Orbeo
How to chat without giving out your phone number
A phone number is more than a way to text you. It leads to your messenger profile and photo, to accounts registered with it, and it stays with you for years. Here is how to keep it to yourself.
When it matters
- Selling or buying on a classifieds site.
- Meeting someone from a dating app before you know them.
- A chat with neighbours, parents from school or a hobby group full of strangers.
- Work contacts you will not need in a year.
Options, from simple to thorough
- Hide the number in your current messenger. Telegram and Signal let you set a username and hide the number from others. The account is still tied to it.
- A second SIM or virtual number. Works, but costs money and needs looking after.
- A messenger that has no number at all. In Orbeo you give out your Orbeo ID or a link. Do not want to hear from someone again — block them, and they have nothing else to find you by.
How to do it in Orbeo
Create an account at web.orbeo.me or in the app — just an Orbeo ID and an access code. Then send the other person your link from the profile screen: they open it, sign up the same way, and you are in the same chat.
What Orbeo is not
Orbeo does not have end-to-end encryption. The connection is encrypted, but messages are stored on the server in a readable form — that is how they reach your second device. Orbeo does not ask who you are, but it is not a tool for secrets that must be hidden from the service itself. For that, use a messenger built for it. Details are in the privacy policy.
Open Orbeo in the browseror download the app — Android, iPhone, Mac, Windows