Wickr Me, a free end-to-end encrypted communications app that was once independent and is now owned by Amazon Web Services (AWS), will shut down on December 31, 2023. The app will cease accepting new users on December 31, 2022, according to a blog post on its website.
Wickr was once a prominent alt-tech solution that offered private messaging. However, Amazon acquired Wickr in 2021 and introduced paid versions of the messaging app for businesses. What remains, Wickr Me, the free version, is shutting down. Wickr AWS and Wickr Enterprise will continue operating.
โAfter careful consideration, we will be concentrating Wickrโs focus on securing our business and public sector customersโ data and communications with AWS Wickr and Wickr Enterprise, and have decided to discontinue our consumer product, Wickr Me,โ the blog post reads.
โWe also realize that some of our business and public sector customers use Wickr to communicate with individual users outside their network. Weโre focusing on enabling this in AWS Wickr too.โ
For those who use Wickr Me, there are other free end-to-end encrypted messaging apps like Signal.