Kim Dotcom, founder of the file hosting service Mega, today revealed his company will be launching a browser-based chat service “soon.” Dotcom referred to the service with the hashtag #MegaChat, though it’s not clear if that is just the codename or if it will indeed be its final name.
This is not the first time Dotcom has talked about the upcoming service, which gets mentioned every few months but has yet to hit public availability in any form. There is naturally a lot of hype surrounding it, given the increasing importance put on secure communications on the Internet. This time, the entrepreneur is promising the service will be encrypted, browser-based, and offer “high-speed” file transfers:
Back in February 2013, Kim first unveiled that Mega would be expanding into email, chat, voice, video, and “mobile.” We haven’t heard much about the secure email servicesince August 2013, the company has since released a few mobile apps, and of course the other three all fall into the same category: the upcoming Skype competitor.
In fact, Dotcom last year named Gmail, Skype, and iCloud as services that don’t offer enough privacy because they are based in the U.S., where the American government can demand access to data under certain circumstances. Since the news today focused on a chat service, he called out Skype again:
In November 2013, the chat service was expected to arrive “in early 2014.” Mega users were supposed to be able to exchange messages in real-time with each other, as well as be able attach files to those messages. The company also promised secure audio and video calls.
It’s not clear why it has taken so long to get the service out the door, though we suspect the browser-based requirement could have been a factor. The lack of having to download a separate application or install a plugin is a great trend, but it does mount a few technical hurdles, particularly when attempting to offer end-to-end encryption.