Fractional complex chaotic systems have attracted great interest recently. However, most of scholars adopted integer real chaotic system and fractional real and integer complex chaotic systems to improve the security of communication. In this paper, the advantages of fractional complex chaotic synchronization (FCCS) in secure communication are firstly demonstrated. To begin with, we propose the definition of fractional difference function synchronization (FDFS) according to difference function synchronization (DFS) of integer complex chaotic systems. FDFS makes communication secure based on FCCS possible. Then we design corresponding controller and present a general communication scheme based on FDFS. Finally, we respectively accomplish simulations which transmit analog signal, digital signal, voice signal, and image signal. Especially for image signal, we give a novel image cryptosystem based on FDFS. The results demonstrate the superiority and good performances of FDFS in secure communication.