Zoho co-founder and Chief Scientist Sridhar Vembu has revealed that Arattai, the company’s indigenous messaging app, will soon adopt mandatory end-to-end encryption across its entire platform. This marks one of the most substantial updates since the app’s debut, aimed at significantly strengthening user security.
The rollout will begin with individual chats before extending to group conversations. Announcing the update on X, Vembu explained that implementing compulsory encryption required extensive architectural changes and rigorous internal testing due to the complexity of the upgrade.
To ensure stability, nearly 6,000 Zoho employees are currently testing the enhanced version. According to Vembu, the engineering team has already addressed several issues discovered during the first testing phase, and a new round of tests is now being conducted on an improved build.
Although the latest version of Arattai—containing the encryption framework—is already available for download, the feature will remain disabled until all checks are completed. Users can also expect performance boosts, including a smoother and faster interface.
Vembu thanked users for their patience and mentioned that, if everything proceeds smoothly, the update will be deployed within a few days. The upgrade will be mandatory for all users due to the scope of the changes.
Responding to a user’s technical question on X regarding protocol-level adjustments, Vembu clarified that the underlying protocol remains stable. The challenges mainly lie in executing the mandatory transition for millions of users and resolving memory issues in Android devices when transferring large files—an issue not observed on iPhones.
