A couple of new things that I have discovered recently for private chatting.

TOX (www.tox.chat) - An open source project that is aiming t be a complete replcement for something like Skype or Yahoo messeneger, It's in alpha, so there are a lot of rough spots now, but it's eaasy to set up and use and the security is based on existing open soure libraries so tehy are testd and very secure. It does video, voice and tet messaging, and file transfers nd there are clients for all amjor platforms.. Everything is encrypted. The rough spots include incompatibilities between clients (the iOS client can only communicate with other iOS clients, for example), lack of features in some clients, can't be used simultaniously on multipe devices and some instability (though for an alpha it's good). Good things incude peer to peer messaging (no central servers), end to end encryption of everything, and ease of use. Worth checking out and it's only going to get better.

Wickr (www.wickr.com) - Provides excellent security for text chat, audio messages, and pictures. Clients are available for all amjor platforms, and while it is closed source it has been audited by externl groups, including the EFF. Messages re encrypted end to end, though there are central servers, and th sender can et messags, pictures, etc to expire after a set time. I would recommend looking through their website for more info. Recommended - it is one of the most secure and usable general messaging systems available today.

 I would not vouch for the anonymity of either of these systems though - you are on your own as far as that goes. If all you care about is prying eyes though there are both great solutions to try. 

With same caveats as other systems (see my status), feel free to add me on eithr of these - my ids are below. Tox requires that I be online for the add process to work, so it might take a few tries to succeed - msg me your id through IF if you like and I will try too.

Tox ID: BA1C576A9371BF28840DD9C2E0053D34E539270344C9A58CD179A3BA20012E1E9837761FF05A

Wickr ID -  ddy917