---
description: Understand ChatMe functionality by using our web interface.
---

# Get Started

To start using ChatMe web application you need NEAR Wallet and some balance of NEAR tokens to pay gas fees for service usage.

To create NEAR account please visit [https://wallet.near.org/create](https://wallet.near.org/create) and follow simple instructions. Safety save your seed phrase and don't share this information with other persons!

We deploy ChatMe service to testnet and mainnet [NEAR networks](../network-info):

* **Mainnet** - live mainnet network. \
  URL: [https://chatme.page/](https://test.chatme.page/)\
  Contract address: _chatme.near_
* **Testnet** - for testing.\
  URL: [https://test.chatme.page/](https://test.chatme.page/) \
  Contract address: _chatme.testnet_

Authenticate using your NEAR wallet and click "Launch App" to open messenger dashboard.



### Data Privacy

All messages that you send are publicly available in blockchain - anyone can see your transactions that contain all message details.

For direct conversations, you can use [Private Mode](../direct-messages#private-mode) to protect your messages - it will encode messages before sending to blockchain and decode on other side. This feature available only for accounts with Gold Level.

<mark style="color:red;">**We recommend to not send passwords or other important information because maybe in future current encoding algorithms can become insecure.**</mark>&#x20;

<mark style="color:red;">**Private Mode not work in public/private chats, it is available only for direct conversations.**</mark>

You can find more details in "[How does the encryption work](../direct-messages#how-does-the-encryption-work)" chapter and read [my conversation with near-js-encryption-box](https://github.com/NEARFoundation/near-js-encryption-box/issues/4) developers about security.
