Cover Website
Freedom Messenger serves a functional cover website at its root URL. Anyone who visits your server without logging in sees a normal-looking website instead of a messenger login page.
Why a Cover Website?
In environments where self-hosted communication tools may attract attention, plausible deniability matters. If someone inspects your domain — manually or through automated scanning — they see a legitimate website. The messenger interface is only accessible through the /app path after authentication.
Available Themes
Freedom Messenger includes three cover website themes:
- Blog — a personal blog layout with posts and articles
- Business — a company landing page with services and contact info
- Portfolio — a creative portfolio with project showcases
Customizing the Cover
From the admin dashboard, go to the Cover Website section. You can customize:
- Title — the website name shown in the browser tab and header
- Heading — the main headline on the page
- Description — the body text or tagline
Choose content that matches the theme and looks natural for the domain name you are using.
How It Works Technically
The cover website intercepts all requests to the root path (/) and serves fully rendered HTML pages. The server also adds headers that mimic an nginx web server to reinforce the cover. API endpoints (/api/*) and the messenger app (/app, /join) are handled separately.
Tips
- Choose a domain name that matches your cover theme — a blog cover works better on
myblog.example.comthan onchat.example.com - Fill in realistic content — an empty or default-looking website defeats the purpose
- The cover website is served to all unauthenticated visitors, including search engine crawlers