AWS has discontinued the consumer version of encrypted chat app Wickr

The encrypted chat app Wickr no longer works. AWS permanently shut down the servers behind the service at the beginning of this year, more than eleven years after the application was launched. The consumer version of the app can no longer be downloaded, but the business version is still available.

Since the beginning of this year, Wickr users have been seeing that they can no longer connect to the Wickr network. On the service’s website it says the app has been discontinued. Existing users will not be able to log back in or send messages to their contacts after logging out. The app can also no longer be downloaded from the Play Store and the App Store.

The end of the encrypted chat app comes as no surprise. Amazon, which took over the service in 2021, already reported at the end of 2022 that it would shut down Wickr as of January 1, 2024. It has not been possible to create new accounts on Wickr for a year now. This specifically concerns Wickr Me, the consumer version of the app. After AWS acquired Wickr, it quickly worked on two enterprise variants: AWS Wickr and Wickr Enterprise. Those versions continue to work and are still available in the app stores.

Wickr was founded in 2012. It briefly enjoyed growing popularity when Edward Snowden made his revelations about the US secret services in 2013, but eventually lost that popularity to competing apps such as Signal. Although the app offered encrypted communications, it lacked essential features and, unlike alternatives like Threema, its code was not public. Ultimately, the app turned out to be especially popular with criminals, who often arranged business via dark web marketplaces via Wickr. AWS did not give a specific reason why it was discontinuing the app in 2022, but said it did so after “listening to consumer needs and their desires around end-to-end encryption.” The company says that AWS Wickr, the enterprise variant, is a good alternative. However, there is no migration tool and users who did not download their data to their device before December 31 will now lose their data.