Install
No store. No update to wait for.
It is a web app, so opening the address is the whole install. Adding it to your home screen is what makes it behave like everything else on the device.
Open it, and you are in
Signed in on Surf means signed in here. Your conversations are the same conversations, reached through a different door.
Maya Chen
End to end encrypted
Adding it to your home screen
Three platforms, three menus, one address.
iPhone and iPad
- 1Open web.surfmessenger.com in Safari.
- 2Tap Share, then Add to Home Screen.
- 3Open it from the home screen, not from Safari.
Safari is the only browser on iOS that can add a web app to the home screen, so use it for this step even if it is not your usual one.
Android
- 1Open web.surfmessenger.com in Chrome.
- 2Open the menu, then Install app.
- 3It appears in your app drawer with the rest.
Android draws its own shape around a launcher icon. The mark ships as a maskable icon, so it fills the shape rather than being cropped inside it.
Desktop
- 1Open web.surfmessenger.com in Chrome or Edge.
- 2Use the install control at the end of the address bar.
- 3It opens in its own window.
The installed window has no browser chrome, so a laptop gets the same layout as a phone rather than a page inside a tab.
What installing actually changes
The same app, with the things a tab cannot give it.
- It opens in its own window and starts on the messenger rather than on Surf.
- Long-pressing the icon offers Requests and Starred instead of the social app's shortcuts.
- The interface is cached, so it opens with no network and tells you plainly when a request cannot go out.
- Push notifications survive the browser rotating your subscription, because it re-subscribes itself.
- A call arrives as a notification you can answer or decline without opening the app first.
A new device starts empty
This is the cost of keys we never hold, and it is worth knowing before you install it somewhere new.
Only your devices can open your chats, so a browser you have never used cannot read what it was not there for. Approve it from a device you already use, or restore your backup with the recovery key, and your history comes with you. Up to five devices at once; the least recently used one is dropped after that.
Before you start
- What you need
- A current browser with IndexedDB and Web Crypto
- What it costs
- Nothing, on every platform
- Account
- The Surf account you already have
- Languages
- Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish
- Right to left
- Arabic lays out right to left throughout