Wickr Me - Private Messenger Reviews

I was initially excited to see the new revamped app hit the market, but then I discovered that the most useful feature—Secure Shred—had not only had its manual functionality removed, but also now only focused on erasing/sanitizing the data related to Wickr messaging. While it’s nice to think that’s running in the background, WickrMe eventually times out and the screen lock comes on (which effectively shuts down WickrMe ) while waiting for the background shred to work. Manual controls allowed not only the ability to monitor progress of the operation, but also allowed users to see the before and after effects the shred had on available storage.

Please bring back the manual controls and the functionality that allows you to permanently overwrite/erase/shred deleted files (other than those are tied to Wickr specifically)! Wickr held a perfect spot in WickrMe Store for this use case, and now it’s hard to find a suitable (and trusted) replacement.

I love having a channel totally disconnected to the rest of my online identity, but perhaps consider at least having some sort of security question option. Got locked out of my account because fingerprint unlock unexpectedly turned off and had forgotten my password after never having had to type it in for months, which effectively lost me many important contacts.

The screenshot alert feature is gold - even better (if possible) would be option to manually disable screenshots within each chat so you also don’t have to deal with scolding people and trusting them to actually delete them!

I do love and trust the Wickr app. The company puts security and privacy first on their priority list. I believe them that even if records were legally subpoenaed, there would not and could not be any message content; because it is not stored anywhere. This is one of the serious problems with regular text messages, and a crazy bad problem with Facebook Messenger. They store all content Forever! Don’t say or ask anything the least bit confidential via any FB system, ever.

I do experience intermittent service interruptions and glitches, at times, when using Wickr.
I recommend saving the Wickr ID for each of your friends/clients in your contact list, and/or taking screenshots of your Wickr user list. That way, if Wickr starts behaving badly, you can uninstall, restart your phone, and reinstall WickrMe (and easily reconnect with your people).
I had to do that once. It did resolve whatever ghost-in-the-machine problem I was having.

Thanks for an awesome, secure, private, and Free app! I appreciate your effort to make the modern world a safer place. :)

Wickr is number 1. You may take some small issue with aesthetics, but that has precisely nothing to do with security. WickrMe beats out the others where it counts. We live in a world that is regressing into censorship. Certain countries, both democratic as well as non-democratic, and even big tech ALL engage in censorship for wrong think. It's very sad. Real 1984 stuff. Americans have it a little better than the rest..for now. No matter, because everyone needs apps like this, as well as protonmail and a good VPN. Censorship, particularly of political views and social topics, is abuse and it's not okay. Also, don't forget to delete tracking cookies and clear history daily, or hourly.

I may not know very much about the technicalities of security, but one thing I do know for sure. Wickr WORKS.
Back in 2017 when I was raided and taken in for multiple 1st degree drug charges the department of homeland security did a phone extraction on my phone and Wickr didn’t even show up under the apps section. I had my lawyer control+F for “wickr” in the phone extraction report (5200 something pages long) and there was no results found. I tried searching for keywords that I sent under wickr and nothing came up . It’s like WickrMe never existed, even though it was clearly on my phone . Amazing :)

Hands down in my opinion. Don't let the open sourcey folks deter you. All features on Wikr are privacy centric. WickrMe does not require email or phone number to set-up. The company and devs understand security. Wickr beats Signal in key areas.

[October 2018 Update] Google and Facebook shenanigans make E2EE messaging a must. For me, Wickr is better than Signal. With Wickr, the sender controls their data with two timers (better control than Signal), message recall and a zero knowledge platform. Security and Privacy are two sides of the same coin and Wickr gets that. Thank you Wickr team for your hard work!

Been a while since I’ve posted here. I’ve updated my phone since my last review so I’m on the current iOS. The latest version of Wickr has me getting at least 4 notifications per day that doesn’t have a message attached to it. So I log in to find no activity at all. No new messages. Hopefully this is a known issue and you are working on it. Thanks.

Update:
Just letting you know that I tried it out again as you asked and even after the recent update I'm still getting dead notifications. Notifications with no messages attached. I'm only talking to one person.

After recent update I'm still getting notifications with no messages attached. I even deleted my account and created a new one to see if that would help. It didn't. I'm only talking to one person but I know this person is talking to others on WickrMe. I have no idea how many people they are communicating with. At this point I'm thinking there’s a glitch going on when messages are sent to others...

I think it is a good app for texting. I have used it and I like it. No need to use any phone number or valid email address, basically, WickrMe does not ask for verification. However, no one knows what other user information has been taken by WickrMe as you use it. It may take device identification number such as IMEI number.
Remind you that no digital device which connects the internet either wired or wireless is safe from hacking especially from NSA. Be your own boss and safeguard yourself. Users are thankful for the service. Thank you for your efforts and time.

No ads.

You do NOT need to provide your phone number, email address or access to your contacts.

Update: The touch ID feature is found under the auto logout setting. When you select the value of never the touch ID option is displayed. The new color scheme takes some getting used to.

Update: Wickr today (Dec. 4) launched a desktop client for Windows, Mac and Linux. Users' messages will now also sync across all devices on which a single user's Wickr applications are installed, allowing people to switch between desktop and mobile.

I used WickrMe for several weeks. I don't like how you have to hold your finger on the picture to view it. They did this to reduce the ability to make a screen capture. I just don't care for that design. The good news is that WickrMe works flawlessly on my phone. Message delivery appears to be reliable. I heard that a windows app is being developed. Looking forward to that.

I picked Wickr over Telegram and Signal because it did not require a phone number. I don’t trust an app that claims to be about your privacy and anonymity and then asks for a private number that gives away your anonymity. Wickr has impressed me beyond that. There are some bugs. Notifications do not always work as intended and with the most recent app and iOS update calls don’t ring anymore - they just make the same sound as a message. I’m sure these are being addressed and otherwise have really liked WickrMe. Keep up the good work, keep it simple and secure!

Been using it for some months now and I love it so much. The calls are clear and it is completely safe. However, something weird once happened with me when I connected to a new WiFi connection, WickrMe stopped asking me for the password and was logging in immediately when I hit WickrMe ’s icon. Non of my contacts on Wickr experienced such thing. I was wondering if it means that something bad about my phone privacy? Thank you very much

Love WickrMe use it frequently for most communications. After last update tho I can not use WickrMe at home where WiFi is needed. I’ve reset phone as well as turned WiFi off and on and is still unable to connect to internet using WiFi with WickrMe only. Every other app and internet browsing still works off same WiFi connection. Had friend tell me he’s having same issue. I’d like to continue using app but am unable at this point. Please fix. Thank you

I like WickrMe for communicating to people you should not be communicating too! Although sometimes it does not send and receive in a timely manner. That is extremely frustrating! I really wish there was a photo section that you could put a time limit or delete from other person option. Part of using WickrMe is the fact that other people cannot get in without passwords. Obviously don’t want to save the pictures to the phone.

It’s getting annoying how often they update it. On the computer, it seems like each time I run the program (once or twice a week) I get an alert that there’s yet another update (100+MB per update). The iPhone app version isn’t that bad, but still, so many updates makes me wonder if they really know what they’re doing...

On the iPhone, WickrMe loads fast & has some nice features. I cannot comment on whether or not it’s truly rather secure or not...

The only reason I don’t use this more is the lack of native gif support. I don’t use third party keyboards because of data logging, but my friends and I use gifs all the time while messaging and we don’t like that we can’t use those on here.

Also more intuitive delivered and read receipts would be nice. I’ve stood next to a friend and watched both screens while messaging to once and for all confirm what the checkmarks mean. It would be nice if that were more intuitive or obvious.

I downloaded WickrMe a couple months ago and used to love how clean, simple, and effective can be used for communication. However the last two updates have really let me down. WickrMe has been crashing, messages and pictures show that didn’t go through when in fact they did, and I’d rather the option to vibrate without WickrMe being used, I personally don’t want the notifications options through my phone settings. Thank you for the awesome app, but please go back to what worked!

There is no option to go back to a conversation once you select an app you want to send an attachment from, say if you change your mind and no longer want to send the attachment, or for whatever other reason. The only option I had when this situation arose was to restart WickrMe altogether, after I’d selected to potentially send an attachment from the “Files” app, followed by realizing I needed to share my media another way. Please fix ASAP, thanks!

I agree. Horrible upgrade! Sending messages feels FAR, FAR less secure than with the previous version. The burn on read function offers fewer options in terms of time before burn and I don't feel confident with the upgrade that my messages have been burned. Liked the old version much more. Please bring back all the old features. You can add new ones, but please bring back the old options.

Why oh why keep updating and adding changes. Sign in screen - used to be dark, unassuming, discreet - now it’s bright and although nice backround picture, i wish i had a choice in choosing one. Next on the sign in screen - why is there a lock icon - granted i dont have a password saved but why does it give option to take me to the saved password. This is not private because if someone gets hold of my phone, although not able to get into the Wickr, they will get into my saved passwords for other sites. This defeats the whole purpose of being encrypted and private and secure. Please remove the lock icon in sign on screen

Wickr has always been a solid app for private conversations and still is after this update. It feels like it’s got the same level of security, and it’s just as easy to connect with the people I want to. Some of the things I had issue with in the past are better now.

Further, after getting used to the new version and a few tweaks from Wickr’s developers, this product works great for me. Thanks Wickr!

Updating this review to say that Wickr is the best! All the kinks I was experiencing in this new version have been worked out and I'm back to loving it. Easily my favorite secure messaging app. Thanks!

Here's my original review:
What happened?? The old version was awesome, no complaints. Why'd you change it? This new version is buggier than a Fed's lapel! I'm giving 3 stars here in good faith that you'll turn this around. Thanks!