[HN Gopher] Show HN: Beeper - All Your Chats in One App ___________________________________________________________________ Show HN: Beeper - All Your Chats in One App Author : erohead Score : 347 points Date : 2021-01-20 16:24 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.beeperhq.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.beeperhq.com) | erohead wrote: | While working on Pebble, we ran into a lot of issues as we tried | to enable messaging from the watch. For example, we never figured | out how to send an iMessage or WhatsApp reply. While digging | around for a solution to that problem, I thought it was odd that | no one had built a Adrium/Trillian/Meebo chat app for modern chat | networks. I buried that thought for a while, until I learned | about Matrix two years ago. | | Matrix is the holy grail of chat. It's end-to-end encrypted by | default, federated and open source. The only problem is that not | a single one of my friends or family was on it! Luckily the | Matrix folks had already envisioned a solution to this problem - | they built an API enabling 'bridges' between Matrix and other | chat networks. This struck a chord with me, maybe we could | finally build a single app that I could use to chat with all my | friends, regardless of which chat app they used. Through the | Matrix community I met Tulir, the most prolific bridge developer | and we started working together on what would become Beeper. I've | been using it as my primary chat client for almost 2 years now. I | could not imagine going back to the hot mess of 12 different chat | apps I had before! | | Beeper is a paid service because I think it aligns interests | between us and our users. We make a featureful and secure app, in | exchange you pay us money. For those who prefer to self-host, you | can run the entire Beeper backend stack on your own server. The | vast majority of the code we've written for Beeper is open source | on gitlab.com/nova. Our desktop client is closed source, but you | can use Element (or any open source Matrix client) if you prefer. | See our FAQ for more info or I'd be happy to explain more. | pinusc wrote: | As someone who self-hosts a bunch of bridges-great work! Really | appreciate seeing a simple solution for people who don't know | or don't want to self host. | | Also, seeing that Tulir is not working entirely pro-bono but | that his efforts are backed by a company makes me more hopeful | that the bridge development will continue! | sarthakjshetty wrote: | Holy! I don't remember the last time I was this excited for a | chat app. I just saw your tweet and came to HN to post it but | this was already on the front page haha. | | Just a quick question (completely noob question, I apologize in | advance), do bridges work like APIs? Where can I read more | about this protocol? | | Really looking forward to this Eric! | erohead wrote: | Simplest way to learn about the API is to look at several bot | implementations https://github.com/maubot/maubot | sarthakjshetty wrote: | Awesome! Thanks a ton! | NikolaNovak wrote: | This feels too good to be true. It feels a "Shut up and take my | money". I thought with effective demise of XMPP and myriad | differing standards and proprietary apps & protocols, this | could not happen anymore. | | I'll check out your site and you may have some very happy paid | users soon :) | wsinks wrote: | Ha, when all those apps started breaking out, I knew that there | would be a day when someone would finally connect them. Thank | you for the story about how Matrix enabled you here, we're all | standing on the backs of turtles! | nextaccountic wrote: | Hey, does it support Telegram stickers? | kitkat_new wrote: | I don't know about the app, but you can use Telegram stickers | in Matrix - somewhat. However, it requires a few minutes of | work: https://github.com/maunium/stickerpicker For video | watchers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz3H6KJTEI0 | have_faith wrote: | How "brittle" are the integrations? I guess I mean is this a | supported feature of all the 3rd party services or do you have | to rely on hooking into undocumented apis that could change at | any time etc. | erohead wrote: | I've been using it for the last year straight and I think we | only experienced one unforeseen breaking API change. | have_faith wrote: | Just chiming in, I probably wouldn't pay for $10 a month | for this service (maybe I'm not the target market). I do | use various messaging apps and it is annoying though. | | This jumped out at me: | | >we send each user a Jailbroken iPhone with the Beeper app | installed which bridges to iMessage | | I couldn't tell if that was some sort of joke or if it | meant something different to how I was reading it? | | Being open source is great, but to be honest I lack the | time (and expertise) to see how all the integrations work. | A page that describes a high level overview of how this | works exactly might build more trust. | | Good luck! | spamalot159 wrote: | How does your iMessage integration compare to AirMessage? | | I've been using AirMessage for a couple months now on my new | Android phone and it is about 80% reliable. Images and videos | also take significantly longer to processes than if I were to | use an iPhone. | | I wonder if Beeper would be an upgrade over AirMessage or if it | is essentially the same. | pseudalopex wrote: | Beeper requires a Mac like AirMessage. Or they'll send you a | jailbroken iPhone. | giancarlostoro wrote: | How old are these iPhones cause that's the oddest part of | that setup I've heard. | pseudalopex wrote: | iPhone 4.[1] | | [1] | https://twitter.com/ericmigi/status/1351934418961661959 | giancarlostoro wrote: | Thanks for that! It's kind of funny to me, but also kind | of cool. I guess you just have to be sure to charge the | iPhone every now and then. | pseudalopex wrote: | I think the idea is you leave it plugged in at home. | mrkramer wrote: | Couldn't all of these chat apps change their TOS and forbid | Matrix bridges like Discord forbid running through 3rd party | client? You depend on all of those chat providers to allow you | to hook everything in one app. | kitkat_new wrote: | t2bot.io hosts a Discord bridge and to my knowledge it is | officially allowed by Discord (else they could not have more | than 100+ bridge users). | luplex wrote: | Yes they can! But it's unlikely they would all do it at the | same time. | bluesmoon wrote: | As an answer to your first question: | | Between 2000-2003, I worked on components of the cross protocol | IM backend used by many of the multi-protocol messengers back | in the early to mid 2000s (eg: Adium, Trillian, Fire, Ayttm, | and more). Each of the frontends had different ways to | integrate. Trillian used 2 processes with TCP communication | between them to get around the GPL licensed backend), Fire, | Adium, Ayttm released everything under the GPL. | | Eventually most clients moved to using libpurple as the backend | (developed by the team behind Gaim), but the devs also started | getting older, busier, and having other responsibilities | outside of work. The only apps to survive were those that had a | business model that allowed them to reuse open source code | without having to release any of the code they developed | themselves. | | I personally stopped working on instant messaging in April | 2004, the night before I became a Yahoo employee, though I | continued blogging and doing conference talks about the | experience: | | - https://tech.bluesmoon.info/2004/09/fallback-messaging.html | | - https://tech.bluesmoon.info/2011/05/story-of-george- | ayttms-m... | | - https://tech.bluesmoon.info/2010/11/stream-of- | collaboration-... | GekkePrutser wrote: | Wasn't this NovaChat before? I signed up for the beta and was | thinking of planning a session with you for enrolment as you | mentioned in your last email, hasn't had time yet, sorry. Saw | it here at the last HN post. | | If it's available now I'll gladly use it. Since the Whatsapp | thing a couple weeks ago even more of my contacts have spread | out to different apps and it drives me nuts. | | Pricing sounds good too, I know these bridges need work to | maintain. I've tried to run them myself using the docker script | but it's not ideal. And supporting the maintenance is great. | gtf21 wrote: | How does this play with the security of e.g. Signal? Security | and privacy is the main reason many of us will use it so I | wouldn't want to compromise it. | | Would love to use this on Linux, I find all the desktop apps | really rubbish (and very happy to pay for it). | feanaro wrote: | Matrix's encryption is based on the same cryptographic | ratchet technology used by Signal. The protocols involved are | called Olm and Megolm. | | Olm is used for establishing 1-on-1 sessions between pairs of | users (or rather, their devices). This is then used as a | secure channel to share Megolm keys. A Megolm key is | ratcheted with each room message sent and is used to derive a | symmetric AES key with which the message is actually | encrypted. Periodically (every N messages) a new Megolm key | is created and re-shared with room participants. | | So the end result is that it has roughly the same security as | Signal, except that a single compromised Megolm key will | reveal N messages to the attacker instead of just a single | message. In return, the protocol is much more scalable, | enabling relatively efficient large end-to-end encrypted | groups. Otherwise, all the session self-healing, forward | secrecy properties of Signal are retained. | | TL;DR: Approximately the same as Signal, trading a tiny bit | of security in the event of a key leak for more scalable | encryption in the setting of large groups. | foolinaround wrote: | is the N configurable by the user? ( different paid tier) | feanaro wrote: | I don't know much about Beeper, but I do know more about | Matrix in general. And yes, the N is configurable there | (as in, you can change it in a client implementation, | even if it isn't particularly common to have it exposed | as a setting). | kevincox wrote: | I believe this is true for Matrix-to-Matrix communication. | However if I understand correctly the bridges terminate the | e2e encryption and then connect to the third party service | (possibly with a different e2e session). | feanaro wrote: | Yes, I was talking about native Matrix specifically. | km3r wrote: | you can self host the bridge between matrix and signal, | allowing e2e to a host you control, and e2e from that | host to your device. Perhaps not ideal, but likely | unavoidable if you want an all in one app like this. | gtf21 wrote: | So, essentially, if I self-host the bridges then there's no | security issue (otherwise it looks like a third party has | access to the keys to decrypt messages, unless the | negotiation just creates a tunnel through which the signal | connection occurs)? | erohead wrote: | yes, it's a secure tunnel to your self-hosted bridge from | client | rStar wrote: | so the answer is: yes this reduces security over signal for | both myself and whomever i'm chatting with. due to this, | seems like a questionable choice to include signal. | ignoramous wrote: | Thanks! Beeper looks amazing. | | > _Our desktop client is closed source, but you can use Element | (or any open source Matrix client) if you prefer._ | | I see most bridges are licensed AGPLv3 [0]: Aren't you required | to AGPLv3 the desktop client, too? | | [0] For ex: | https://gitlab.com/nova/whatsapp/-/blob/master/LICENSE | [deleted] | erohead wrote: | The bridges do not run inside the client, they either run on | your own self-hosted server or our cloud. | nextaccountic wrote: | > Then aren't you required to AGPLv3 the desktop client, too? | | Only if the desktop client is legally a derivative work of | the bridges. | StavrosK wrote: | I would love to pay you for this (though I think $10 is a bit | steep), but I don't want you to be able to read my messages, | which you are since you run the bridges. | crooked-v wrote: | > Beeper is a paid service | | It took me multiple times searching that page to find the "$10 | monthly fee" hidden in the FAQ section. You desperately need an | obvious pricing section. | foolinaround wrote: | $10 monthly for a chat service is a bit steep for users from | Asia and other places.. | viewer5 wrote: | Is it a just plain high price (e.g. if this was $50/month | that would be expensive for me, here in the US) or is it | high comparable to other things (e.g. "other messaging apps | would be closer to $3/month")? | pinusc wrote: | It's comparably high-other messaging apps are _free_. | Don't get me wrong, this is awesome-I've been doing it | myself manually by hosting bridges myself for a while, | and it seems like a very nice solution for non-tech-savy | users. | | But $10/month is steep, given that in practice you're | paying that much just for the convenience of having your | (pre existing chats) in the same app. | | What I don't get is that hosting your own bridges | requires the same $10/month subscription. If there was a | $2/month fee for "power users" instead, letting you host | your own... I would most likely get a subscription for | the convenience of using their better integrated | software. | troydavis wrote: | > What I don't get is that hosting your own bridges | requires the same $10/month subscription. If there was a | $2/month fee for "power users" instead, letting you host | your own... I would most likely get a subscription for | the convenience of using their better integrated | software. | | Those features may require extra engineering and support | effort, not less. | | (Even if these changes actually reduced the cost of | service delivery, it's usually a small part of the price. | In consumer SaaS, you're not paying for the cost of goods | sold, you're paying for everything else - particularly | software engineering, support, and marketing AKA customer | acquisition. A reasonable analogy is a restaurant, where | 20-30% of the meal price goes to food costs. In consumer | SaaS, the "food cost" is often 10%-20% of the "meal | price.") | smarx007 wrote: | I think generally paying for a messaging app subscription | more than you pay for your phone subscription (ARPU) is | going to be hard to sell to a wide audience. | | https://www.statista.com/statistics/668966/mobile- | average-re... | donclark wrote: | Good point. Maybe their pricing could be location based? | recursivedoubts wrote: | Thank you, I am very glad to pay you money to solve this | problem! | | Without an open source client, how can I be assured that you | aren't harvesting user data through it? | erohead wrote: | At first, you have to trust us though we will perform | auditing eventually. If you would like to use an open source | Matrix client, that works as well! | raunakdag wrote: | Do you guys plan on continuing with the jailbreakable iPhone | method for iMessage bridging for the foreseeable future, or is | there an alternative one can expect that is being worked on? | necrotic_comp wrote: | This is fantastic stuff. Thank you for building it. Matrix | truly is a wonderful piece of software. | arendtio wrote: | How about XMPP support? I mean, you are talking about Matrix | being the holy grail of chat and at the same time you do not | support the IETF standard for instant messaging (which is also | federated, supports E2E encryption, can use bridges to other | networks and has several open source implementations)... | | In general, my biggest issue with the Matrix community is that | they chose to build something new, instead of fixing something | existing. Granted, at the time when Matrix started, XMPP wasn't | fit for the mobile revolution. But instead of improving the | XMPP standard (which other people did afterward), the Matrix | people decided to build something new from the ground up. They | took a few different design decisions, but in my opinion, | nothing that would justify building a competing solution and | splitting the already thin developer community. | | Now we have too solutions, both failing to find significant | adoption. I understand that the matrix people probably built | their eco system as a hobby, so who am I to criticize them. I | just feel so depressed, seeing so much work being done on a | very important subject, not fulfilling its potential due to | missing focus. | Arathorn wrote: | Speaking as a Matrix person: we're quite happy with our | adoption, which is accelerating exponentially, and we didn't | build Matrix as a hobby: it's been the team's fulltime day | job since 2014. Before that we used XMPP (ejabberd + spark + | XMPP.framework etc) and eventually decided to build a totally | different architecture: one focused on syncing conversation | history, rather than sending instant messages. I don't think | it dilutes or splits the thin developer community: instead | it's increased interest in open comms enormously (as well as | helping spur the XMPP community into improving their stuff). | Just as Linux didn't somehow destroy BSD. | selfhoster11 wrote: | I can only thank you for your work. Open messaging | ecosystems are much better off for it. | arendtio wrote: | Well, even if I prefer XMPP over Matrix and still disagree | over the developer ressources, I wish you the best of luck, | because both solutions, being federated, are inherently | better than the competition by design. | acct776 wrote: | Was XMPP improved at that time? | | Or a mess of nonstandard addons/plugins that you had to match | up, like mods in a multiplayer videogame? | pseudalopex wrote: | They said XMPP improved afterward. The point is a combined | effort would be in better shape than XMPP or Matrix now. | | The problem with XMPP was every client implemented | different parts of the standard. The problem with Matrix is | every client implements different parts of the standard.[1] | | [1] https://matrix.org/clients-matrix | Semaphor wrote: | Close. It's a mess of standard addons/plugins that you have | to match up, like mods in a multiplayer videogame. | | Sadly for me, it's also the only modern messenger that has | decent desktop clients that don't look like discord. But I | guess that this will never change as I seem to be pretty | lonely with my want of those. | jiofih wrote: | Because XMPP sucks. It had 20 years to succeed, and failed. | Maybe it's time for you to move on? | | Last company I worked at that used it internally had | thousands of employees in IT and _still_ considered | maintaining the jabber server not worth it - a million XEP | extensions cannot bring it to the same level as a modern chat | client. On every matrix post the xmpp crowd comes out of the | woods, but what have you got to show? What's the best cross- | platform or web client for it right now? They all look like | half-baked ports of long abandoned QT apps made for Linux and | still don't support syncing /multi-presence well. | pseudalopex wrote: | Did the company switch to Matrix? | | XMPP was pretty successful in the 2000s. More than Matrix | so far. There were missed opportunities but the main reason | it declined was Facebook and Google decided closed was more | profitable than open. | | Why exclude native clients? | selfhoster11 wrote: | Messaging underwent an earth-shattering paradigm shift in | the past 20 years, so numerous features considered optional | back in 2000 are now mandatory when you want any mass | market appeal (which is the whole point when messaging is | dominated by network effects). | | A rework of the FOSS messaging ecosystem was much needed, | and Matrix was the one to deliver it and not XMPP. I say | the winner takes the crown, especially when the end result | is more coherent for users. | | The fact is that sometimes the kind of tool you need is a | solid monolith built from the ground up with specific | objectives in mind, and not a loose accretion of small | utilities and extensions. | pseudalopex wrote: | I wish Matrix delivered what it promised. But it hasn't | yet. | | Matrix is coherent if you use the reference server and | clients. But so is XMPP if you get them from the same | source. And the Matrix reference server needs pretty | powerful hardware. | arendtio wrote: | > And the Matrix reference server needs pretty powerful | hardware. | | That is not a bug, its a feature (or so the Matrix people | say). | | In fact, part of the Matrix design is a fat server which | has a lot more responsibilities by default than an XMPP | server. However, I guess a full-featured XMPP server | (with MAM, Push, etc.) probably has similar requirements. | pseudalopex wrote: | The Matrix people don't say it's a feature. They say the | rewrite will fix it. | | XMPP with MAM and push doesn't have similar requirements. | kitkat_new wrote: | > They took a few different design decisions, but in my | opinion, nothing that would justify building a competing | solution and splitting the already thin developer community. | | I'd argue that the design decisions are key to the success of | Matrix. However I do not think that there must be any | splitting. Checkout the XMPP Bridge that matrix.org hosts. | | > I just feel so depressed, seeing so much work being done on | a very important subject, not fulfilling its potential due to | missing focus. | | As long as there are people like Eric, there is hope :) I | think we have more focus than ever before, even within the | XMPP community :) | upofadown wrote: | >Checkout the XMPP Bridge that matrix.org hosts. | | Is there a description of how to generate an address on the | other network? This sounds awesome. A working bridge gets a | Matrix user access to the tens of thousands of federated | XMPP servers. | kitkat_new wrote: | Yes, there is: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix- | bifrost/wiki/Address-sy... | pseudalopex wrote: | The XMPP bridge means the user communities don't have to be | split. The developer communities are. | michaeljelly wrote: | Honestly so glad it's a paid service. I'm happy to pay for | something I can trust to handle my messages, rather than using | them against me to sell ads/send to shady data brokers! | | Awesome work Eric, Tulir, and the whole Matrix team too! | pimeys wrote: | I've been in the past few nights trying to build my own | Matrix server with integrations to Signal, WhatsApp, | Telegram, IRC, Slack et.al. It is quite a lot of work, even | with the Ansible script. First was the DNS SRV record, that | is needed to federate with matrix.org. And the Signal | integration happily sent messages to my friends, but I never | got any messages back. | | I have quite a lot of experience with Linux and server | maintenance. And I know if I put enough time to this, I'll | get everything to work eventually. I'm still saying that | paying money for somebody else to do this feels like a nice | investment at this point. The task of doing everything by | yourself is quite tricky. | pimeys wrote: | Need to add now I got everything working. Element running | in my own domain, connecting Signal, Telegram, Matrix | federation and IRC in a beautiful way. | | It is a lot of work, some of the documentation can be a bit | tough if you don't know how things work together and | especially the DNS setup can take a bit of time to get the | federation working. | aloisdg wrote: | If you achieve it, it could be nice to improve the | existing documentation. | spiffytech wrote: | $10/mo is steeper than I like for a chat app, but this is so | huge to just roll everything into one place, and I like that | it's OSS, so I'm happy to pitch in and support the devs even | if I'm capable of self-hosting the backend. | 411111111111111 wrote: | The messages still go through the "free" networks, so they're | still being used exactly like that. | pimeys wrote: | Thank you for Pebble! It was my main Diabetes app for seeing | the current blood glucose directly from my wrist until my | Pebble 2 finally died a year ago. It was almost like magic and | had a week of battery life. | | The commercial matrix bridge is an excellent idea. I was able | to get my homeserver running, but it is a hell of a job to get | everything working. When it does work, oh boy, it again feels | like magic! | erohead wrote: | So good to hear that! Have you considered buying one off | ebay? Still some good deals there :) | littlehugie wrote: | Will you Support Threema in the future? | liminalsunset wrote: | On the website it looks like it says Android and iOS via | Element [appears to be the renamed Riot.im matrix client]. Is | there no custom iOS or Android application for Beeper that this | will ship with? | GekkePrutser wrote: | Yeah riot was renamed, as they finally admitted that it was a | weird name with negative connotations. | | Never understood what was wrong with the name vector by the | way. That was even nicer IMO. | azinman2 wrote: | Where is the open source code for the iMessage bridge? | pseudalopex wrote: | It doesn't exist yet.[1] | | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25849040 | ibeckermayer wrote: | This is amazing. I had precisely this idea ~6mo ago (but never | actually built anything). Excited to see you've done all the | heavy lifting for me. I also love the paid model to align | interests and the ability to self host. I will definitely be | giving this a test run. | kitkat_new wrote: | Kudos to Tulir!!! | yters wrote: | Why isn't there a single app to aggregate and integrate all | social media and messaging and email and voice chat platforms? | Then it doesn't matter which ones come and go, and people don't | need to worry about the plethora of ways to communicate.. | selfishgene wrote: | ... because divided you are conquered. | mrleinad wrote: | Because a long time ago, Microsoft bought Skype and created its | own communication protocol. It was all downhill from there | on... | yters wrote: | But couldn't an app reverse engineer the frontends for all | these communication services and create an aggregation | overlay? E.g. what Dropbox did with the Mac osx filesystem. | ivanche wrote: | An app definitely _can 't_ reverse engineer the frontends | for all these communication services. A skilled developer | (or, more realistically, developers) probably can. They're | not cheap though. | yters wrote: | Doh of course! Hah I meant devs ;) | codebutler wrote: | Looks awesome, I'm looking forward to trying it out! A couple | questions: 1) Is the desktop app electron or native? 2) Is the | Mac iMessage bridge open-source? | | Thanks! | erohead wrote: | Desktop app is Electron. We will open source the iMessage | bridge in a few weeks. | dawnerd wrote: | Dang, was hoping it wasn't electron. | Hamuko wrote: | So much for that "Native Chat Is Better". | jnsie wrote: | This looks really neat. Would love to know more about how | iMessage is integrated and get thoughts on the likelihood of | Apple blocking it in the future. But kudos! | dmcc7897 wrote: | I have signed up and will happily pay for this the very second I | receive an invite. This is exactly what I need. | | The UI appears to be top notch, too. | ggrelet wrote: | I submitted my infos to Nova.chat (same form) a while ago. Do I | need to do it again? | erohead wrote: | Nope! | ggrelet wrote: | Waiting for the beta, then. | gcblkjaidfj wrote: | you are only enabling marketers and spammers. | | No user will ever use this in the way you are advertising here. | acct776 wrote: | You won't. | NikolaNovak wrote: | I may be missing something; I'm jumping at the bits to use | something like this, and I'm quite the opposite of spammer - | I'm just a nerd with heterogeneous family and friends who | refuse to all magically switch to my recommended and | _obviously_ superior chat app :P | jmarinez wrote: | Beeper bridges with WhatsApp. Does it mean that one can bypass | the upcoming Facebook data sharing requirement by just using the | Beeper client? | jcul wrote: | No, it just uses WhatsApp web. | | Even if it didn't the data is still passing through WhatsApps's | servers. | philsnow wrote: | I mentioned bitlbee elsewhere in this thread, but in case people | haven't heard of it, it's a similar beast to Beeper but it | bridges chat systems to an IRC client of your choice (you can use | an IRC bouncer or whatever else you want to connect to bitlbee). | It supports several chat systems https://wiki.bitlbee.org/ | including apparently Matrix. | | I mostly mention it as a historical note because bitlbee's use of | IRC as the bridged protocol means that it's of limited usefulness | on mobile. It was fantastic for me in the days before smartphones | became a thing, but I do at least 50% of my "chat" on my phone | these days. | donio wrote: | The use of IRC as the bridge protocol is actually the best | feature for me because of the multitude of client options of | available including several for Emacs. | | I love the text focus and at least for the protocols I care | about images and videos are presented as URLs so they are | easily accessible. | gkfasdfasdf wrote: | I thought WhatsApp banned thirdparty apps some time ago? How does | this work exactly? | episteme wrote: | Could be a wrapper around WhatsApp Web. | jcul wrote: | It is, the matrix WhatsApp bridge uses a reverse engineered | WhatsApp web library. | | > A Matrix-WhatsApp puppeting bridge. Written in Go using the | Rhymen/go-whatsapp implementation of the sigalor/whatsapp- | web-reveng project. | | https://matrix.org/docs/projects/bridge/mautrix-whatsapp | gkfasdfasdf wrote: | I'm sure it could be done that way, but if it violates TOS | then I would be wary that the bridge will be unreliable. | hansdieter1337 wrote: | I had that thought, too. That's the reason that stopped me | from implementing sth like that. I think a definitive | solution to a cat-and-mice game would be an automated | reverse-engineering of the chat apps. | noxer wrote: | 10$/month is absurd | scrollaway wrote: | Absurdly low. | sarthakjshetty wrote: | Another quick question, the webpage looks a lot like Mighty's. Is | it designed by the same folks or is it like a design language? | vini808 wrote: | This is really cool however I'm worried about getting banned from | discord using for using your service as I believe it's not | authorized on discord to use third party client | acct776 wrote: | Write them, tell them to fuck off with that. | carterschonwald wrote: | I assume some part of the iMessage faq is a joke ? | | > This was a tough one to figure out! Beeper has two ways of | enabling Android, Windows and Linux users to use iMessage: we | send each user a Jailbroken iPhone with the Beeper app installed | which bridges to iMessage, or if they have a Mac that is always | connected to the internet, they can install the Beeper Mac app | which acts as a bridge. | Groxx wrote: | Nope: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25852034 | [deleted] | zufallsheld wrote: | I just installed matrix and bridges for telegram, slack and | whatsapp using the linked ansible playbook. I used my own domain | and a new cheap vps. this took me about an hour. I connected | Element on my android phone to my new matrix server and now I | have all chats in one app and on desktop. That is totally great | and worked far better and easier than I imagined. Well done. | mrweasel wrote: | How does it work? Most of those protocols are't exactly open. | | Also please add support for Google Chat. | 2Gkashmiri wrote: | >This was a tough one to figure out! Beeper has two ways of | enabling Android, Windows and Linux users to use iMessage: we | send each user a Jailbroken iPhone with the Beeper app installed | which bridges to iMessage, | | is this not a joke? | dyeje wrote: | Yea, I'm really confused by that FAQ item. | erohead wrote: | Not a joke | https://twitter.com/ericmigi/status/1351934418961661959 | heroHACK17 wrote: | WUPHF.com 2.0 | olah_1 wrote: | If Matrix / Element had a better UX, it wouldn't need "bridges" | as the best selling point. | | I use other messengers because I find their features to be | better. If I preferred Matrix, I would use that without the need | for bridges. | pryelluw wrote: | wuphf.com ? | scottcorgan wrote: | this | jonplackett wrote: | 1) Is this actually live or just a concept. All I get a a survey | when signing up | | 2) This seems like a security nightmare. Is it? | asiando wrote: | I spent a lot of time and effort merging my chat clients in the | Meebo era and afterwards with XMPP proxies and I tried to keep | friends from messaging me in 3 apps at once. | | I gave up and that's fine. I have at least 4 messaging apps on my | phone and I still prefer that over debugging a proxy. A missed | message causes real-world problems, so it's important not to mess | with the delicate balance that IM already carries. | | If the benefit is easier archival and search, give me a solution | to that that works in the background rather than a real-time | proxy. | vessenes wrote: | Oooh, this is so exciting. | | I went down the bridged chat rabbit hole earlier this year when I | realized I had to be checking signal, telegram, WhatsApp, WeChat, | iMessage and multiple emails to be on top of communication. I | stopped when I realized how difficult WhatsApp and WeChat were | going to be, though. | | I want to pay for this, right now. Ideally double if it will help | you launch. :) | WorldPeas wrote: | For those that don't use a macintosh(or don't care about | imessage), ferdi is a great free alternative | recursive wrote: | There's a list of logos for supported chat networks. But it | doesn't give the names. I recognize about half of them, but it | would be nice if they were written in words somewhere. | bhandziuk wrote: | Scroll down to the FAQ Whatsapp | Facebook Messenger iMessage Android Messages | (SMS) Telegram Twitter Slack | Hangouts Instagram Skype IRC | Matrix Discord Signal Beeper network | recursive wrote: | I see it. Thanks. | | Still though, I'd like some alt text. It wouldn't even | disrupt the layout. | e-clinton wrote: | iMessage integration is interesting but I can't imagine it will | last. Not sure what type of wizardry you guys pulled but a cease | and desist is likely on its way. Either way, congrats. Really | hope it works out as this is very much needed. | aabbccsmith wrote: | I wouldn't use this for Discord, as it requires you to insert a | user token (aka self botting - which is against the terms of | service). Bar that, the app looks quite promising, but I would be | wary of what they are offering. | uoflcards22 wrote: | How do I get started? I put in my email like 10 minutes ago and | have received nothing... | mouldysammich wrote: | I was also a little confused, you'll get an email in a bit | explaining that there is a queue for signing up and they'll | inform you when you're in and that kinda thing. | uoflcards22 wrote: | Yup, just got it. Thanks. | soheil wrote: | If there is an iMessage bridge that would be considered a zero- | day exploit. There is no official or un-office API for iMessage | outside the Apple ecosystem and this is part of security measures | by Apple to ensure privacy. | acct776 wrote: | Maybe it works differently than that | soheil wrote: | Looks like they actually send you a jailbroken iPhone | physically in the mail to enable iMessage. Not sure how | scalable that is. | acct776 wrote: | I think the news they'll generate from it alone will be | worth it. | trinix912 wrote: | How exactly does this work? | | I find this interesting as it raises so many questions: | | Do they just give away free iPhones, or reset it for each | user and have them mail it back? What if it gets lost / | damaged during shipping? How do they cover the costs of | this? | soheil wrote: | I may be wrong on the physically mailing you the iPhone. | It could be that they ask for your Apple login and just | log you in to a jailbroken iPhone on their premise. | andoriyu wrote: | Well, no. iMessage protocol was reverse engineered, but they | patched it and make really hard to do crypto part of it. Hard | enough that people stopped trying - after all you still | required an existing registration from Apple's device and there | was no guarantee it stops working again. | | What they do is run ichat2json every time there is a new | message in a folder and AppleScript to send outgoing messages. | It requires a macOS with already authenticated Messages.app. | | It's not using any unofficial APIs, it's just a wrapper around | iMessage client on a mac. | morpheuskafka wrote: | Not sure how it would be a zero-day exploit.. you're allowed to | run whatever code you want on your Mac, and if you bypass the | sandbox by giving Full Disk Access or whatever other | permissions this uses, it follows that it will be able to read | your iMessage database. | | As for the iPhone bridge, that does use a jailbreak which is, | of course, an exploit--one that Apple has patched and the patch | deliberately not applied to the device in question. | dilly_li wrote: | "Beeper has two ways of enabling Android, Windows and Linux users | to use iMessage: we send each user a Jailbroken iPhone with the | Beeper app installed which bridges to iMessage, or if they have a | Mac that is always connected to the internet, they can install | the Beeper Mac app which acts as a bridge." | | This answers my question! One iPhone for each Beeper user, no | wonder the $10 monthly fee! | Andrew_nenakhov wrote: | Multiprotocol clients and transports are a dead end. | | Most walled garden messaging service developers are openly | hostile to third-party clients - this goes back to early 00s and | ICQ war against QIP and other much better clients. Modern | technology and app distribution model has made it far easier for | service owners to enforce their rules of using their service. | kitkat_new wrote: | This is a single protocol client, which can be replaced by any | Matrix client. | | This is why it is so good | Andrew_nenakhov wrote: | What you refer to is called 'transport',such transports for | xmpp exist for more than 20 years. | | They didn't fly because service owners don't really want them | to. Sometimes services resist actively, sometimes passively. | The protocol you use is irrelevant, xmpp, matrix, email, | whatever - this is never-ending game of catch up which the | service owner will win, because he _needs_ users to use their | stock app and all their metadata. | pseudalopex wrote: | Bridges make the server a multi protocol client. | kitkat_new wrote: | not really, they are all individual pieces put together - | independent of the server | philsnow wrote: | The problem is not the client at all. Look at the history of | libpurple/gaim. My chat setup used to be an irc client | connected to bitlbee (which uses libpurple), and (way back | when) the various chat system owners would either | intentionally or unintentionally break the integrations | fairly regularly. | | They have no incentive to keep their API stable since they | control their official client. | | On top of this, when you try to bridge disparate comms | platforms together, you end up with the client having only | the common subset of functionality, or with the client | emulating functionality clumsily. | | The example I'm thinking of is in iMessage, if you're on a | group text thread with people who are on SMS instead of | iMessage, "tapback" reactions (the thumbs-up, exclamation, | haha, etc ones) show up as "<name> emphasized '<the full text | of the message they !!ed>'". | kitkat_new wrote: | it's way harder to make all Matrix clients support all | protocols and somehow sync them properly than to write a | App Service that can be plugged to a server. | bkovacev wrote: | Is there a plan for supporting Viber? | 2Gkashmiri wrote: | can you give us a ballpark figues of how much of a vps is needed | to get started? you have given an ansible script and all but | minimum specs would be nice along with users it can handle | erohead wrote: | 2-3gb RAM + 50GB disk. Small CPU is ok. | tylermenezes wrote: | I've been using this for several months now, and it's one of the | biggest digital quality-of-life improvements I made in 2020. | Getting modern chat networks to interact is never something I | thought I would see. Congrats to Eric and co! | acct776 wrote: | What's the worst glitch you've had, if you don't mind me | asking? | tylermenezes wrote: | In the very early days the bridges were less reliable, and | there was no warning if a bridge disconnected, so there were | a few times when I didn't realize a message didn't go through | for a few hours. | | That's been fixed now :) | kevincox wrote: | I love the idea of hosted bridges (in fact I was thinking about | starting my own service like this) and I'm glad that the bridges | themselves are open source. However I would much rather that the | client was open source as well (It would make it way easier to | get all my friends to Matrix with a well polished client). | | Basically $10 a month for access to bridges that funds bridge | development is great however I don't want some of that to fund | the development of a closed-source client. If the client was | opened, or had work upstreamed to an open source client I would | be all on board. | da_big_ghey wrote: | I use weechat for this and it works fine. Slack, Discord, Signal, | etc. all bridge fine (though Signal is a bit messy). And of | course, IRC. The one thing I haven't figured out how to connect | is MS Teams, and it doesn't look like this service offers it | anyway; is there a reason to use it? | acct776 wrote: | Not for you, apparently. | monkeynotes wrote: | Does this support RCS flavours of SMS? | yingbo wrote: | Are there already many similar apps? I used two: Rambox | https://rambox.pro/ and Franz https://meetfranz.com | 50 wrote: | https://texts.com - it's not released yet but you can sign up | for early access. | navanchauhan wrote: | Anyone who is already in the early-access? | | This looks like an interesting alternative and I am looking | forward to trying both of them out once I get in | KishanBagaria wrote: | Yep, check out some tweets by our users here: | https://twitter.com/TextsHQ | navanchauhan wrote: | Ah you are the creator! I had a couple of questions: | | 1. Are you using unofficial APIs or do you have custom | bridges much like Beeper? | | 2. How would you deal with messaging apps like Snapchat? | | Also, you were right in saying "app invites are the new | currency of SV"[0]. Keep up the good work! | | [0] https://twitter.com/KishanBagaria/status/129475427399 | 8172160... | KishanBagaria wrote: | > Are you using unofficial APIs or do you have custom | bridges much like Beeper? | | All platform integrations were developed in-house from | the ground up. We don't use the Matrix protocol but | support it. | | > How would you deal with messaging apps like Snapchat? | | We don't plan on supporting Snapchat since it's single | session only. | folkrav wrote: | Those are glorified browsers wrapping the web based clients in | dedicated "tabs". AFAIK it looks like Beeper hosts a | matrix<->service bridge between those platforms, and their | client actually unifies messages in a single inbox. Seems to be | different. | smt88 wrote: | No, those are totally different. They're just Electron shells | around web versions of chat apps. They're also extremely | resource-intensive and buggy. | | Someone forked Rambox and kept it FOSS, and it's called | Hamsket. | folkrav wrote: | There is also an OSS hard-fork of Franz called Ferdi, for | anyone interested. Been using it for some time, I don't love | nor hate it. | halfjew22 wrote: | >How in the world did you get iMessage to work on Android and | Windows? | | >This was a tough one to figure out! Beeper has two ways of | enabling Android, Windows and Linux users to use iMessage: we | send each user a Jailbroken iPhone with the Beeper app installed | which bridges to iMessage, or if they have a Mac that is always | connected to the internet, they can install the Beeper Mac app | which acts as a bridge. | | Can you elaborate? Surely this is satire or I'm missing something | super obvious. | polishdude20 wrote: | Does this solve the whole security issues with WhatsApp and such? | It seems like just a proxy so it's not any more secure than the | apps it accesses right? | whycombagator wrote: | I thought I'd seen this before[0] | | Also: | | > I make no claims to this being production level reliability. | It's very much beta software. Very beta | | @erohead does this quote from you 6 months ago still hold | true?[1] | | This is a software I'd definitely use & pay for if it was | polished/worked. | | I quickly looked at the GitLab source and couldn't find the code | for the iMessage bridge. How does that integration work? | | [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23693371 | | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23694933 | erohead wrote: | It's 6 months better now! We haven't open sourced the iMessage | bridge yet, will do that in a few weeks. | meibo wrote: | > we send each user a Jailbroken iPhone with the Beeper app | installed which bridges to iMessage | | Huh, I wonder how this is sustainable. I assume there is a | greater cost than 10 bucks a month for this option? I wouldn't | want to be the one managing the logistical effort of that! | gpmcadam wrote: | Expect Apple to come down on this like a tonne of bricks and | render the whole thing impossible very quickly. | jhatemyjob wrote: | Never gonna happen as long as checkra1n can pwn the latest | iOS. Cat and mouse game. MobileSubstrate/Substitute/libhooker | is too powerful a platform. | bredren wrote: | It says you can run a Mac app but presumably this is to bridge | in users outside the Apple ecosystem. | | So probably it is the cheapest iPhone that has a year or two | worth of iOS support left and just sits plugged in. | | While a novel hack, I would never want my iMessage | conversations being bridged to a service outside the Apple | ecosystem. | | While I have no doubt this service will do their best with | security, it relies on leaking data from Apple. | | Imagine if someone built an insecure bridge for FaceTime Audio, | and the caller did not know the recipient was using a bridge | service. | | Any reliance on Apple's massive investment in the privacy and | security of a FaceTime transmission goes out the window and | into the hands of an unknown 3rd party. | | It also tricks the sender into thinking that their secure | iMessage conversations are what they look like. | | I know when i see a green chat bubble, that low level people at | Verizon can access the content of the messages. | | I see this as a big problem, where the goal of letting more | people in for UX reasons undermines expectations of privacy | from those uninvolved in the use of the product. | | People are mention Discord being unhappy with this, but I | imagine Apple would see this as an abomination. | morpheuskafka wrote: | > It also tricks the sender into thinking that their secure | iMessage conversations are what they look like. | | If you send a message to someone, you are assuming that | anything can happen to it unless you have a legal agreement | to the contrary. They could have a keylogger (malware or | device-management), someone looking over their shoulder, take | a screenshot, forget to sign out of the library computer, | etc. | | The end-to-end-encryption on iMessage gets defeated for most | people anyway if they have iCloud Backup on. | bredren wrote: | You are right, this has always been true with taking a | photo of a screen and printing it out on your printer. | | This defeats any truly end-to-end encrypted conversation. | | I think you are also right to compare this service to | malware. | | It takes content intended for a secured environment | maintained by one party and exfiltrates it into another. | | This other environment is protected by an entity that is | neither bound by the reputation damage of failing to keep | the information secure, nor on the receiving end of funds | that can be directed to keep it secure. | | Since 100% of the iMessage content, text and photos flows | through this environment, it is not like occasionally | taking photos of conversations. It is the wholesale | duplication of the data. | | iCloud Backups are also encrypted, and are the security of | that system is maintained by the first party the | conversations were originally sent by. | jiofih wrote: | > The end-to-end-encryption on iMessage gets defeated for | most people anyway if they have iCloud Backup on. | | iCloud backups are encrypted using a unique key which is | only unlockable with the user password, which is itself | protected in hardware. So no, it doesn't defeat the | purpose. | pseudalopex wrote: | Syncing messages through iCloud uses end to end | encryption. Backups don't.[1] | | [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303 | jiofih wrote: | Keep reading: | | > Messages in iCloud also uses end-to-end encryption. If | you have iCloud Backup turned on, your backup includes a | copy of the key protecting your Messages. This ensures | you can recover your Messages if you lose access to | iCloud Keychain and your trusted devices. When you turn | off iCloud Backup, a new key is generated on your device | to protect future messages and isn't stored by Apple. | mattmcknight wrote: | >I would never want my iMessage conversations being bridged | to a service outside the Apple ecosystem | | I think setting up an API outside the Apple ecosystem would | be fine. It's crazy that we not only don't have a standard | protocol for messaging anymore, the primary services don't | even allow for integration. | pseudalopex wrote: | They're using unsupported iPhones.[1] | | [1] https://twitter.com/ericmigi/status/1351934418961661959 | lxe wrote: | I was wondering how this is solved... and here's the answer! | Wish there was a free/foss DIY solution to this. | khimaros wrote: | this is a really cool project, and a great curation effort. there | are ansible scripts which they recommend for self-hosting: | https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy -- | most of the bridges (mirrored to their GitLab org) appear to be | unmodified from upstream. | erohead wrote: | The upstream bridges are written and open sourced by our lead | developer Tulir https://github.com/tulir/ | yur3i__ wrote: | The main appeal of this to me is the whatsapp part. If I can | reliably self host this and get rid of whatsapp on my phone, | replacing it with an open source app then that's awesome | scrollaway wrote: | Holy crap, this is inspiring. The blog post | (https://medium.com/@ericmigi/the-universal-communication-bus...) | really says it all. | | I've sent you an email. It's great to see the problem being | addressed the right way. | saltybytes wrote: | Isn't Beeper similar to Franz [0]? | | [0] https://meetfranz.com/ | dundercoder wrote: | I was just looking yesterday for a unified chat client, | specifically for slack and discord. Looks interesting. | AnonHP wrote: | This looks nice, but $10 a month is a tough sell for me (I use | only two of the supported platforms everyday, with about 20 | messages total in a day, on average). | | Also, why does the site ask for an email address to get started? | An explanation of why along with the on boarding process would be | useful. | | That aside, the Meet Our Team section on the homepage shows "This | is some text inside of a div block." on the right. Is this an | oversight or is it some inside joke? | anoa_ wrote: | Looks like that's a bug that occurs when javascript is | disabled. It should have another two entries. | | I assume they're now aware of it :) | chickenpotpie wrote: | Charging per network makes sense to me. I would only use this | for iMessage and signal, so it's only worth a buck or two a | month for me. If I was using everything offered I would gladly | pay $10 a month. | smt88 wrote: | I would pay $100/mo for it. | | I think it's just not a pain point for everyone. In a lot of | countries, "everyone" uses a single platform and it's not a big | deal. | | As a US user of 5 apps, some for business, it's just a mess and | a constant source of friction. | trinix912 wrote: | > In a lot of countries, "everyone" uses a single platform | and it's not a big deal. | | > As a US user of 5 apps, some for business, it's just a mess | and a constant source of friction. | | Depends on what countries you have in mind, but it's pretty | much the same elsewhere. Messenger, Instagram DMs, WhatsApp, | Snapchat, Viber, Discord, Telegram, Signal... You just need | to have all of them and this seems like a very elegant | solution for having all your messages in one place. | jackson1442 wrote: | Agreed. I would kill to not have to use Snapchat's app to | talk to some of my friend groups. Same goes for Instagram. | scrollaway wrote: | > _I would pay $100 /mo for it._ | | For a good quality one? Same. Signed up. | soheil wrote: | What happens if I have an iPhone and want to send/receive text | (not iMessage)? Is this officially supported or text messaging | only works if you have an Android? | BFatts wrote: | Trillian! | bfors wrote: | If I had a social life I'd be really excited about this | bichiliad wrote: | I've been really excited for something like this, and seeing that | it's built on top of Matrix is also exciting. One of my biggest | gripes as of late is how hard it is to, for example, limit your | time on Instagram without cutting yourself off from Instagram's | chat. I can tell my friends to send me texts as much as I want, | but there's always a message or two in Instagram that I don't see | until a day or two later than I want to. | michaeljelly wrote: | I have this exact problem too! Having tried Beeper, and now | using it every day, I can confirm it achieves this perfectly. | | I now just check Beeper in batches (there's a great shortcut | for cycling through unreads), rather than having endless apps | to check. | bichiliad wrote: | I can't tell you how great this is to hear! I'm really | excited to give it a try. | kuter wrote: | Some of the supported messaging apps doesn't allow automation or | provide APIs. I appreciate the work that went into supporting | those. But I don't think it would be possible to have consistent | support for some of those chat apps. Things like API changes or | just getting you server ips banned would disrupt service. | css wrote: | I used to use an app for this called IM+ in the early days of | iOS, looks like they're still around: https://www.plus.im | NikolaNovak wrote: | Is this actually active now? | | The FAQ implies it's an available product. Going through the form | indicates I may be invited to use at some unspecified point in | the future... :-/ | soheil wrote: | Interesting that "eroheard" comment seems to be pinned to the top | of this thread. Is this a new feature by HN and only available to | YC company founders? | flyGuyOnTheSly wrote: | I doubt it. | | Probably just a lot of upvotes in a short period of time. | | It's a pretty cool idea. | soheil wrote: | As far as I remember every time I post a comment it always | shows at the top for about a minute saying "0 minute ago", | but in this case it was the second comment right after I | posted. Anyone else noticed this? | usbfingers wrote: | While I think the core focus of Beeper as a cross platform | messenger is great, the bigger positive here in my opinion is a | matrix client with good UX and design. | | The user experience portrayed here is much more in line with what | is required to get people less technical on one | decentralized/federated network, such as matrix. | | I'm currently working towards the same effort, in a very | different stage of development, in that regard with | https://github.com/syphon-org/syphon. | | Props to Eric, Tulir, and the team for making such a good looking | client! | adkadskhj wrote: | Wait, did they do anything for the Matrix client? Their "Get | Beeper" section makes it seem like they just use the normal | Matrix client. | | > Available on MacOS, Windows, Linux iOS and Android via | Element | | Which i assume is https://element.io/ ? | erohead wrote: | I've been following Syphon, it looks great! | npmisdown wrote: | Could someone shed a light on economics of working on such kind | of a project? | | Aren't developing third-party client for the entity which you do | not control and somehow compete with is typically a futile | experience? | | Doesn't it go against most of ToS-es directly (e.g. | Discord/WhatsApp happily ban accounts using third-party clients) | or indirectly (I guess no proprietary chat platform will be | exactly happy having third-party clients that compete with their | official and controlled app). | | I mean how people justify building a business on it given that it | essentially means that they have to play on the other's people | playground by the rules which can be changed at any time. Like | tomorrow Slack would decide to disallow any third-party apps and | you're done. | anticensor wrote: | Discord allows relay bridges (using bot accounts), but not | puppeting. | jakelazaroff wrote: | Doesn't using this with Discord run a risk of your account | getting banned for using a third-party client? That's why the | Cordless developer shut down the project: | https://github.com/Bios-Marcel/cordless | kitkat_new wrote: | t2bot.io hosts a Discord bridge and to my knowledge it is | officially allowed by Discord (else they could not have more | than 100+ bridge users). | | So I imagine there might be the possibility of it being allowed | for Beeper as well. | Half-Shot wrote: | t2bot.io uses webhook/bot based bridging which at least | doesn't trigger the "no custom clients" clause (as you aren't | using any real user account tokens) | | The broader question of whether bridges are allowed seems to | be broadly yes as there are many other bridges out there for | Discord (IRC/slack ones) and those haven't been shut down | either. | | I think so long as you aren't abusive, Discord don't care. | stryan wrote: | They're using HalfShot's appservice bridge I think, which works | entirely through the standard Discord API with bot users. IIRC | Discord is very much aware of the project. | | Discord's generally fine with anything using it's API/gateways | as long as it's NOT logging in as a "real" user. | acct776 wrote: | After a disclaimer, that sounds like a problem between the user | and the Discord people. | jakelazaroff wrote: | Yes -- I would be the user, and I would like to avoid that | problem. | maelito wrote: | > Interesting, please tell me this is based on matrix | | > Oh, the matrix logo among others, good thing at least | | > YES ! | xx4xx4 wrote: | i hope the company supports parity purchasing power for the 3rd | world countries... idk maybe $5 a month.. it would be very | helpful.. | arsome wrote: | If I'm not mistaken, if you're using this with Signal you'd | better be running the bridge yourself or your messages are | unencrypted on someone else's server. | dkman94 wrote: | Is this the wuphf rebrand? | xlance wrote: | Just watched this episode earlier today, my exact thought ^^ | recursivedoubts wrote: | Please, someone do this for email. | tracyhenry wrote: | Doesn't your phone's email app support multiple email accounts? | Gmail and Outlook both support mail forwarding too? | recursivedoubts wrote: | The cross-platform client aspect of it (linux in particular) | is what I'm interested in. | | I used mailspring for a while but it just was too buggy for | me unfortunately. | erohead wrote: | Already in the works :) | https://github.com/JojiiOfficial/Matrix-EmailBridge | fangyrn wrote: | what do you mean? | jcul wrote: | This looks great. | | I'm just in the middle of trying to set up a home server using | dendrite to do exactly this (mainly for fun). | | This looks really well done and polished though. | | It's great to see services like this using matrix as it can only | mean positive feedback for the protocol / server code. | | Is it using synapse or dendrite (or something else) for the | server? | erohead wrote: | we use synapse right now. Hopefully moving to dendrite when | appservice support is added | lc3sim wrote: | Congrats on the launch! My understanding of the space is that | there is a great desire for "super powered" messaging - | especially over text. Any chance "send later" is a part of your | roadmap? Or possible to implement using your API? | erohead wrote: | definitely on roadmap | hansdieter1337 wrote: | I guess it's only a matter of time until Facebook et al fight the | bridges in form of lawsuits and API changes. Some years ago | Facebook's chat was accessible via the Jabber protocol. I think | they won't like users switching away from their apps and miss the | control and ad revenue. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-01-20 23:00 UTC)