Confer
Encrypted AI chat in AI tools
People recommend it as an AI chat service built to keep conversations private, with the approach seen as a real improvement over typical AI APIs. Critics say the server still decrypts data and users must trust Confer.
People recommend it as an AI chat service built to keep conversations private, with the approach seen as a real improvement over typical AI APIs. Critics say the server still decrypts data and users must trust Confer.
41 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 21
- criticize it
- 20
- approval share
- 51%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 21 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1 recommender for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Stronger privacy than mainstream AI services
“it's still a distinct threat model from "we use the API of a company run by one of the least trustworthy humans on the planet."”
Comment from 14 Jan 2026 in “Signal creator Moxie Marlinspike wants to do for AI what he did for messaging” “Feels like what Confer does it better than the current situation”
Comment from 20 Mar 2026 in “Signal's Creator [Moxie Marlinspike] Is Helping Encrypt Meta AI” “AI services with better privacy than the mainstream ones”
Comment from 31 Oct 2026 in “Proton goes all in on using AI” - Comment from 10 Mar 2026 in “Intel Demos Chip to Compute with Encrypted Data”
- Comment from 28 Feb 2026 in “OpenAI Executes Agreement with Dept of War for Classified Environment Deployment”
Attested server approach seen as pragmatic
“tees and remote attestation are a pretty pragmatic solution here that meaningfully improves on the current state of the art”
Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Confer – End to End Encrypted AI Chat” “generally pretty well thought out, doesn't get us to an entirely 0-trust e2e solution, but is still very good”
Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Confer – End to End Encrypted AI Chat” “Using remote attestation in the browser to attest the server rather than the client is refreshing.”
Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Confer – End to End Encrypted AI Chat” Built by Signal creator Moxie Marlinspike
“I quite like Moxie's Confer approach to just encrypt the whole thing in such a way that no one except the end-user sees the plaintext.”
Comment from 26 Apr 2026 in “OpenAI model for masking personally identifiable information (PII) in text” “Moxie is a pragmatist who builds things that the average person can actually use.”
Comment from 16 Jan 2026 in “Signal creator Moxie Marlinspike wants to do for AI what he did for messaging” “This already exists, confer.to, made by moxie (the guy that made Signal)”
Comment from 6 Oct 2026 in “Anthropic reported diary entry to police, woman faces felony charge” - Comment from 26 Apr 2026 in “OpenAI model for masking personally identifiable information (PII) in text”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Server still decrypts prompts and outputs
“if it's not hallucinating, the backend server indeed decrypts the output of the LLM; only the user prompt is E2EEed against the server”
Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “Confer – End to End Encrypted AI Chat” “Even so, you're still exposing your data to Confer, and so you have to trust them that they'll behave as you want.”
Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Signal creator Moxie Marlinspike wants to do for AI what he did for messaging” “generally pretty well thought out, doesn't get us to an entirely 0-trust e2e solution, but is still very good”
Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Confer – End to End Encrypted AI Chat” - Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Signal creator Moxie Marlinspike wants to do for AI what he did for messaging”
Hard to verify privacy claims
“it seems like I have to have a fair degree of knowledge and technical skill, not to mention time and effort, to confirm that everything is as they're representing”
Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Signal creator Moxie Marlinspike wants to do for AI what he did for messaging” “They don't list which models are available without going through the sign-up process.”
Comment from 8 Aug 2026 in “How to search documents we can't read – Confer Blog” “they can't explain how the technology at the heart of their product works”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Confessions to a Data Lake” - Comment from 16 Jan 2026 in “Signal creator Moxie Marlinspike wants to do for AI what he did for messaging”
- Comment from 14 Jan 2026 in “Confer – End to End Encrypted AI Chat”
Relies on TEE hardware trust
“It's a nice approach – if only Intel SGX were more trustworthy.”
Comment from 26 Apr 2026 in “OpenAI model for masking personally identifiable information (PII) in text” “Again with the confidential VM and remote attestation crypto theater?”
Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Confer – End to End Encrypted AI Chat” “doesn't seem to include in the attestation the model weights”
Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Confer – End to End Encrypted AI Chat” Passkey setup fails on some devices
“I am unable to run it on my mac (passkey support)”
Comment from 20 Jan 2026 in “OpenAI is rolling out age prediction” “So... does this just not support desktops without overpriced webcams, or am I missing something?”
Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Confer – End to End Encrypted AI Chat” “Authenticator did not return a PRF result — this passkey probably isn’t PRF-capable.”
Comment from 28 Feb 2026 in “Don't use passkeys for encrypting user data” - Comment from 28 Feb 2026 in “Don't use passkeys for encrypting user data”
What people said
40 of the 42 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“AI services with better privacy than the mainstream ones”
“This already exists, confer.to, made by moxie (the guy that made Signal)”
“They don't list which models are available without going through the sign-up process.”
“remote sealed computing (a la Confer.to) is another option for this which preserves the economic advantage of the cloud”
“Moxie's Confer is really interesting!”
“It's a nice approach – if only Intel SGX were more trustworthy.”
“it suggests that the only authentication allowed on your end is through Google's GMail”
“I quite like Moxie's Confer approach to just encrypt the whole thing in such a way that no one except the end-user sees the plaintext.”
“Feels like what Confer does it better than the current situation”
“Very laudable project. But I don't get how this fits with Meta's business model.”
“If you're interested in private AI, see Confer”
“Sounds like the website did a shitty job at implementing passkeys.”
“the only option that reasonably delivers”
“Authenticator did not return a PRF result — this passkey probably isn’t PRF-capable.”
“if it's not hallucinating, the backend server indeed decrypts the output of the LLM; only the user prompt is E2EEed against the server”
“I am unable to run it on my mac (passkey support)”
“Collecting the email doesn't inspire much confidence.”
“Moxie is a pragmatist who builds things that the average person can actually use.”
“My issue is it claims to be end-to-end encrypted, which is really weird.”
“The fact that confer allows Google login shows that Confer doesn't care about users privacy.”
“only way to set-up and account is to sign in with google”
“calling this E2E encrypted AI chat is a bit of a stretch”
“it's still a distinct threat model from "we use the API of a company run by one of the least trustworthy humans on the planet."”
“the claims made by these services are nonsensical/dishonest”
“it seems like I have to have a fair degree of knowledge and technical skill, not to mention time and effort, to confirm that everything is as they're representing”
“generally pretty well thought out, doesn't get us to an entirely 0-trust e2e solution, but is still very good”
“doesn't seem to include in the attestation the model weights”
“That does not attest that there is no sidechannel.”
“So... does this just not support desktops without overpriced webcams, or am I missing something?”
“tees and remote attestation are a pretty pragmatic solution here that meaningfully improves on the current state of the art”
“Lots of ifs there, though.”
“Even so, you're still exposing your data to Confer, and so you have to trust them that they'll behave as you want.”
“even providing an option for Google SSO is too ironic”
“That is a highly misleading statement: the GPU runs with real weights and real unencrypted user plaintext”
“Again with the confidential VM and remote attestation crypto theater?”
“I don't agree that this is end to end encrypted.”
“That is funny it won't even show us the homepage.”
“Using remote attestation in the browser to attest the server rather than the client is refreshing.”
“yet they reject even allowing it as an option because they don't like the ux.”
“they can't explain how the technology at the heart of their product works”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.