What the store knows about you
Every time you install an app from the App Store or Google Play, a permanent record is created in your account. The app name, the date, the device. It doesn't matter if you delete it the next day. The record persists. Forever.
Anyone with access to your family account can see which apps you've installed. Your partner. Your parents. Your children. A colleague you share a business plan with. It's a history that cannot be erased and that you don't control.
Why we offer a path without a store
Think about it for a moment. A messaging app that promises confidentiality, but appears in your purchase history, already reveals something before you send the first message: that you have it installed. It doesn't matter that the messages are perfectly encrypted — that simple fact can be information you don't want to share with whoever manages your family account, or with anyone with access to that history.
There are situations where the simple fact of using an app already says too much. A dissident in a country where communications are monitored. A journalist working undercover. A citizen who simply wants to speak with complete sincerity with a relative living outside their country. It is not paranoia. It is a daily reality for millions of people around the world. That is why direct installation, without a store, remains — and will always remain — a real option in Solo2.
How to install without a store
Solo2 is a web application. You can use it in two ways. First: directly in a browser tab, like any website. Second: by installing it on your home screen, where it behaves like a native app — with its own icon, notifications and all. In both cases, it doesn't go through any store.
Installing it means adding it to your home screen from the browser. On iPhone, it's a button in Safari's share menu. On Android, the browser offers it directly. One step. Less than a minute. One important detail: your Solo2 data — your messages, files and contacts — is kept inside the browser or installed app where you first sign up. If you sign up in the installed app, your data lives there. If you sign up in a browser tab, it lives in that tab. They are separate spaces. That's why we recommend installing it first and creating your account afterwards.
What doesn't get recorded
By not going through the store, there's no record in your Apple or Google account. It doesn't appear in your purchase history. It's not associated with your credit card or family account. No external system knows you have it.
If you ever decide to delete Solo2, it disappears from your device: the icon, the browser data, your messages, and your Solo2 files. Installed from the browser, Solo2 leaves no trace in the purchase history of your Apple or Google account.
You will probably soon be able to choose the store too, if you prefer
When we launched Solo2, the answer to "why aren't you in the App Store?" was simple: so the app wouldn't leave a trace in any store's purchase history. That option is still there, and for some people it remains the best choice. But we've seen that what most people care about is that their conversations are protected, rather than hiding that they use Solo2. Besides, explaining what a PWA is and how to install it from the browser still raises questions. Many people simply trust what they recognize: the icon of their familiar store.
That is why we are preparing Solo2 also for the App Store and Google Play, as a second installation path — without touching the first. The confidentiality of your messages will be exactly the same in both cases: the encryption does not change, the architecture without a central server does not change. The only thing that will change is whether Apple or Google knows that you have the app installed. When it is available, the choice will be yours.