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Element Matrix Services Announces Element Home

element.io

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Re: Element Matrix Services Announces Element Home

#71

Post by kevincox »

teraku wrote: post #40
hiq wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same thought, but do your dozen folks use video calls on your instance? Does it work well enough? I'd definitely expect to be able to host a text-only instance for $5, but maybe they also need to provision for more demanding features? I only use Element / Matrix as an IRC replacement for now so I couldn't tell.

AFAIK, Matrix does not support Video chat yet? But the VoIP/audio chat is using WebRTC, so Matrix is only the signalling server and the audio is p2p between the participants. As such the strain on the hosting server should be minimal

Matrix supports both video and audio chat over WebRTC. IIUC this provides strong e2e encryption and very good performance (it is the best looking video call I have used as they don't seem to really have any limit on the resources used because it is p2p). However it is limited to 1:1 right now.

Element (and some other clients, but I don't think it is part of the standard) also supports multi-user voice and video using Jitsi which works very well but you loose e2e encryption (although IIUC Jitsi has some experiments for this) and need to run it separately.

Re: Element Matrix Services Announces Element Home

#72

Post by kevincox »

BugWatch wrote: post #47

While I love Matrix and support their mission, this pricing is quite a bit steep, as well as the 5-person limit being too restricting. They will price out large majority of people who actually could/would want to switch.

Keep in mind that this doesn't mean you can only chat with 5 people. You can chat with anyone who uses Matrix. You can only have 5 people with addresses at your server. Basically identical to email hosting with a 5 account limit.

Re: Element Matrix Services Announces Element Home

#73

Post by ncmncm »

1MachineElf wrote: post #5
regnerba wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why don't you?

As you probably saw in the blog post, the ability to do this is currently only offered via the desktop app, which I do not use. I only use the web interface, the Android app, and a non-Element matrix client. Element said in the blog post that it will add this option to the Android app, and once it does, I will use it and subscribe. Hopefully that answers your question.

The Element desktop app SEGFAULTs on startup when I run it on Debian (partly "unstable", like everybody). Curiously, a prior version used to work, and then recently started crashing with no apparent changes, and still crashes apparently the same way after upgrading to the latest release. It is possible that one of its 100+ library dependencies updated, and Element depends on behavior not retained.

I have not dug into where it crashes, yet. Element rooms have got so slow, lately, I hardly use it anymore. Nobody will say who is responsible. The room owner? My homeserver? Others' homeservers? Matrix.org? All I ever see is the spinner, with no hint as to what or who it is waiting on, or any way evident to ever find out.

On the Android app, meanwhile, rooms have taken to keeping a series of one or more very old messages always displayed at the bottom where current messages are supposed to be, taking up as much as half the screen, thus far.

It also makes a noise every 30 seconds that I cannot turn off, spamming my notifications log to tell me it has polled its server again. I have found that force-killing the app makes this go away. I don't know if this makes it unable to alert me to timely messages from others on my homeserver. The constant noises make it hard to care.

Fluffychat has the same noise problems, so the notification spam is probably in the client library. The sticky ancient message problem is only in Android Element.

Re: Element Matrix Services Announces Element Home

#74

Post by kevincox »

pimeys wrote: post #31

Does this include all the bridges? So the users of the instance can combine other platforms to the same app, such as signal, instagram, twitter, whatsapp, irc, telegram and all that?

I'm pretty sure it doesn't. But my real question is can you run your own bridges with this homeserver?

Re: Element Matrix Services Announces Element Home

#75

Post by notyourday »

sodality2 wrote: post #69
notyourday wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can just enjoy the fact you know you chose someone you trust (us!) with your data. Yeah, no. Blast from the past: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19642554 This is the entity/company who decided to revoke clients keys because not because the users messed up but because they messed up and therefore destroying access to the users messages and defended that as the approach!

Their quote related to the incident and deleting keys (GPG release signing keys on prod machines, no locked down servers, etc leading to the hack): >You might have lost access to your encrypted messages. >As we had to log out all users from matrix.org, if you do not have backups of your encryption keys you will not be able to read your encrypted conversation history. However, if you use server-side encryption key bac…

They revoked keys of users without giving users a choice, ability to save, backup user messages etc.

It is a company with operations, engineering and business ran by amateurs that do not understand the foundation of any user facing business - when you have a choice between not destroying user data and devising a method to handle a situation even if it costs you and losing user data, you do the first.

Every single person that gives them his or her data to host is a toddler having a tantrum.

Re: Element Matrix Services Announces Element Home

#76

Post by sriku »

gorgonzolachz wrote: post #15

This seems like a great move forward for Element, looks like this is angling to replace the New Vector offering they had a while back? The pricing is certainly odd, though. For 5 bucks a month I run my own server with almost a dozen folks on it, which requires basically zero maintenance (I can count the number of times I've had to go in and restart it over the past two years on one hand). Double that for a limit of 5…

With you. Something more like "element family" where all kith and kin can use it would be more valuable. 5 users for a household is ... weak use case.

Re: Element Matrix Services Announces Element Home

#77

Post by azornathogron »

feanaro wrote: post #51
chacha2 wrote: post #46

This would be insane for anyone outside of HN. $10 a month for a 5 person chat? They know everyone can get this free elsewhere for decades now? A 5 person Signal group would even have higher security.

> A 5 person Signal group would even have higher security. Why is it higher security?

Fewer ways for it to be misconfigured?

In Matrix you've got to remember to turn on the encryption, and verify each of your clients. At least that's my understanding, maybe that is out of date.

Re: Element Matrix Services Announces Element Home

#78

Post by rkangel »

gorgonzolachz wrote: post #15

This seems like a great move forward for Element, looks like this is angling to replace the New Vector offering they had a while back? The pricing is certainly odd, though. For 5 bucks a month I run my own server with almost a dozen folks on it, which requires basically zero maintenance (I can count the number of times I've had to go in and restart it over the past two years on one hand). Double that for a limit of 5…

> For 5 bucks a month I run my own server with almost a dozen folks on it, which requires basically zero maintenance (I can count the number of times I've had to go in and restart it over the past two years on one hand).

Yes, but how much work was it to get set up in the first place? There's a reason that people pay for Wordpress subscriptions, even though you and I can set up static hosting off Gitlab pages (for example) for free. I do think the pricing is slightly steep but you can charge a premium for making it usable by the masses.

Re: Element Matrix Services Announces Element Home

#79

Post by ncmncm »

decrypt wrote: post #9
1MachineElf wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you probably saw in the blog post, the ability to do this is currently only offered via the desktop app, which I do not use. I only use the web interface, the Android app, and a non-Element matrix client. Element said in the blog post that it will add this option to the Android app, and once it does, I will use it and subscribe. Hopefully that answers your question.

Accounts on their Element Home plan can work on Android and iOS apps too. It's just that copying over data from a different homeserver to this new homeserver is possible only on the desktop app at the moment.

The ability to copy traffic history from one homeserver to another is a huge deal. I have not succeeded in discovering any details of this rollout. What server versions support it? Does it suffice to copy using one client, once, and then all clients see the result? Or, only after pointing those other clients at the new server? Do the other clients only see old traffic, after, until they are switched over, too?

How can I have more thsn one homeserver watched? Do I need to run N independent client apps (e.g. Element and Fluffychat), with each pointed at one homeserver?

It is very hard to find out any details of what is handled where in Matrix. Nobody in rooms devoted to services acknowledges questions, never mind answering any.

Re: Element Matrix Services Announces Element Home

#80

Post by sodality2 »

notyourday wrote: post #75
sodality2 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their quote related to the incident and deleting keys (GPG release signing keys on prod machines, no locked down servers, etc leading to the hack): >You might have lost access to your encrypted messages. >As we had to log out all users from matrix.org, if you do not have backups of your encryption keys you will not be able to read your encrypted conversation history. However, if you use server-side encryption key bac…

They revoked keys of users without giving users a choice, ability to save, backup user messages etc. It is a company with operations, engineering and business ran by amateurs that do not understand the foundation of any user facing business - when you have a choice between not destroying user data and devising a method to handle a situation even if it costs you and losing user data, you do the first. Every single per…

>As we had to log out all users from matrix.org, if you do not have backups of your encryption keys you will not be able to read your encrypted conversation history. However, if you use server-side encryption key backup (the default in Riot these days) or take manual key backups, you’ll be okay.

I'm not defending them, in fact I prefer XMPP+OMEMO (or I would if I had someone people to talk to). But it seems like the default is key backup which means a significant number of users do have access to their old messages once they restore their key.

>Every single person that gives them his or her data to host is a toddler having a tantrum.

I mean, if you're criticizing a central server in a decentralized platform, agreed, I don't like the heavy influence a single "default" server will have, which is why I self host for myself and any friends/family who want to use it.

Keep in mind that this was a bad hack and IMO they made the right decision to revoke keys (alternative is possible leak of every message, ever sent on their platform) but I don't like that it came to that. Do you think they should not have revoked keys, and if so why? If you're criticizing about the hack in general, though, 100% agreed.

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