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BitTorrent's messaging service goes wide, adds ephemeral options

Last we heard of BitTorrent's chat client, Bleep, it was just debuting. Today the news is that the secure messaging client is moving from open alpha to a release aimed at the general Android and iOS owning public. With it comes peer-to-peer messaging with the ability to communicate -- even sending messages to friends who are offline -- no servers required, which theoretically means no threat of hacking. Perhaps the biggest new feature is an ephemeral option called "whispers" for evaporating messages. Unlike Snapchat, though, you can choose on a message by message basis which texts or photos you send will evaporate after 25 seconds. It isn't an all or nothing affair here. And to further distance itself from the ghostly messaging service, you can even send these from a computer. BitTorrent says with whispers you can swap back and forth between them and normal messages seamlessly without breaking the flow of conversation too.

There's protection against screenshotting too. Say a pal captures a particularly sensitive back-and-forth that you'd rather not see the light of day. In that case, usernames are blocked out, but text remains. If they want to reveal who was in on the conversation, only the usernames show and the conversation blurs out. The outfit stresses that both the text and usernames won't be viewable simultaneously, as you can see below.

Free, end-to-end encrypted calling is on offer as well in case you want to keep your voice conversations private too. Maybe best of all? The firm says that no personal information is required to sign up, all you need to do to use the client is supply a username.