

By default, yes. Voice, camera and screen sharing are encrypted on your device. The server forwards the encrypted frames and never sees the key.

The administrator can turn this off for the whole server or for individual rooms. The app shows the room’s real state.

Metadata: who connected when, which room they are in, when they speak, who sent messages and when, and IP addresses. A user’s last address is erased after 90 days without being seen.

They cannot see end-to-end encrypted voice and video, or the content of encrypted rooms and direct messages.

No. On your first connection your device makes an identity key, and you only pick a nickname.

If the administrator has turned it on, you can also use an account with a username and password. You can turn your existing identity into an account later. A server may be closed to new people or ask for a server password.

Anten is a single server program and a PostgreSQL database, run with Docker. A server on the Internet needs HTTPS and a port for voice.

That depends on the server’s hardware and Internet connection. The administrator can set a limit on people per room.

To limit abuse, at most 5 people can be connected from one Internet address at once, and at most 3 new identities can be made from it in an hour. These are defaults the administrator can change. Administrators are not held to them.

The administrator can back up the whole database and the uploaded files from the server settings. The backup is encrypted with a passphrase of at least 10 characters.

A restore replaces everything at once. It needs an Anten using the same database version.

Yes, in the browser. Open the server’s address in your phone’s browser; the web client works on narrow screens. There is no separate phone app.

The Windows app carries its own copy of the web client and takes only data from the server. Push-to-talk and shortcuts work outside the window, and sharing a screen sends the application’s sound too. It also has an in-game overlay and a tray icon.

Your identity is the key on your device. If you clear the browser’s data or connect from another device, you show up as a new user.

To avoid that, save your identity to an encrypted backup file in the settings and load it on the other device’s connect page. The backup also carries the keys of the encrypted rooms you can read. If you have an account with a username and password, your keys are kept on the server protected by your password and come back when you sign in. Without either, the old identity cannot be recovered.

Bots made by the administrator can write messages, answer commands, show panels with buttons and play music in voice rooms. They take part in encrypted rooms the way a browser does. Rooms a bot can see show a lasting notice saying so.

Bots cannot reach direct messages or run the installation. What else they may do depends on their groups.