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Signal Is Back

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Re: Signal Is Back

#81

Post by omnimus »

usr1106 wrote: post #45
mxuribe wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because matrix (the open source protocol) is federated, you have options: matrix server (for self-hosting), SDKs, bots, libraries, etc. = https://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix-now matrix clients = https://matrix.org/clients/ matrix bridges (to interoperate between matrix and other services like irc, slack, telegram, etc.) = https://matrix.org/bridges/ if you don't want to manage on your own, and simply want to…

How many users does matrix have? I tried it last fall on 2 different servers. (Hosting an own server is not possible on a small root server you can get for 5 EUR/USD a month, it requires signifcant resources.) My experience was a bit disappointing. It seems pretty overloaded already, especially the irc bridge. And we are talking of thousands of users. I'm pretty convinced that with millions signing up it would collap…

Hosting it on cheap vps is fine if you have private only instance.

What nobody talks about is that when you start to federate this becomes huge issue. One of your users join some old and active room on matrix original instance... it will kill your instance.

So yeah the idea of federation is nice but right now Matrix is no replacement to Signal for personal messaging. Its great for replacing slack and private community servers though. I use it for that a lot.

Re: Signal Is Back

#82

Post by rimliu »

rglullis wrote: post #64
curiousmindz wrote: post #7

We rarely get to see an app have to grow suddenly like that. And with Signal being open source, it must be very educational to follow. Has anyone found a publication around what they had to do on the technical side (code)? Edit: Their server's repo hasn't been updated since April 2020. Why? https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server

Honestly, the main lesson I wish developers (and especially Moxie) get to learn is the one that teaches them that centralized services are fragile, bound to fail and simply not worth the cost.

And also happen to be the ones people actually use.

Re: Signal Is Back

#83

Post by usr1106 »

29083011397778 wrote: post #60
usr1106 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many users does matrix have? I tried it last fall on 2 different servers. (Hosting an own server is not possible on a small root server you can get for 5 EUR/USD a month, it requires signifcant resources.) My experience was a bit disappointing. It seems pretty overloaded already, especially the irc bridge. And we are talking of thousands of users. I'm pretty convinced that with millions signing up it would collap…

> How many users does Matrix have? It's difficult to say, as the French government [0], German armed forces [1], and several thousand independent users/corporations/groups run their own servers. What we can determine is that matrix.org on its own has >10 million accounts [2] (search for "global visible accounts" in the link). > Hosting an own server is not possible on a small root server you can get for 5 EUR/USD a m…

> I think it's gotten much easier to stand up a matrix-synapse server than when you last tried, and suspect you left with a bad taste after joining popular rooms

Exactly that's the problem: If you join a popular room your server will need more resources than the 5 USD/month server typically has. I haven't tried whether 20 USD/month would be enough, but honestly that's a bit more than I am willing to spend for playing around.

But running something with the limitation you cannot join popular rooms didn't seem worth trying either.

Re: Signal Is Back

#84

Post by rglullis »

strken wrote: post #80
rglullis wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, not really "free for everyone". TANSTAAFL. Downvoters, kindly explain what is so wrong about my statement. There are costs to run the operation, having generous benefactors writing big checks (a) do not change this, (b) makes Signal's operation dependent on the source of revenue and (c) hide these externalities long enough to hinder the development of cheaper/more efficient alternatives. IOW, "depending on donati…

You're getting downvoted because your comment doesn't add anything to the conversation. To claim something isn't free to the user just because it has externalities is a cheap rhetorical trick that doesn't give any new information or perspective.

Of course it does. OP asked "how do they manage to have a business". "Depend on donations" is not viable for a large-scale operation that has costs that grows with the customer base.

Re: Signal Is Back

#85

Post by rglullis »

rimliu wrote: post #82
rglullis wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, the main lesson I wish developers (and especially Moxie) get to learn is the one that teaches them that centralized services are fragile, bound to fail and simply not worth the cost.

And also happen to be the ones people actually use.

You use email. You use the internet. You use phone networks.

Re: Signal Is Back

#86

Post by [deleted] »

DarkByte8 wrote: post #72

It would be nice to have a self hosted server that you can use with some friends. example: Me and 2 other friends use our own server while with my parents use signal server.

[deleted]

Re: Signal Is Back

#87

Post by usr1106 »

29083011397778 wrote: post #60
usr1106 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many users does matrix have? I tried it last fall on 2 different servers. (Hosting an own server is not possible on a small root server you can get for 5 EUR/USD a month, it requires signifcant resources.) My experience was a bit disappointing. It seems pretty overloaded already, especially the irc bridge. And we are talking of thousands of users. I'm pretty convinced that with millions signing up it would collap…

> How many users does Matrix have? It's difficult to say, as the French government [0], German armed forces [1], and several thousand independent users/corporations/groups run their own servers. What we can determine is that matrix.org on its own has >10 million accounts [2] (search for "global visible accounts" in the link). > Hosting an own server is not possible on a small root server you can get for 5 EUR/USD a m…

> It's difficult to say, as the French government [0], German armed forces [1]

I'd say those don't really count here because they run their own closed groups. Even if they technically could federate with everybody else, I don't think they do. I guess they are even heavily firewalled. And they don't care having to run beefy servers, they have budget for that.

> What we can determine is that matrix.org on its own has >10 million accounts [2] (search for "global visible accounts" in the link).

How many of them active every day?

They also claim 20.000 active servers, but I could not find more than 2 or 3 open for public registration. And they seemed all pretty loaded and were like suggesting if you can go elsewhere, please do.

Re: Signal Is Back

#88

Post by adamddev1 »

I would say one of the most important things they need to compete with WhatsApp is a better desktop client. WhatsApp's client is great because it works in the browser and is a joy to use. It would be nice if people didn't have to be burdened with downloading a big Electron app and then sit through the slow process where it syncs contacts etc. (kind of makes the user feel like it's broken)

Re: Signal Is Back

#89

Post by usr1106 »

KitDuncan wrote: post #52
usr1106 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matrix is not ready for the general public. I am a user who can (mostly) deal with the horrible user experience of pgp. With matrix I immediately run into trouble that some of my chats could not decrypted the second day any more. The documentation is confusing, the spec has been changed less than a year ago IIRC and different clients a at different stages of implementation. Nothing that a random user could handle.

Not sure when you had your experience, but they improved on e2ee a lot and as long as you backup your recovery key you should never see "unable to decrypt message" warnings.

I guess part of the problem was that I started with a Web client and later moved to my own element client installation.

The element client looked easier to use, although it still remained unclear to me what exactly is the secret key, what is stored locally inside the client (and not available once I switch clients or machines), what is in the server and what I have as a backup.

If I with some practical cryptography experience cannot understand the usage in 1 hour (and I was searching around for more than an hour in various sources) it's not ready for widespread use by people who have no idea what they are doing.

Re: Signal Is Back

#90

Post by arianvanp »

adamddev1 wrote: post #88

I would say one of the most important things they need to compete with WhatsApp is a better desktop client. WhatsApp's client is great because it works in the browser and is a joy to use. It would be nice if people didn't have to be burdened with downloading a big Electron app and then sit through the slow process where it syncs contacts etc. (kind of makes the user feel like it's broken)

Telegram's desktop client is the best I ever used. It's so extremely responsive.

It is written in Qt instead of memory-hogging electron and the difference in how it feels is night and day.

If signal were to develop a new client I wish they'd do native toolkit as well.

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