[HN Gopher] Matrix 2.0: The Future of Matrix ___________________________________________________________________ Matrix 2.0: The Future of Matrix Author : jrepinc Score : 380 points Date : 2023-09-21 15:53 UTC (7 hours ago) (HTM) web link (matrix.org) (TXT) w3m dump (matrix.org) | wkat4242 wrote: | There's no web version of element X though? It's what I use most | of the time. I'll try the Android app anyway, I've been having a | really annoying bug with the normal one anyway that hasn't been | fixed for a year. So perhaps X doesn't have it. | Arathorn wrote: | Element X works pretty well on macOS as a desktop client if you | have an Apple Silicon Mac. Otherwise, the big Element Web | rework is yet to happen. | | On Android, I can almost guarantee your bug will be fixed: | Element X Android doesn't share any code with Element Android | at all, as far as I know (given the former is mainly written in | Rust, and the latter is all Kotlin) | wkat4242 wrote: | Ah ok no I don't have a Mac, I use FreeBSD :) | | And thanks I'll try that out!! I really hope it fixes that | sync bug. Thanks for all your work on it. It's a great | platform. | fladd wrote: | Yes, I was also surprised that the new features are only for | phones. I guess aiming to be "better" than other chat apps | (with the others nowadays being Whatsapp and co) means to be | "mobile first"... _sigh_ | abdullahkhalids wrote: | Is Matrix simple enough now that I can invite my grandpa/grandma | and they will be able to join? | | How does ease up sign up and use compare to discord? | | Assume that I make the choice of which client to direct them to. | soupbowl wrote: | It is less simple than discord and I does not have good audio | rooms. I setup family accounts and store their security key for | them. Then I help them setup their app in a few minutes and | paste them their security key once they are on my matrix | server. | | In the past I left sign up and setup to family and the element | app and it has never worked smoothly. They don't understand the | security key purpose or verifying clients. | | So to answer your first question, yeah you can invite grandma | and grandpa but they probably will need some hand holding at | the start. Once they are in, it just works(tm)**. YMMV | masfuerte wrote: | My octogenarian mother uses it. | airstrike wrote: | Did she set it up herself? | masfuerte wrote: | No, but that's true of all the software she uses. | Arathorn wrote: | Matrix itself is a protocol, so is as hard or easy to use as | the client that you use to access it. | | Matrix 2.0 is all about demonstrating that a really really | fast, mainstream-grade app can be built on Matrix, in the form | of Element X: https://element.io/blog/element-x-ignition/. | However, right now Element X is intended for existing Matrix | users - so unless you have a bleeding edge homeserver, sign-up | doesn't work yet. So it's not quite in grandma/grandpa | territory yet... but once you're in, it most certainly is. | eviks wrote: | Do they also plan to ditch the desktop Electron version for the | users to enjoy similar performance improvements? | Arathorn wrote: | Element X actually runs really well on macOS already on Apple | Silicon; I regularly use it as my desktop app whenever Element | Web is having... issues. It would be amazing to plonk matrix- | rust-sdk into Element Web and switch Electron for Tauri or | something... but one thing at a time. | fabrice_d wrote: | It would be nice to provide first class support for state of | the art web clients (both desktop and mobile). That would fit | your opening stance of "Matrix has been going for over 9 | years now, providing an open standard for secure, | decentralised communication for the open Web" more than apps | tied to the iOS/Android app ecosystems. | chamik wrote: | This is an amazing step in the right direction. I host a small | conduit server for a friend group and I can't wait for the | improvements this will bring as a whole! | | Good work. | internetguy wrote: | Awesome! I've been using matrix on and off for around 3 years and | I absolutely love it. | kibwen wrote: | Techy friend group of mine migrated from Discord to a self-hosted | private Matrix server a few months back. No complaints so far, | although we didn't use Discord's voice/video/screen-sharing | features (which I hear that Matrix intends to support | eventually). | | UX-wise, it made me appreciate the distinction between Discord's | "everyone is subscribed to every channel in a server by default" | stance, and IRC/Matrix's opposite approach. The latter certainly | scales better, but the former is so, so much better for | discoverability, so it's probably the better default for small | servers. | | And if you're looking for a Matrix client with a Discord-like UI, | try Cinny. | Arathorn wrote: | The plan on Discord-style voice/video/screensharing features is | Element Call (https://call.element.io) which is built to be | embeddable into Matrix clients. It's already in Element X, and | is in Element Web/Desktop behind a labs flag. Meanwhile you can | always embed Jitsi. | preya2k wrote: | Once more, Kudos to Arathorn/Matthew (the head of Matrix/Element) | taking the time to answer most Hacker News comments, as he mostly | does for all Matrix-related HN threads. | | It's really nice to see him answer in a calm and mostly objective | tone while people are blaming him for shortcomings and problems | of all the different Matrix-related software projects. Admitting | to failures and problems that Matrix definitely has, while still | defending the overall project and giving insight into the status | of MSCs/projects is admirable. | | Thank you Matthew. I wish you an endless amount of patience for | the future. | Arathorn wrote: | thanks :) sorry for monopolising the thread, but it's too | tempting when I have the answers to hand, for better or | worse... | preya2k wrote: | Looking forward to your talk tomorrow in Berlin. | Arathorn wrote: | if I get there; my flight just got cancelled... | jacooper wrote: | Which talk? Is there a link? | preya2k wrote: | This one: https://summit2023.matrixmeetup.de/conference/t | alk/AXGMEA/ | | Don't think there's a live stream. But there might be a | recording afterwards. | Arathorn wrote: | There should be a live stream. (And I might even make it | there in time to give the talk). | [deleted] | noname120 wrote: | Oh wow congrats to the entire team for this amazing achievement! | And the cake under the cherry is... Element X is open-source as | well[1][2]! | | I really can't wait for Beeper[3] to rebuild their fork on top of | Element X (it's currently based on Element, formerly called | Riot). When this happens it will be an absolute game-changer for | the messaging ecosystem. | | -------- | | [1] https://github.com/vector-im/element-x-ios | | [2] https://github.com/vector-im/element-x-android | | [3] https://www.beeper.com/ | Arathorn wrote: | Beeper don't seem to like Sliding Sync, for whatever reason, so | I wouldn't hold your breath on it ;) | 16 wrote: | From what I understand, the Beeper team has invested a lot of | time and effort (and code!) into their own "make matrix go | vroom" solution which also benefits their complex bridging | system, and I imagine it would take some significant | engineering time to unravel it for sliding sync. | smashah wrote: | Matrix is great but when is the tech industry going to deal with | the fact that many, if not all, bridges are against the | respective services' ToS and subsequently put the developers of | those bridges under legal risk? Whatsapp has already sent legal | threats to multiple bridge-component level project maintainers | without any recourse. | [deleted] | progval wrote: | The EU just designated Whatsapp as a gatekeeper under the | Digital Markets Act: | https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_... | following the "full list of do's and don'ts" link on that page: | | > Gatekeeper platforms will have to: | | > - allow third parties to inter-operate with the gatekeeper's | own services in certain specific situations | | > - allow their business users to access the data that they | generate in their use of the gatekeeper's platform | smashah wrote: | I'm aware of DMAs regs but it forces Whatsapp within 6 months | to start enabling interoperability. However it doesn't | provide protection for these existing bridge projects. | | open-wa, Baileys, invidious devs are all in the dark as to | whether or not they're Scott free from their respective C&Ds | due to this legislation. | unicornporn wrote: | This is likely also the sole reason[1] that Meta is | considering connecting Threads to the fediverse. | | [1] https://yiffit.net/comment/498225 | stavros wrote: | There's a fair amount of silly legislation that gets passed | in the EU, but forward-thinking (or maybe just here- | thinking?) laws like these (and the GDPR!) make me glad I | live here. | unicornporn wrote: | A double edged sword[1] for sure. | | [1] https://edri.org/our-work/why-chat-control-is-so- | dangerous/ | stavros wrote: | Yes, those are the silly bits, sadly. | klabb3 wrote: | Yeah this is exactly what's needed. At least in EU the | driver is awake at the wheel. As the politicians slowly get | more technically competent we're seeing more effective | regulation. As long as EU has influence, everyone else will | also benefit since companies often stop doing the shitty | thing globally, not just in the EU. | | Lack of interop has been a huge problem that's also gotten | worse over time. To address such a broad and complex issue | with general legislation is not easy, we still have to wait | and see if it works as intended. | robert_foss wrote: | The EU interoperability mandate for messaging services will | surely improve this situation. | amstan wrote: | My Facebook bridge constantly locks up my account. [1] | | [1] https://github.com/mautrix/facebook/issues/236 | derin wrote: | You should use your bridge off of a residential IP in the | same city as your other devices, or else Facebook finds the | activity suspicious. | smashah wrote: | I strongly believe users should be able to automate and | interact with their accounts through whatever clients they | wish however I think blocks/bans/technical countermeasures is | fair game. | | Count yourself lucky for not having an undeterminable, | unfightable legal threat over your head from a $800bn mega | corp. | rabbitofdeath wrote: | I love matrix - I've been running a Synapse homeserver for over 2 | years now for friends and family. We love it. Despite minor | problems (upgrading postgres for example) it has been smooth | sailing. I really want to stay up to date but they don't make it | easy! I'd love to add sliding-sync to my existing docker stack, | but I feel like I'm in way over my head! | geek_at wrote: | I love the idea of matrix (synapse + element + mobile apps) and | I have started moving my family there too but we had so many | problems with notifications not being sent to the phone unless | you actively open the app. | | There is a huge discussion about that on git and some can't | reproduce, some can't get a single notification even though the | apps notification checkmarks were all green. | | So it had a very very low WAF [1] and I scrapped it sadly. This | was a few years ago, any signs of these problems still | existing? | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wife_acceptance_factor | soupbowl wrote: | I had this problem 2 years ago and it ended getting fixed. | Recently I seen it again and the problem was that my | container running synapse did not have working DNS which | caused all notifications to stop working. Once I fixed up | resolv.conf all was working. | | I am not suggesting that was your issue but it might help | somebody. | Arathorn wrote: | Hmm... we haven't had notification problems like that in many | years, from memory. Any idea if this was trying to deliver | push notifs to Android without using Google? (Which | historically has been painful thanks to Android OS versions | terminating the app in the bg). | | Element X has totally rewritten notification code (given it's | moved from Kotlin to Rust) and should be much more robust for | bugs like this. | | Sorry you got bitten by it. | xorcist wrote: | Communicating via Apple or Google is sadly required these | days. How does that work with matrix? Does the protocol | specify how to trigger those notifications? Do I need to | register for a Google API key when setting up the server? I | can't recall seeing anything about that in the | configuration file. | Arathorn wrote: | https://thomask.sdf.org/blog/2016/12/11/riots-magical- | push-n... is a great blog (back when Element was called | Riot) explaining how it works :) | xorcist wrote: | The gist of it seems to be that Synapse/Dendrite calls | home to the Matrix Company, which in turn pays Google to | send a notification. That's awfully nice of them, but | does not really leave any room for success. I take it | larger clients with security requirements roll their own | clients, and this is part of the business case? | Arathorn wrote: | It's more that "whoever built your client has the keys to | send push to it, so your synapse calls home to them." And | yes, that means that paranoid types need their own | clients, and that is indeed a service that Element | offers. | btobolaski wrote: | Doesn't the use of ntfy change this (Android only, I | think)? Homeserver pushes to an ntfy topic, app on phone | is listening to that topic. Of course, this just moves | the intermediary to ntfy but you can also host a | different ntfy server which I hope element supports. | derin wrote: | It does. I use ntfy with a ntfy server on one of my VPSs, | and I use the official ntfy account on GMS as an | intermediary. | | It works fine, but I'll probably switch back to Matrix's | push server at some point. | | Edit: With Synapse + Element, obviously. | xorcist wrote: | Thanks for sharing. Are you switching back because of | pricing, or reliability issues? | Twirrim wrote: | If any of those are android users, it may be down to the non- | android standards friendly battery optimisation the | manufacturer ship their devices with (e.g. Samsung, Huawei, | OnePlus, Xiamoi, etc.) | | https://dontkillmyapp.com/ | | I've had more issues with missing notifications on my OnePlus | than I ever had on my Pixel (I have list of reasons why I'll | never buy Google hardware again, mostly coming down to their | support). Most issues get fixed by me persuading OnePlus to | stop applying their secret sauce to power control | amatecha wrote: | Regular reminder Matrix/Element work closely with law-enforcement | to provide encrypted comms for them. It's a sector Matrix/Element | actively markets to and deals with. My personal view is I'm not | using a chat platform designed/developed by an organization so | eager to partner with governments and law enforcement agencies. | | There's Element's Chief Product Officer & Managing Director | presenting at the European Police Congress[0]: | https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/110310853505977058 | | And a quick post about their excitement at participating in this | conference: | https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/110304013472307767 | | I mean, whatever, it's just doing business, right? When someone | criticized this, they gave a snarky, surprisingly unprofessional | response: https://mastodon.matrix.org/@matrix/110334695988903649 | | Dunno about anyone else but my trust in them is just gone. I'm | not saying you have to care (and I don't care if you do). I'm | sharing this for the people who _do_ care, and don 't want to use | "secure messaging" made by people who actively market to and | collaborate closely with law enforcement and governments. | | [0] https://www.european-police.eu/ | soupbowl wrote: | I don't really see the problem here, I would prefer my local | government use open standards that are secure. If they are | weakening the crypto to help the police and government come | after me then I would have a problem. | nobody9999 wrote: | >Regular reminder Matrix/Element work closely with law- | enforcement to provide encrypted comms for them. | | Thank you for the reminder. Based on that, are you claiming | that Matrix servers/clients are insecure or have government | back doors? | | If so, what evidence do you have that supports such a claim? | | If not, why should I care? I'm not a fan of many | organizations/individuals. Should I survey them all to create a | database of software those folks use and refuse to use any | software they use? What value would I derive from such actions? | | Unless you're claiming the former (evidence please), what | difference does it make? I use Matrix servers/clients only on | hardware that's under my _physical_ control. And I use free | (libre and beer) versions of Matrix implementations, so I 'm | not even giving the developers any money. | | Or are you making the argument that LEOs _shouldn 't_ have | access to secure communications protocols? | | I guess I'm confused because I don't understand what the issue | might be. If you'd elucidate, I'd much appreciate it! | amatecha wrote: | I didn't claim/assert anything other than what I linked to | already in my original post. | | You don't have to care, and like I said, I don't care if you | care or not. I'm just making people aware, because some | people _do_ care. | | It's nice that you personally use matrix on hardware under | your physical control. That's rare. The vast vast majority of | matrix users have their account on matrix.org and are using | Element. I'm glad to hear you are using alternative server | and client software. | | I addressed the other questions at | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37602089 | nobody9999 wrote: | Since you didn't actually answer the question "why should I | care?", perhaps you might deign to answer _these_ instead: | | >>I'm not a fan of many organizations/individuals. Should I | survey them all to create a database of software those | folks use and refuse to use any software they use? What | value would I derive from such actions? | | Why are those useful questions? Pick some software -- any | software in wide use -- and you'll find that _someone_ you | find objectionable is using such software. | | That includes OS's, browsers, databases, web/application | servers, BIOS firmware, chat clients/servers, etc., etc., | etc. | | If using software that's also used by someone whose actions | and/or rhetoric are objectionable to you is "capitulation" | to those with whom you oppose/disagree, then you should | power off all your electronic devices, smash them into | little pieces and never look back. | | But (IMHO, at least) taking such a position takes "guilt by | association" to ridiculous extremes, _especially_ when | talking about open source software that can be audited and | modified to suit your purposes. | | Don't want your sensitive information shared? Don't share | it on platforms not under your control. Full stop. | | I'll say it again[0], "three can keep a secret. If two are | dead." Food for thought, no? | | [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37602606 | skeaker wrote: | When someone asks "why should I care," the implication is | that they want to know why you care. Dodging the question | here is an interesting way to respond | amatecha wrote: | People who want to work closely with authorities probably | shouldn't be trusted to provide your secure communication | software. | cvwright wrote: | You are mad that they took money away from someone you don't | like? | | And moreover that they used this money for something that you | do like? | Smaug123 wrote: | "Taking money" is a very poor description of a trade, which | both parties chose to enter into because they both expect to | derive benefit from it. What the parent objects to is | presumably the "government/police/military expects to derive | benefit" part, not the "taking money" part per se. | kevincox wrote: | I find no issue that the company is working with law- | enforcement to provide secure communications. In fact this | makes me feel better about the security of those communications | as they are trusted by these governments (not that this is a | huge mark of quality, but I would consider it positive). | | I your distrust of law-enforcement so strong that any company | that they purchase from must be untrustworthy? Or is there | another reason that this bothers you? | amatecha wrote: | My concern is in the opposite direction of what everyone | appears to be interpreting, despite what I thought was clear | wording in my initial post. | | It's not that govt/LE uses Matrix. It's that Matrix/Element | _actively seeks out partnership with govt /LE_ (to the extent | of presenting on stage at a police conference), suggesting | they are particularly interested in a relationship with | authorities and personally sympathetic to these authorities, | at the management/director level. | | This is not a position I expect from an organization that is | determined to build secure communications potentially used by | activists, people living in oppressive/authoritarian regimes, | etc... If I was a member of such a high-risk group, I don't | think I would be putting my faith in this org to produce | something I can actually consider truly secure. | arkaniad wrote: | From a personal perspective, I do share some of your | misgivings about the appearance of sympathies with LE / | authorities. It doesn't -feel- all that great to see. But | at the end of the day to me it boils down to what another | commenter said. If it's good enough for them, it is | probably good enough for me. Someone has to pay the bills | so the show can go on. | | If the problem is that we're not trusting $LE_GOV_AGENCY to | use the technology because it may hide abuses of authority, | the root problem is that we can't trust $LE_GOV_AGENCY for | reasons external to their choice of communication tooling. | And that's not a problem I think we can solve with | technology alone. | | Plus, 'We can't allow X/Y/Z to use encrypted chat because | they could do awful things' is a bit of a double-edged | sword I personally don't feel comfortable wielding lest it | be wielded against my own 'high-risk group'. | | Disclaimer: SRE at Element, but I've been running a Matrix | homeserver of my own since before I joined the company | Arathorn wrote: | The reason we "actively seek out partnership with govt/LE" | is simply because they are by far the primary customer | segment who actually have an clear need for self-hosted | interoperable end-to-end encrypted communication and are | willing to pay for it. If we don't find organisations who | are willing to pay Element for services, then quite simply | we can't pay people to work on Matrix and Element as their | dayjob, and the whole thing would switch into best-effort | volunteer run activity (although I'd presume most of the | team would feel pretty burnt if that happened and go spend | their freetime on something else). About 80% of Element's | revenue comes from public sector, and without it the | project simply wouldn't exist. | | Hopefully, eventually, the rest of the world will wake up | to the fact that sleepwalking into using Teams and Slack | (or WhatsApp) is a catastrophe in the making. It's only a | matter of time before someone publishes a torrent of every | line of Teams scrollback or Slack scrollback for some high- | profile organisation; the breach has probably already | happened; the breacher is just waiting for the best | strategic moment to drop the information bomb. | | But until then, Element makes payroll by selling to folks | like the French and German Governments, the United Nations, | etc. They pick Element _because_ it is high trust, and they | can audit it and run it themselves. And there is | categorically no way that I or other senior management at | Element would destroy the company (let alone Matrix) by | breaking that trust by letting someone undermine its | privacy. | | Which is why we're in the surreal situation of on one hand | selling to the UK Government, while also frantically | criticising them for the catastrophic idiocy of the Online | Safety Bill: https://element.io/blog/the-online-safety- | bill-an-attack-on-.... | | Separately: I'm literally years overdue in publishing | Element's internal ethics guidelines publicly, which spells | out precisely who we do and don't do business with. For | what it's worth, the high level summary is: | * We don't sell to criminals (under UK/US/EU law) | * We don't sell to sanctioned (by UK/US/EU) or abusive | govts or organisations * We don't sell to orgs | who explicitly encourage use which goes against our terms | of service. | | Our definition of abusive governments/orgs are those who | commit human rights abuses or, who commit international | atrocities (as defined by the UN), or contracts which | primarily support the above. | | Most western governments (including their police forces) do | not fall into this bracket. | skeaker wrote: | I would guess the reason for that would be that those | platforms are willing to pony up real cash and the actual | communication protocol itself is no less secure when they | use it. See also: Tor, famously developed/funded by the | government | nobody9999 wrote: | >If I was a member of such a high-risk group, I don't think | I would be putting my faith in this org to produce | something I can actually consider truly secure. | | If I were in such a high-risk group, I wouldn't be putting | my "faith" in anyone. Rather, I'd personally make damn sure | my sensitive communications couldn't be spied upon. | | I'd also point out that repressive/authoritarian regimes | don't care about the rule of law and/or personal privacy, | so they can just come to your house and take you away | without any proof that you're working against the state. | | What's more, they can also confiscate any systems/devices | you (or others) may have in an attempt to discover the | identities of your "co-conspirators." And they can torture | you to give up those names, even if the names you give up | aren't actually involved at all. | | You seem to believe that there's some sort of magical | software that can keep someone safe if a government or | well-funded private actor wants to get you. News flash: | there is no such animal. | panick21_ wrote: | Really strange Point of View. Governments adopting open | standards rather then paying money to US tech companies is a | good thing. | __s wrote: | What's the problem with e2e encryption for those organizations? | | The problem is if they give those orgs a backdoor | amatecha wrote: | Oh yeah, I actually asked them about that. They said there | aren't any backdoors[0]. We're all good, no worries! :) :) | | [0] https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/110340953550548309 | panick21_ wrote: | Its open source and the crypto library is also 3rd party | verified. I don't get your problem. | thomastjeffery wrote: | It's one of the most significant _open source_ messaging | systems that exist today. Anyone can audit it at any time. | | What more do you want? | amatecha wrote: | How do you know the matrix.org server or the element.io | web client is running the same code as the source posted | publicly? How exactly do you, personally, audit a hosted | service? The answer to both questions is: you don't. | nobody9999 wrote: | >How do you know the matrix.org server or the element.io | web client is running the same code as the source posted | publicly? How exactly do you, personally, audit a hosted | service? The answer to both questions is: you don't. | | And I don't use them. I grab the posted sources and use | them on hardware I _physically_ control. If (I 'm not, | but I do care about my privacy) I was someone that was | being pursued by one or more governments/well-funded | private actors, I wouldn't use any communication | platforms hosted by others. | | As the old saw goes: "Three can keep a secret. If two are | dead." | infogulch wrote: | So host it yourself. It's literally _designed_ to do | that. | amatecha wrote: | Yeah, that's great for me, but doesn't help me when | everyone else is using the hosted stuff :) | beepbooptheory wrote: | Ok, I'll bite, what even could be the alternative here | then? You want something without big funders, totally | OSS, _and_ extremely friendly for grandmas? Feels like | one of those "you can only pick two" type things to me, | but would love to learn that's not the case. | itsanaccount wrote: | Its fashionable in the leftist world to compete to take | the most radical position you can. | | You described the goal, yeah, that would be pretty | wonderful, like unicorns, flying pixie dust and other | things that don't seem to exist as of yet. | [deleted] | beepbooptheory wrote: | I really don't think that is fashionable. Why would | people want to do that? | infogulch wrote: | Also: 1. Mainstream enough for grandma. 2. No public | hosts, you are _required_ to self host it. Totally | reasonable I don 't see why this is so hard. /s | EGreg wrote: | But that doesn't mean Matrix makes backdoors. So you can use it | too. | | What's wrong with helping organizations including law | enforcement encrypt their communications? | | Because they are public servants and We the Public should have | ways to be able to decrypt those communications. | | Secret meetings and intelligence agencies are what leads to | totally avoidable wars. | | https://community.qbix.com/t/transparency-in-government/234/... | jazzyjackson wrote: | Fair enough to share the information but I take the opposite | tack: if it's good enough for LEOs, good enough for me. | | I would also be excited to find paying customers when trying to | build free software. | | In any case I get the feeling if I were to avoid technology | built by companies with government contracts I would be left | with my retro 8bit machines. Lets be pragmatic. | lousken wrote: | > Rather than exposing a kitchen sink of features and settings, | we're keeping Element X truly focused: doing one job and | absolutely nailing it - all while harnessing the power of Matrix | for secure, interoperable, open-standard communication. | | does this mean the Element X is more for the mainstream user and | regular Element is better suited for power users? | Arathorn wrote: | Element X also is geared up for powerusers (e.g. as project | lead, I consider myself a poweruser) and i've been absolutely | loving it as my daily driver for the last few months on mobile. | For instance, my account is in around 4,000 chatrooms, and | Element iOS was taking ~10s to launch and sync, and could | easily take minutes to sync in the morning (heaven forbid the | app was offline for more than overnight). Meanwhile, Element X | launches in around 100ms, no matter how long it's been offline, | and syncs in around a second. | | The model that we're going for is similar to iOS or macOS: | something which is incredibly simple for normal users, but can | also scale up seamlessly for crazy powerusers. | | In terms of specific poweruser features: I suspect the strategy | will be to see if we can provide the same end result without | actually adding the feature - and failing that, add the feature | very strategically via progressive disclosure... or perhaps not | at all, and rely on other Matrix apps to pick it up. | | The intention is to fairly rapidly replace regular Element on | mobile with Element X, eitherway. | lousken wrote: | Ok, I understand... one last thing I ask every year - custom | emojis when? :) | | And thank you for your the hard work! | Arathorn wrote: | But we just entirely rewrote both mobile clients to get out | of having to implement custom emojis! :D Joking aside, it's | easily one of the biggest features missing from | Element/Element X, and I for one can't wait for it to land. | Unfortunately we also don't have any paying Element | customers asking for it, though, which is why it keeps | getting deprioritised in favour of other stuff. | dmix wrote: | Does anyone use Matrix/Element for a serious workplace, instead | of something like Slack? | [deleted] | monlockandkey wrote: | Does anyone know how to integrate chats into a web app using | Matrix. Rather than writing a messaging web app from scratch, can | I hook into matrix? | [deleted] | iptq wrote: | exciting to hear! I only wish i had more time to contribute. | | Has there been any movement on migrating away from long polling | (#475)? I didn't see anything about it in the announcements or | comments despite such a big milestone | Arathorn wrote: | Low Bandwidth Matrix is the answer to that, and it's currently | on hold unless it gets funded: | https://matrix.org/blog/2021/06/10/low-bandwidth-matrix-an-i... | | It might also get changed as part of Sliding Sync refinement. | neilv wrote: | Thoughts on how this will get us towards when libre software | privacy&security type people are ready to advise friends to move | to Matrix for personal communication? | | (To be clear, the platform has to be all open source and open | standards, actually decentralized, guided by those principles -- | not an effectively proprietary play even if nominally open. For | example, you should be able to get all the same functionality | with Element, Fluffychat, Thunderbird, and other user agents, and | with any home server, both now and on an ongoing basis. And the | user agent implementation difficulty should become tractable | enough, in terms of size&complexity and specification, that one | person could write a new one -- not like Web browsers have | become, where there's mainly only one, that company has been | funding the runner-up, and that company can pretty much dictate | 'standards'.) | [deleted] | Arathorn wrote: | Matrix 2.0 is a major step towards getting friends & family on | Matrix. | | Firstly, it's not introducing new features - it's just making | the current featureset work super-efficiently (while retaining | compatibility with today's Matrix). So there should be no | fragmentation between Element/Fluffychat/Thunderbird, with the | possible exception of the new scalable encrypted VoIP | conferencing (but then very few Matrix clients implemented the | old VoIP conferencing, plus you can always just embed an | Element Call instance to get at it now - as Element X does | today). | | Secondly, we're explicitly working to protect Matrix from the | commercial interests from Element (the company set up by the | team who created Matrix, of which I'm ceo/cto as well as Matrix | project lead). We already have The Matrix.org Foundation | (https://matrix.org/foundation) as an independent non-profit to | hold the Matrix IP and maintain its neutrality - but we also | just hired Josh Simmons (former President of the OSI) as its | independent Managing Director | (https://matrix.org/blog/2023/09/introducing-josh-simmons- | man...). | | So: going forwards, the Foundation increasingly does not have | to depend on Element not being evil, but instead has its own | independent management to ensure the protocol exists to support | everyone in the ecosystem, without fragmentation, as per the | guiding principles at https://matrix.org/foundation - under its | own autonomy. | | I'd say this is is good news for libre software privacy & | security type people, but then again I'm biased. Practically, | the only thing getting in the way of getting friends & family | on Matrix is that Element X requires fancy OIDC-native | homeservers for registration, so newbies won't be able to use | Element X to join Matrix yet. But the app itself should be an | excellent way to get folks on board in the very near future. | em-bee wrote: | element still has serious usability issues that need to be | fixed before i can get friends or family on board. | | the way threads are displayed in the browser versions makes | them hard to follow. in our hackerspace, where many are tech | minded people, i see regular complaints about that. | | scrollback to unread messages often fails. i have never had | another chat application where that was a problem. this | should just work. | | the handling of encryption keys is very confusing. there are | to many moving parts, it's not clear what i must save so that | i can restore the keys in a new client. | | private rooms are also confusing. i want to have a private | room be the name of my chat partner, and they want it to | carry my name. being able to do that would be very helpful. | | i am also missing the ability to use a different nickname in | every room. different groups know me under different | nicknames. discord and wechat can do it. it would be great if | matrix/element could do that too. | Arathorn wrote: | Sounds like you're talking about Element Web or Desktop | here. On Mobile, we just rewrote the app as Element X and | it addresses almost all your concerns (other than per-room | nicks, although ironically Element Web _does_ have that | today - try the /roomname command). | | Having got Element X out the door, my attention at least is | going to swing back to Element Web. In terms of encryption | disasters, we are about to switch Element Web's crypto to | the same rust implementation as Element X, hopefully next | week - you can track the progress at | https://github.com/vector-im/element- | web/issues/21972#issuec.... Hopefully this will make a | much-needed massive improvement on encryption, while also | speeding it up 5x or so. On Element X, encryption failures | are almost unheard of (other than when talking to Element | Web). | _rs wrote: | Element X is great except for the lack of history, once | that's added it'll change to my daily driver. I very | often search my chat history and reference things going | back months | mike-cardwell wrote: | Encryption in Matrix is a nightmare. I set up Synapse and | pulled half a dozen or so people onto it. We have a few | chat rooms. Randomly different users clients are unable to | decrypt the messages of other users clients. You click some | button about syncing encryption keys, and nothing happens. | Then randomly a week later you can start reading each | others messages again. _shrug_ This has been going on for | years now. | | This alone makes Matrix the worse chat platform out there | from a users perspective IMO. I invested too much effort in | getting things up and running and using it now though, so | I'm just hoping that this gets fixed one day, or something | better comes along that I can migrate to. | Arathorn wrote: | Sorry. As per the sibling comment to yours, we made a | decision on Element Web/Desktop to rip out the old | encryption implementation and replace it with matrix- | rust-sdk's crypto implementation about a year ago, and | while it's due to land next week, it means that some | folks have had a miserable time in the interim. | dingnuts wrote: | I'm curious and extremely skeptical as to how the UX is | going to be made better regarding the terrible UX | surrounding encryption. I used Matrix with a non- | technical family member for about six months before | giving up and going back to SMS because she frequently | got messages about encryption that she was in no way | equipped to deal with, and did not even begin to | understand (yes, the "user-friendly" key fingerprint | screen is one of those pain points) and I had to handhold | her through the process, every time she got a new device | or similar. | | One time I had to manually export and import my own keys | to be able to read old messages, which was a task that | would have been too technical for most of the people I'd | like to chat with, and was supremely annoying for me. | | It's just a non-starter. I have a community I've been | considering moving to Matrix for literal _years_ now and | there are just so many sharp edges. | | I've been confused about Matrix's priorities for a long, | long time. I am not getting any less confused, to be | honest. | Arathorn wrote: | Well, just as folks might be skeptical about Matrix | clients ever being as performant as | WhatsApp/iMessage/Telegram, and yet we eventually got | there with Element X... I'm expecting a similar outcome | with E2EE UX. | | The high level plan is: | | * Fix all the bugs which cause random undecryptable | messages, which was the main thing causing frustration. | This is (hopefully) done now by converging on the new | Rust implementation. | | * Generate a recovery key, rather than confuse the user | by asking them to pick two passwords (one for their | account, one for their encryption). Impress on the user | that if they ever want to recover their history, they'll | need it. Expect that most users will lose it. | | * When logging in on a new device, scan a QR code on an | existing device to transfer over the keys (and thus | history). Users are used to this now thanks to WhatsApp | and Discord, and empirically they can do it fine. The | recovery key is used only as a worst-case scenario if the | user has no other devices. The act of logging in (either | via scanning another device, or via recovery key) signs | that device as owned by you. | | * Only accept messages from devices that a given user has | signed (i.e. trust on first use for users). If you want | to verify that user out of band, they get an green tick | too, purely to help you keep track of which users you're | sure are legit and which users you've assumed are legit. | | * At any given point, encryption is either enabled on | your device (i.e. you've signed that device; it can | access your encrypted message history; it can store keys | for your encrypted message history) or it's not (and you | can't do any E2EE). There are no halfway states. | | This may sound simple and obvious when written out like | this, but each point is a major change from the supremely | confusing system we have today. The thing stopping us | from having implemented it sooner is the huge amount of | effort which went into reimplementing the engine in Rust. | But having now (almost) finished that project, next thing | up is fixing the UX, at last. The rough timeline is | hopefully end-of-year, but, again, timings are contingent | on funding pressure. | beanjuiceII wrote: | so one hand says they are making things better for | friends and family, and the other is ripping out things | to make peoples lives miserable? and then letting them | float in that misery for some period of time? | dkasak wrote: | A lot of the problems were caused by the legacy crypto | implementations. The misery is not caused by ripping them | out and replacing them with matrix-rust-sdk crypto, but | by it (unavoidably) taking a while. | neilv wrote: | Thank you for the comments. I'll keep my fingers crossed that | this plays out well. | | > _plus you can always just embed an Element Call instance_ | | That sounds like potentially a commercial | embrace&extend&extinguish situation, which we need to avoid. | Arathorn wrote: | Yup, good call point, which is why we deliberately | implemented two different independent group VoIP | implementations - the one in Element Call (based on matrix- | js-sdk) and the one in Hydrogen (based on hydrogen-web- | sdk). | | Admittedly the new livekit-based implementation takes us | back down to a single implementation for now, but in its | defense it's only a few weeks old (with e2ee). Hopefully | others will spin up independent implementations rapidly - | although right now it does introduce a potential commercial | EEE situation... but from on LiveKit rather than Element. | | Eitherway, it's something we're painfully aware of... while | also trying to ensure we find enough $ to pay for dev on | Matrix (and Element) otherwise the whole thing collapses. | sneak wrote: | One of the big problems as I see it is that all notifications | on iOS must be proxied via APNS and those can only be sent by | the app publisher, so all home servers must send their iOS | notifications to Vector (the Element publishers) to be sent to | APNS and on to an iPhone or iPad. | | This is a centralized point for surveillance of metadata. I | also do not know how much information is actually contained in | the notification itself. In any case Vector has knowledge of | every home server with an iOS client, and their approximate | traffic levels. | Aerbil313 wrote: | Then everyone should just roll out their own app... this | seems like an EU-regulation-needed situation. | sneak wrote: | This requires paying about $10/month to Apple and doxxing | yourself with a lot of PII. | | It also requires that you as a homeserver sysadmin a) have | a Mac, b) install Xcode, c) know how to modify and compile | iOS applications, d) want to deal with rebuilding and | reuploading and re-seeking app approval on major API | changes because long-un-updated apps are not allowed in the | App Store, etc... | kevincox wrote: | FWIW my partner and mother are using it. We have had the | occasional key synchronization issue with Element but has been | mostly smooth sailing. I did walk them both through the setup | but they probably could have managed. However they have some | basic tech skills. I suspect that others in my family with | little tech literacy would need to have it set up for them but | would probably be fine after that. | brunoqc wrote: | Rip matrix p2p. | | I wonder if they were serious about it, or if it was just | vaporware (a la Musk) to get more funding. It has been announced | years ago, they raised millions and they have big governments | contracts. WTF is going on? | Arathorn wrote: | wtf is going on is that: | | a) p2p matrix works pretty well as a proof of concept - you can | try it from https://arewep2pyet.com; it's not remotely | vapourware. | | b) funding has been spent on core Matrix dev and making Element | kick ass (cf Element X) | | c) an awful lot of very large Matrix + Element deployments (eg | LuxChat in Luxembourg, Merkury 2.0 in the Polish MOD, many | German local authorities) decide to run Matrix deployments | without routing a single $ to support development at either the | Matrix Foundation or Element, such are the joys of the Apache | license. | | As a result, we've had to pause some of the longer-term R&D. I | very much hope that P2P will resume (especially if someone | explicitly funds it) and the team is still at Element (but | working on sliding sync and account portability). But right now | we're focusing exclusively on fixing the core problems in both | Matrix and Element which others in this thread are complaining | about. Hence Matrix 2.0, and Element X. | brunoqc wrote: | Thanks Matthew, I always appreciate your comments. | | I also do appreciate the Apache license. | | Sorry for the vapourware comment. It's hard to tell these | days. Was the Google self-driving car thing vapourware? It | never went anywhere. | | I know that pinecone worked as a PoC. I ran a node for years, | for fun. It's just that it always felt like the progress was | crazy slow. The yggdrasil demo was what, 4 years ago? How | fucked up will the world be in 4 years? Not that it's your | fault. | | And I care about matrix. I was the one who suggested | arewep2pyet.com, I made 1-2 friends use it (matrix), I made | 1-2 coworkers use it. | | Also, zulip threads now or I riot. | Signez wrote: | > Was the Google self-driving car thing vapourware? It | never went anywhere. | | Well, it goes somewhere: people are actually being driven | around Pheonix, Arizona [0] using those cars. It's just | that it is not named "Google self-driving cars" any more: | it was spun into its own company, Waymo [1]. | | [0]: https://waymo.com/waymo-one-phoenix/ | | [1]: https://waymo.com/ | Arathorn wrote: | The best way to get P2P Matrix back on track is to find | someone to fund it, and point them at funding@matrix.org. | Unfortunately it's as simple as that. | gwd wrote: | Just poking around matrix.org, it's not clear exactly how one | would "route [some] $[s] to support development" other than | paying someone else for a hosted server. Our open-source | project just switched to using Matrix from IRC; we're not | really big enough to warrant hosting our own Matrix server, | so most of us are just using matrix.org. We have some | industry funding, and try to support other open source | projects when we can; but not on the order of $250/mo (which | if I'm reading it right, looks like the cheapest product on | element.io -- $5/user/mo, min 50 users). If matrix.org | accepts donations, it's not at all clear from your website. | Arathorn wrote: | Well, we need to fix that then. | https://matrix.org/membership/ and | https://matrix.org/blog/2023/06/membership-program/ is the | way to donate. | panick21_ wrote: | Its probably the right choice if yo don't have the funds. But | it s great that that team is working on account portability. | That would be useful in a p2p world anyway. | | Really hoping Full Matrix p2p will happen. Its would be such | a cool capability. | | Governments wasting so much time and money on so much | nonsense software but we can't support and open communication | tool. | beardog wrote: | Makes me sad that billions got poured into cryptocurrency- | sphere projects but classic p2p barely scrapes by. | | (I mean by society not new vector) | jazzyjackson wrote: | money flows to where it can be multiplied, not where it can | be sunk into some social good | [deleted] | contact9879 wrote: | It's still in development[1]. Seems like p2p will depend on | dendrite so until dendrite is stable, p2p will not be | available. | | [1]: https://arewep2pyet.com/ | notsahil wrote: | Synapse already eats up lots of space, adding sliding sync will | boost it up and will be difficult to self-host it. | Arathorn wrote: | Yup, it's true that sliding sync proxy increases disk space | further, although it's not so bad. A big advantage once it's | stable and merged into a native homeserver will be reducing the | storage duplication between the proxy and the HS. | | Meanwhile, we _really_ need to get https://github.com/matrix- | org/rust-synapse-compress-state/pu... hooked up in Synapse so | that it automatically compresses state; I don't know why this | never landed when it was written in in 2021 :( | infogulch wrote: | I wrote a summary of the post: | https://twitter.com/infogulch/status/1704933396508553385 | whiterock wrote: | my biggest struggle with matrix, is that, at least in element- | ios, messages keep transpositioning, i.e. at some random time a | message that is 2 days old is pushed all the way down to the new | messages. also the aop frequently crashes with some media. | | but apart from that I of course love the idea of an ,,SMTP | approach" to instant messaging :) | Arathorn wrote: | this is literally why we rewrote element-ios in rust, in the | form of Element X iOS :) https://element.io/labs/element-x | whiterock wrote: | oh that's so cool. will give it a try now! :) really looking | forward to the search feature btw hehe. | tptacek wrote: | Just a question, I haven't been paying attention, but where is | Matrix on resolving the Nebuchadnezzar vulnerabilities, and is | the project still tracking towards switching to MLS instead of | Olm/Megolm? | Arathorn wrote: | The main remaining Nebuchadnezzar issue is mitigating server- | controlled group membership. The first step has been to kill | off the 1st gen E2EE implementations, which were responsible | for the implementation vulns found by RHUL - and we should | hopefully conclude that next week by moving everything into the | matrix-rust-sdk crypto crate implmentation: | https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/21972#issuec... | is the tracker. | | Then, we can address the harder server-controlled group | membership issue in one place. First step will be to improve | device verification & trust so that trust is the default, not | the exception, to make it easier to spot and warn about | unexpected devices in the room. The full solution is then | either MSC3917 (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec- | proposals/blob/fay...) - or potentially to switch everything to | MLS. | | We're working on MLS anyway in parallel to RHUL mitigation | work; you can see the progress at https://arewemlsyet.com, and | it's looking good. | | I'm guessing you're not interested in doing a podcast on "yay | we converged our crypto implementations on a single robust Rust | implementation so we can fix the remaining bugs in one place", | but as soon as the server-controlled group membership thing is | solved we'll be in touch. Work has also gone much slower than | hoped on this, thanks to the joys of funding open source. | tptacek wrote: | INCORRECT. The messier your situation is, the better the | podcast will be. You're still in my top 3 subjects for us to | do an episode on. I'm rooting for you! But also for sound | messaging cryptography. So I'm one of your most complicated | supporters. :) | contact9879 wrote: | > Outside of Matrix 2.0 work, other big items on the horizon | include: | | - Adding Rust matrix-sdk-crypto to matrix-js-sdk, at which | point all the official Matrix.org client SDKs will (at last!) | be using the same stable performant E2EE implementation | | - Continuing to contribute Matrix input to the MIMI working | group in IETF for > Digital Markets Act interoperability | | - Working on MLS for next-generation E2EE | | IIRC, the rust matrix-sdk-crypto was their intended fix for the | vulnerabilities. | rebolek wrote: | The future of Matrix is robots and people as batteries. | orblivion wrote: | > The European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA) is a huge step | in that direction - regulation that mandates that if the large | centralised messaging providers are to operate in the EU, they | must interoperate. | | Wow. Not interested in winning the war this way. | Lacusch wrote: | Maybe you're not but I know a few people (myself included) who | will take any win on the privacy front we can get. | kibwen wrote: | Requiring protocols for interoperation results in more | competition in implementations, which is often the better | scenario as far as users are concerned. | UltimateEdge wrote: | > Therefore to use Element X, you need to be running a homeserver | with Sliding Sync support, which (for now) means running a | sliding-sync proxy which bolts Sliding Sync support on to | existing homeservers. | | I am excited to try out Element X, but I do not want to | administer yet another service, namely the Sliding Sync proxy. | From a practical perspective, Sliding Sync (MSC3575) is still on | the level of a proposal/experiment and I wish that we would be | having this conversation about Element X _after_ it becomes | usable with any spec-compliant server. | the_gipsy wrote: | Well you can just wait. But the proxy is really lightweight and | doesn't require maintenance. | rovr138 wrote: | Until there's an incompatibility, upgrade, exposure, memory | overflow, or some other security issue/exploit. Unless you're | saying that it's immune to everything and will never | experience a change or issue. | Arathorn wrote: | I'm pretty sure that all those issues will affect sliding | sync whether or not it's integrated in Synapse. In fact, | some people might actually prefer the fact they can operate | it separately and restart/maintain it separately from their | homeserver :) | Arathorn wrote: | Matrix evolves as a protocol by folks proposing new APIs (e.g. | MSC3575), implementing them, showing that they work, and making | the case that they should be merged into the main spec. | | Sliding Sync is an interesting case in that it clearly does | work, and it kicks ass - but it turns out to be unnecessarily | complicated for the subset of features that you actually need | when implementing something like Element X (which is my fault | entirely, fwiw). However, should we hold off on putting it in | people's hands while we sort that? Nope. Is it a pain to | temporarily run a proxy shim service while the protocol | stabilises? Yes. It's like running a SPDY or QUIC-aware reverse | proxy in front of a webapp that only speaks HTTP/1.1 while | waiting for SPDY to be ratified as HTTP/2. Sure, it's another | moving part to look after, but the spectacular improvement is | likely worth the pain. YMMV though :) | UltimateEdge wrote: | > Matrix evolves as a protocol by folks proposing new APIs | (e.g. MSC3575), implementing them, showing that they work, | and making the case that they should be merged into the main | spec. | | Yes, it is just unfortunate that it is not clear enough to | more people (such as the_common_man below) that Sliding Sync | is only at the MSC stage at the moment and not part of the | Matrix spec. | | I am glad that at least Element X allows this MSC to improve | and for those nits you have mentioned to be resolved. | the_common_man wrote: | Why is sliding sync a separate service and not just part of | synapse itself? | infinitezest wrote: | I would guess it's so the same functionality can be used with | other Matrix servers without having to rewrite the whole | thing | UltimateEdge wrote: | It's currently still a proposal to the spec, and it is not | yet part of the Matrix protocol. | Arathorn wrote: | Because the API is still evolving, and it's also useful that | it supports other homeservers than Synapse. It's also written | by an entirely different bunch of people (it's effectively | written by the Dendrite team rather than the Synapse team). | | Once the API is stable I'm sure all the homeservers will | implement it natively. Until then, think of it like a | reverse-proxy that lets an HTTP/1 webapp talk HTTP/2 to the | outside world. | acheong08 wrote: | > it's effectively written by the Dendrite team rather than | the Synapse team | | I would then ask why it isn't integrated into Dendrite | Arathorn wrote: | ...because then Synapse wouldn't be able to use it? | mike-cardwell wrote: | I just set it up. Wasn't that difficult: | | 1. Added a new postgres db and user 2. Added a new dns name 3. | Added a new cert for the new dns name 4. Added a new vhost to | nginx to proxy to a new port using the new dns name and cert 5. | Added a simple docker-compose to my config 6. Added a snippet | to my .well-known/matrix/client | | Don't imagine it will take much maintenance. Container will be | updated along with the rest of my containers, and the existence | of the service doesn't change anything for any existing clients | that don't support sliding sync. | Arathorn wrote: | The most important thing is to keep it updated, as we're | fairly rapidly iterating on it, and most of the Element X | bugs we've seen have actually turned out to be a stale | Sliding Sync proxy deployment. Glad it was fairly | straightforward. | benatkin wrote: | Looks like there's an open protocol and an open source client | implementation for video calls. https://github.com/vector- | im/element-call | | This is great! Jitsi has never clicked for me. I tried it a few | times, and read about it, and was never excited about it. I just | tried Element Call, albeit an empty room, and the UI feels right. | [deleted] | leshokunin wrote: | I always get so confused by the naming between Matrix and | Element. I get that Element is the client, but I honestly thought | that the name Matrix for the server (or is it just the standard | for the protocol?) was sunset. | | Great service though and hope if gets UX improvements too, as | Discord and Slack keep getting more clutter. | CameronNemo wrote: | Maybe you are confused because the old client name, Riot, was | sunset in favor of Element? | | AIUI the protocol was and is called Matrix. There seems to be | no intention to depart from that name. | hparadiz wrote: | They renamed Riot to Element in the wake of the George Floyd | protests in the United States. It's the same code base. | | Matrix is a protocol. Synapse is the primary server | implementation of Matrix written in Python. | Macha wrote: | Here's their blog post at a time: | https://element.io/blog/the-world-is- | changing/?ref=itsfoss.c... | | It's worth nothing that the conflict with Riot Games over | trademark rights was also a motivating factor. | Arathorn wrote: | (We actually renamed Riot to Element because the nice | people at Riot Games sent us a cease & desist :) | infinitezest wrote: | As much as I love the fact that I have my choice of server and | client I have to say that it does make me wonder if it affects | adoption. When the Mastodon growth spikes happened the | complaint that I heard most often was from people that couldn't | figure out which client to use or which instance to use. Too | much choice tends to paralyze people and they default to | proprietary services because they don't know what choices to | make. | SushiHippie wrote: | Element is to matrix what chrome is to http. The most used | client for that protocol. | progval wrote: | Element is the trading name of a company, of three clients | with mostly-independent codebases written by that company | (web, android, iOS; not counting the two Element X rewrites), | and of a hosting service (EMS). | SushiHippie wrote: | Yes New Vector Ltd | cvwright wrote: | Yeah. I still think that the Matrix.org Foundation should have | a branded client, simply called "Matrix", available in all the | major app stores. | | Lock it to the matrix.org server and offer membership in the | foundation as an in-app purchase. Could help with some of their | recent funding issues. | amstan wrote: | It's quite disappointing that there's huge ongoing work around | reinventing clients from scratch where the basic functionality of | not ringing all my devices while I'm using only one of them [1] | is still not there (bug open for years), despite it being a | pretty simple fix. | | [1] https://github.com/vector-im/element-meta/issues/360 | Arathorn wrote: | The team rewriting Element as Element X is completely different | to the folks who would need to make the change in Synapse to | not send push to devices who are currently syncing. Agreed we | should have fixed this years ago, especially as it's actually a | feature in our pre-Matrix system back in 2012. There's | basically a blindspot on long-lived missing serverside features | like this; i've added it to a new hitlist we're experimenting | with for trying to clear these up. | amstan wrote: | I offered a simple fix: delay notifications on all except the | active client for 30 seconds, if a read reciept gets | triggered from the active client then cancel the timer. I | couldn't even get anyone in the team to even look at my | solution 3 years ago. | | Not sure why this feature keeps getting defered for "just | about to land and things might be better after" server-side | features (see how it has 7 out of 9 "dependencies" resolved) | when none are needed. | | I've had a couple of friend actually give up on matrix due to | this. I also have to keep my phone on silent or else I can't | be chatting on matrix without the constant bzzzing. | | I'm also amused about the ever growing (currently at $760) | bounty on this feature. | Arcuru wrote: | There are quite a few issues that they've stopped fixing in the | Element app in favor of doing it in Element X, the one I've | been following is where the iOS app causes a breakage in E2EE | when you use the share extension, so they just disabled the | share extension entirely and said they'd fix in X - | https://github.com/vector-im/element-ios/issues/7618 | | But X requires Sliding Sync on the server, which is still a | separate service to run alongside the homeserver and doesn't | have a stable API. I am increasingly disappointed with how | centralized Matrix is becoming, since AFAIK there isn't really | an alternate client close to the same level of quality as | Element. | | I probably would've made all of the same decisions myself | though, so I don't blame them I'm just a bit disappointed in | how it's shaking out. | panick21_ wrote: | You just can't have the newest fancy client without also | having the new fancy server. That seem to make sense to me. | xorcist wrote: | Is it really that simple though? Jabber tried to be smart about | which device to ring, and sometimes someone ended up with a | missed notification. I always felt gutting that complexity and | ring all instead would have been the more robust way. | amstan wrote: | So you consider your phone vibrating loudly on your desk for | every recieved message while you're actively chatting and | reading the same message on your desktop a correct | implementation? | xorcist wrote: | Well, it's not great, but could be a viable solution until | a scheme is devised that is guaranteed not to lose any | notifications, which would be worse. | teawrecks wrote: | I'm curious if someone could build a discord replacement on top | of matrix, most importantly with voice chat and video streaming | functionality. Discord is clearly focused on monetization at this | point, the only changes happening now are ones that make your | experience objectively worse. I've also been on Linux for a few | years now and discord still doesn't support streaming game audio. | | And before someone suggests it, I tried Revolt, and it's not | there yet. The latest client (as of a few months ago) couldn't | find my audio devices at all, and came with a big warning about | how their audio backend was being completely rewritten, and what | I was using was now legacy. | Arathorn wrote: | Absolutely. Element is already quite close to that, and once | Element Call and native Matrix group VoIP matures more, | hopefully it'll be even easier to converge on Discord's | featureset. | self_awareness wrote: | How Matrix decentralisation is an improvement over Jabber's | decentralisation? | | (disclaimer: I have no knowledge about neither spec, I'm not | suggesting Jabber was better) | kevincox wrote: | IIUC Jabber never really had decentralized group chats? It had | MUC but these were federated, so if the server hosting the room | went down the chat also died. | | Matrix rooms are fully decentralized and can survive any | servers failing. | | (Although note that not much else in the protocol is | decentralized, much of it is only federated.) | Arathorn wrote: | It's more that Matrix is different to Jabber/XMPP. | | In Matrix, your chatrooms synchronise chat history between | servers (rather than passing messages around), and that history | is replicated equally over the participating servers, a bit | like Git. | | In XMPP, you pass messages between clients on different servers | using a given server as a hub, and clients can choose to back | up their message history on their local server. | | Which architecture you prefer probably depends on whether you | think instant messaging should be about passing messages or | archiving chat history. | cyberax wrote: | Jabber core protocol (XMPP) is kinda like SMTP. It deals with | transmission of messages between two peers. Just like with | SMTP, you can federate servers, so they can exchange messages | between each other. | | And the similarities don't end here. XMPP doesn't have built-in | support for encryption (apart from the basic TLS encryption for | the transport layer), it doesn't have support for message | archiving and chat history syncing, there is no support for | group chats, and so on. | | A lot of this functionality is added as extensions (e.g. group | chats are XEP-045), but this simply caused a lot of | fragmentation in the ecosystem. So you could never rely on your | client (or server) interoperating with other clients properly. | | Audio calls and video also never really worked well. Google | tried to push them by releasing libjingle in 2006 (!!!) but it | was kinda ignored by everyone. | vilunov wrote: | Most of criticism of XMPP with regards to fragmentation and | extensions can be applied to Matrix as well. In fact, the | sliding sync itself already fragments the ecosystem by not | being supported out of the box by many server implementations | and therefore homeservers. Encryption often has to be enabled | with some machinations as well if we're talking about clients | other than Element (and electron-based). | | On the other hand, XMPP desktop clients certainly work better | and faster than Element, although some of them look quite | old, which doesn't take away from their functionality. | | IMO it's being heavily overstated how Matrix is better than | XMPP. | | Also a nice read: https://telegra.ph/why-not-matrix-08-07 | | And the answer | https://lobste.rs/s/wvi9xw/why_not_matrix#c_erbsnb | cyberax wrote: | This criticism kinda misses the point. E2EE, especially for | group chats, is _the_ reason to use Matrix. It's an | extremely hard problem, and you'll basically need to | replicate what Matrix does if you want to solve it. | | Doubly so when you add federation. | | It required more than one iteration of Matrix to get it | right, which I (personally) totally expected to happen. I | don't think XMPP will _ever_ get it right. | | Regarding clients, I don't think Element is worse than most | (all?) XMPP clients when you look at the functionality past | simple 1-to-1 messaging. And forget about mobile apps, XMPP | just sucks on mobile. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-09-21 23:00 UTC)