In 2025, Microsoft's French arm was asked under oath whether it could stop the US government reaching data stored on French soil, for French customers. The answer was no.

This is one example of the many, and the owners of the most popular chat apps are friends with the people that want to take your privacy away!

That's the problem I'm trying to solve, and it's why I built Zuno.

Zuno is a messaging app for communities. Group chats, calls, media, sharing where you are, etc. The difference is that no company owns it and nothing about you gets sold, because there's nothing to sell. It's free to use, and it will stay free. I'm not building a business here, I'm building a way out.

A US company can be ordered to hand over your data no matter which country the server sits in. That's the CLOUD Act (2018), and it follows the company, not the hardware. So "our servers are in Europe" means very little when the company running them answers to Washington. Zuno doesn't. No US parent company, no US obligations. Not even a company. Just a guy putting his skills to work to provide you the option you don't have!

It isn't just the US either:

Australia: the Assistance and Access Act lets agencies compel tech companies to help them get at encrypted messages.

India: messaging services over a certain size have to be able to identify who first sent a message. You can't do that and have real end-to-end encryption. Something has to give.

Most big platforms are based somewhere that has laws like these, which is the whole point.

Meanwhile, here's the kind of thing I spend my time on.

There are so many more things than just end-to-end encrypted messagesthat companies can be tracking you from that they don't even tell you. I'm building Zuno to have no leaks. From messages, to notifications, to calls, to media. Everything truly encrypted, and your phone is the only one that can decrypt them all!

I built all of this on my own, after work. No team, no investors. Just help and support from you, the community!

Where the money goes:

If you've been wanting out of big tech and haven't found anywhere to go, this is me trying to build that. Any amount helps, and sharing this helps just as much.

Thank you.

Alex from Zuno