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Briar is in maintenance mode

briarproject.org

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Re: Briar is in maintenance mode

#81

Post by palata »

timcobb wrote: post #11

> Last year, we decided that we wouldn’t realistically be able to solve these issues and so we reluctantly decided to shut down the project. If these are actually the problems, then why not throw 200 dollars of GPT 5.6 at these instead of shutting it down? Were these systematic problems (Apple/Google hegemony, for example) that couldn't be beat with code?

I don't get why you're being downvoted for that. It's a fair question.

In my opinion, the answer is that it's just a lot more complicated than it may sound. Using an AI may make them more productive, sure, but it will still be a lot of work.

It feels like they just haven't reached critical mass. Briar is a great idea, but if not enough people are willing to use it (and donate to it), then it cannot succeed, right? And the fact that they considered rewriting it from scratch means that it's not only a question of user base: there are fundamental problems that aren't easily solved.

P2P is just hard, as proven by the fact that there is almost no example of successful P2P system in the wild.

Re: Briar is in maintenance mode

#82

Post by nunobrito »

monkaiju wrote: post #62
nunobrito wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of a fork, there is completely new development going on here: https://github.com/geograms/aurora BLE/LoRa/radio/internet mesh with reticulum that combines chat, social and torrents over NOSTR (decentralized protoocol). Still beta, around August should be stable.

No way am I going to trust a heavily LLM-generated app as a replacement to Briar...

Geogram started even before AIs were available for coding.

I'm a dinosaur but you remind those complaining in the 90s that Turbo Pascal wasn't real programming because it was too easy to copy code and compile.

I don't have a team of developers nor funding to hire them. AI amplifies by 26 times what I can do in a year. It was never about the code, what matters is what you do with it.

Re: Briar is in maintenance mode

#83

Post by palata »

Kiro wrote: post #29
timcobb wrote: post #11

> Last year, we decided that we wouldn’t realistically be able to solve these issues and so we reluctantly decided to shut down the project. If these are actually the problems, then why not throw 200 dollars of GPT 5.6 at these instead of shutting it down? Were these systematic problems (Apple/Google hegemony, for example) that couldn't be beat with code?

I agree. These are classic problems where LLMs really shine. I would be very surprised if GPT-5.6 couldn't fix them.

On the contrary, I think those are fundamental problems that cannot be solved by LLMs.

Re: Briar is in maintenance mode

#84

Post by palata »

timcobb wrote: post #60
klibertp wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not. Modern Android is increasingly limiting what apps can do. It's a "code issue" in the sense that you can clone the Android sources, overhaul security and power management systems, and build your app to run on that. It'll work. It's doable. Would that be a solution for this project, though?

Well, no. If the project is being shut down because its target(s) went away, then that seems unavoidable. It would be good, IMO, if people could come together and build out an open mobile platform not subject to SV hegemony, so I think what you're saying is the way to go, actually. Because building out AOSP and or just something forked/from scratch is... actually... accessible now in my opinion. I think it doesn't ma…

> It would be good, IMO, if people could come together and build out an open mobile platform not subject to SV hegemony

It would, but I would argue that it wouldn't solve Briar's problem here.

The problem on Android is not that Google doesn't want P2P to work. It's that Android optimises aggressively for the battery. You can install a mobile Linux and run a P2P service on it, that's not a problem at all. But you will have to charge it multiple times a day, and nobody wants that from a phone.

Have you ever tried running an Android-based system without the Play Services (and without migroG)? Try running e.g. Signal without FCM, and see the impact on your battery life. You want to fork the OS to solve that? You will probably end up rebuilding something as centralised as FCM.

There is a fundamental question there: does it work, without major downsides, to have a P2P system where the nodes are mobile phones? Until now it has always been a tradeoff, and people clearly choose battery life. Also you don't need P2P for privacy.

> There's no reason to remain cautious because, well, right now we have _nothing_

Android is open source. There are big alternatives like LineageOS and GrapheneOS. I don't think we have nothing. There is a lot of great technical stuff in Android/iOS. While iOS is out of bounds because proprietary, Android is open source, so we have all that great stuff. We don't have nothing.

Re: Briar is in maintenance mode

#85

Post by marssaxman »

HelloUsername wrote: post #5

That's too bad. Anyone know of a fork or similar project? Maybe Meshtastic/MeshCore/BitChat. Berty Messenger's last update on iOS was in January 2025.

MeshCore is growing rapidly. Check out this map of CascadiaMesh - connectivity all the way from Vancouver down to Klamath Falls, and now east to Spokane:

https://cascadiamesh.org/map/

Re: Briar is in maintenance mode

#86

Post by api »

davexunit wrote: post #67

I sympathize with the developers. Mobile OS push notifications are a big impediment to the adoption of p2p technology and it's hard to do anything novel in the chat space because there's a million chat apps.

Mobile maintains good battery life mostly by being idle almost all the time, and P2P can’t work that way. Even P2P with central server assist is hard on mobile.

It could if we’d never broken the full end to end principle and put stateful firewalls and NAT in front of everything, but that ship has sailed. All net connections require keepalive or a firewall will close them. This is even true these days in the cloud for the most part unless your machines are “naked” VMs directly on the globally routed Internet.

Re: Briar is in maintenance mode

#87

Post by timcobb »

Kiro wrote: post #77
timcobb wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the minimal context I got, it seems like there are underlying platform access problems in the way. In my experience, attempting to work around these issues is demoralizing.

Yes, it's demoralizing for a human. Which is why it's good for an LLM. They have no problem implementing these soul crushing workarounds.

I meant working around the big tech hegemony, working around code just takes patience and is nice.

Re: Briar is in maintenance mode

#88

Post by exceptione »

Evanito wrote: post #37
exceptione wrote: post #7

TIL Briar is text-only, per https://eylenburg.github.io/im_comparison.htm

Briar supports sending images. Source: user

I stand corrected then. Although I had checked the website and the sparse UX details on the website only showed images of plain text. So this is an opportunity for the Briar people if they still feel the energy.

Re: Briar is in maintenance mode

#89

Post by Vinnl »

ijustlovemath wrote: post #53
rglullis wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being p2p, network effects are even larger: you have to convince not only your own friends to install and use, but also rely on enough density in your area?

Helene survivor here. I will be spreading the word about this project and keeping some APKs for if the shit hits the fan again. FDroid being able to sync between local devices means all you need is to get fdroid onto someones phone. Wish they had an iphone app though!

Doesn't Briar itself provide functionality to share the apk via Bluetooth? So you don't even need F-Droid (though it's still good to have regardless, of course).

Re: Briar is in maintenance mode

#90

Post by bpicolo »

ijustlovemath wrote: post #53
rglullis wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being p2p, network effects are even larger: you have to convince not only your own friends to install and use, but also rely on enough density in your area?

Helene survivor here. I will be spreading the word about this project and keeping some APKs for if the shit hits the fan again. FDroid being able to sync between local devices means all you need is to get fdroid onto someones phone. Wish they had an iphone app though!

What's the range on bluetooth? If I can reach someone via bluetooth, can't I also just talk to them? Or is it longer than I realize?
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