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Matrix 2.0: The Future of Matrix

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Re: Matrix 2.0: The Future of Matrix

#151

Post by btobolaski »

Arathorn wrote: post #144
xorcist wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

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.

Re: Matrix 2.0: The Future of Matrix

#152

Post by whiterock »

Arathorn wrote: post #116
whiterock wrote: post #115

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 :)

this is literally why we rewrote element-ios in rust, in the form of Element X iOS :) https://element.io/labs/element-x

oh that‘s so cool. will give it a try now! :) really looking forward to the search feature btw hehe.

Re: Matrix 2.0: The Future of Matrix

#153

Post by beanjuiceII »

Arathorn wrote: post #60
mike-cardwell wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 al…

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.

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?

Re: Matrix 2.0: The Future of Matrix

#154

Post by jazzyjackson »

beardog wrote: post #119
Arathorn wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 deploy…

Makes me sad that billions got poured into cryptocurrency-sphere projects but classic p2p barely scrapes by. (I mean by society not new vector)

money flows to where it can be multiplied, not where it can be sunk into some social good

Re: Matrix 2.0: The Future of Matrix

#155

Post by fladd »

wkat4242 wrote: post #129

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.

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

Re: Matrix 2.0: The Future of Matrix

#156

Post by jacooper »

preya2k wrote: post #138
Arathorn wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thanks :) sorry for monopolising the thread, but it's too tempting when I have the answers to hand, for better or worse...

Looking forward to your talk tomorrow in Berlin.

Which talk? Is there a link?

Re: Matrix 2.0: The Future of Matrix

#157

Post by Smaug123 »

cvwright wrote: post #110
amatecha wrote: post #25

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 Con…

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?

"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.

Re: Matrix 2.0: The Future of Matrix

#158

Post by 16 »

Arathorn wrote: post #128
noname120 wrote: post #122

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://g…

Beeper don't seem to like Sliding Sync, for whatever reason, so I wouldn't hold your breath on it ;)

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.

Re: Matrix 2.0: The Future of Matrix

#159

Post by dkasak »

beanjuiceII wrote: post #153
Arathorn wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

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.

Re: Matrix 2.0: The Future of Matrix

#160

Post by dingnuts »

Arathorn wrote: post #60
mike-cardwell wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 al…

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.

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.

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