| ▲ | skerit 4 hours ago |
| > Most of my contacts made the switch, and I’m now at roughly 95% Signal for day-to-day conversations Years ago, I set up a Matrix server. I got some people to migrate, but ultimately even my husband stopped using it because the UI and accessibility of all the applications was so poor (and he has very bad eyesight, so this was a dealbreaker) Looking for another alternative, I ended up with Telegram. It was pretty open, easy to work with, had great UI and even a ton of funny stickers and emojis, so I got nearly all my friends to migrate. I did NOT go for Signal because I do not need end-to-end encryption all the time, and having all the same conversations available on my desktop as well as on my phone was important, and still is. Unfortunately, it's also run by a severe weirdo. So yeah, I'm not really sure what to use now. |
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| ▲ | Insanity 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Telegram is almost on the opposite end of the spectrum of Matrix & Signal so I wouldn’t really consider it an alternative. |
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| ▲ | Klonoar 3 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Their text explicitly acknowledges and waives away the security concerns for themselves. | |
| ▲ | pavel_lishin an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | How so? I genuinely don't know, despite casually using both. | | |
| ▲ | zadikian an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Opposite end in terms of security. Telegram group chats have no E2EE, private messages aren't E2EE by default (you have to initiate it as a "secret" chat), and the encryption itself is home rolled. | | |
| ▲ | Insanity an hour ago | parent [-] | | Yup exactly, their home rolled encryption is problematic in and of itself, but the fact that it lacks E2EE means you shouldn’t even trust it in the first place. |
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| ▲ | mogoh 18 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | It also contains scam advertisement by now. |
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| ▲ | justsomehnguy an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | It,s quite clear what you never used it. UX wise it's one of the best clients and probably in the top 3 network-wise. | | |
| ▲ | katdork an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | It's deeply insecure in most of the ways it is used. | |
| ▲ | Insanity 36 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | I should have been clearer in my initial post, but I was referring to the security issues with telegram rather than the UI. |
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| ▲ | HumblyTossed 11 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Over the years there's been a couple of apps that have tried to use email protocols as the backend for chat. I really wish those had gained popularity - there's a lot of overlap with messaging and email. |
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| ▲ | ibejoeb 3 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Isn't that just email then? I mean I guess you could wrap a bubbly UI around it, but you're not getting around the latency and spam. Those seem like dealbreakers to me. | |
| ▲ | 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 4 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | DeltaChat supposedly does that but I've never tried to interoperate it with email |
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| ▲ | an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | Arathorn 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| On the Matrix accessibility side, Element X has improved loads over the years - https://element.io/blog/helping-to-get-everyone-in-their-ele... and https://element.io/blog/element-is-accessible-by-design/ etc. |
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| ▲ | simgt 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Recently came across FluffyChat (https://fluffy.chat/), which works on matrix and has funny stickers and emojis ;) |
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| ▲ | fuglede_ a few seconds ago | parent | next [-] | | And for desktop apps, Cinny has custom emoji/sticker support. Would be nice if they played better with Element though. | |
| ▲ | WD-42 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I've been using fluffychat for over a year. It's a nice interface and the client I used to convince less technical friends and family to give Matrix a try. Unfortunately major functionality like being able to send images becomes broken for long periods of time https://github.com/krille-chan/fluffychat/issues/2497 |
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| ▲ | Ar-Curunir 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Signal supports desktop clients now, no? |
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| ▲ | toastal an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | How are you framing this? It’s an Electron app so it exists but doesn’t integrate or perform great. Last I recall you still were required to provide a SIM to sign up & you needed an iOS or Android primary device to even use the desktop client. Can you use a standalone, fast desktop application like you can these other protocols? I would say no, so “support” has shades of gray to it. This is how I got kicked off LINE… they had a Chromium app that I could use tethered to an app, they disabled support for LINE Lite (which had light/dark theme, E2EE, texting, voice/video calls, debatable trackers (Firebase), even stickers & sending a location @ 8MiB instead of 200MiB+ of the “heavy app”), I refused to “upgrade” as it was a downgrade to me, & since I was no longer registered with a “primary” device, I was booted from the network. I don’t think I want these mobile-duopoly-required apps to be my primary means of communication with folks—especially now that my primary phone isn’t Apple or Google (luckily Open Whisper lets WhisperFish exist). | | |
| ▲ | drnick1 an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | The Signal desktop app works fine, but you are right, it is still tied to a mobile account and a phone number. This is the main downside to Signal. I read that the Molly fork will support multiple accounts and a self hostable server. It probably won't be federated, but that is not really a problem when you can use multiple accounts and avoids a lot of headaches that come with federation. | |
| ▲ | simgoh an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | > but doesn’t integrate or perform great. Curious what you mean by this. I use the Signal Desktop app. It does what it's supposed to - send and receive messages in a timely way with no lag. What poor performance are you seeing? What doesn't integrate? | | |
| ▲ | DaSHacka 11 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Not GP but I've also had issues with the Signal Desktop app (installed from the Arch repos). Its overall a little sluggish in general (like most Electron apps though, in fairness) and occasionally clicking and dragging images onto the application will cause it to freeze and eventually crash. Plus, the general usability issues present in all variants of the signal client (like no easy way of restoring previous messages on a new device). It's not terrible or anything, but it's just a solid 6/10 application. I personally wish they were more open to 3rd party clients, so I could have something that integrates with my desktop environment a little better and is snappier, like my Matrix clients. |
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| ▲ | jeroenhd an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Has done for years now, but its desktop support is far inferior to even Matrix chat clients. It works in a pinch but you have to lower your standards quite a lot to use it as a true alternative. |
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| ▲ | next_xibalba an hour ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > Unfortunately, it's also run by a severe weirdo. Marlinspike, Acton, or someone else? Why does this matter? |
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