Curious to hear what people thoughts are on session a privacy orientated messaging app https://getsession.org/
Still centralized, not self hostable, so subject to a lot of the same problems. Matrix or xmpp have this problem solved.
xmpp
Just setup a self hosted server. My family are now all chatting on it. Works great and simple to use.
Matrix is an overhead mess, from what people have advised me. Avoid.
*Synapse is a mess
The Matrix protocol is certainly more complex than XMPP, but I think a lot of bad fame comes from Synapse being big, bulky and complicated.
I think that’s the protocol’s fault. I’m no expert on sypase, but as someone who used to be a diehard Matrix evangelist and has used it for about a year, my belief is that the protocol itself simply has too many features for any stable and robust implementation to exist. The reason synapse is the only proper server implementation is because it’s too diffiicult to make one. Likewise, there’s only one fully functional client, and only ever will be, because there are too many features and they refuse to stop adding more so no other client will ever catch up. And that one client has constant bugs, anti-features (like the annoying “secure your data” popup or whatever that comes up every time I open it), and is a web application (horrible for a secure app).
Just wanted to point out this bullet point on Session’s website:
Censorship resistant: With no central point of failure, it’s harder to shut Session down.
Wouldn’t their server be a central point of failure?
Is not a server, is a network of service nodes but almost all of them are in the same country.
That’s a bit better, I suppose, but if all of the nodes are in one country, then potentially the network is one poorly written law away from being shut down. They should probably branch out to other countries just in case.
I like Session because it is anonymous (onion relay), decentralized, doesn’t require a phone number, and I can have multiple accounts. But I still have to dependend on other people’s generous infrastructure.
With Signal, you have to trust the server software (and hope it doesn’t get hacked) to not collect a social graph, and the server address can be blocked/censored. Allowed one account per phone number. It’s nice making communication easy, therefore will prevail as being the most popular…until a government or hacker takes down the service.
Session concerns/wishes:
- Dependency on nodes to relay communication. I wish for independence.
- Australia, but Signal USA can be just the same. Who knows what governments will force organizations to do (or prevent them from being monetized).
- Wish I could have disposable aliases to handout (similar to email alias).
Matrix and XMPP still require a server, and trust. Gajim/XMPP seemed clunky to me. Tox over Tor is fast, simple, nice…but handling offline messages is a problem.
What I really want are these communication apps to be both client/server. Similar to torrenting/DHT and I2P. No need to administer a server, or for your server to become a dependency, or need to have a domain so all your contacts can reach the server.
Status might be better. Seems to offer everything Session has, but P2P. Not sure where DApps and crypto wallets is going though…seems like a lot of messengers are headed in that direction.
What are your thoughts on briar. Its like session but you don’t need a central server to chat over tor. It has use features where you don’t even need internet.
Downside is that it is only available for android.
I don’t use it because it’s Android only, which greatly limits communications.
Berty.tech might become an alternative to some of Briar’s features.
Session/Status don’t need a central server either (decentralized and distributed).
The question I have is how much is something decentralized/distributed and how peer discovery works. Ideally everyone would be a client/server (like bittorrent and I2P).
Well it is me tooting the horn. I feel a balanced aproach is federation ( I hear “duh!”). A central node makes it convenient & fast yet for the sake of not giving power to one th3 nodes are to be distributed to serve there local/thematic community where the locals can also interact with other nodes and people there.
Few easy to implement (relatively) chats are matrix, xmpp, Delta chat + own email server.
I love it, and it’s idea in fact i ditched signal after their “mobile” coin update and i use session now
lmao ditching the service that implements a cryptocoin for a service that is built on a blockchain onion routing protocol…
at least they did not hide their server code for year :p
I have to say that all these private messaging applications are absolutely impressive, the problem is that no one utilizes them. that is why Whats App has become free, to make sure it is extremely difficult to get away from it.
One problem is so many friends etc are on Signal so you always have that challenge anyway moving people. It’s one reason why I have 10 to 13 messengers on my phone, problem is most others have two or three max.
I have 10 to 13 messengers on my phone
Could Matrix bridges solve this?
Yes but no. If you have your own server and all necessary bridges installed it would mostly work fine. The problem is this requires quite a bit of server hosting experience which most “normal” people don’t have. Another option would be using bridges hosted by others, but this is problematic in my opinion because you share private information about your contacts with a third party without their consent or knowledge
Use https://t2bot.io and don’t forget to donate if you can.
Not for all the messengers I use, and some of Matrix’s bridges are commercial as I recall. Certainly Matrix helps me with IRC and Telegram bridging.
Did you check https://t2bot.io ?
Yes I’m using Jami, Manyverse, YouMe Social, Threema, Wire, WickrMe, Planetary, etc which are generally not bridged. But they do have some good options there.
Manyverse cannot be bridged easily (it is p2p), same for Jami (unless is used by a SIP account) and Wire doesn’t allow it in their main instance by its ToS (there is an issue asking to allow it even).
Exactly, that is why I have to have them installed
Maybe you are misunderstanding me.
I point you to that because what you mentioned as “Not for all my messengers” was meant like it was Matrix fault which is not (this meaning was also supported because you mentioned later that some are commercial which is not true for any listed in the Matrix.org list).
I suggest you to read https://github.com/oxen-io/session-android/issues/73 at all.
