Don't give them ideas!
What's next Google? Dropping SMTP support?
21–30 of 263 posts
Re: What's next Google? Dropping SMTP support?
#22Hyperbole aside (they won’t drop SMTP) that is a very narrow and unfair view on the situation, they at least tried for years to make it work with these standards and failed. They were obviously the last ones doing so, and this new approach is mainly about modernising their infrastructure. Is there anyone else of any consequence out there who is building these sorts of messaging apps on top of XMPP? Google was the las…
Other than a basic understanding of what it is, I don't know anything about XMPP. What's wrong with it? Or, more specifically, what does it do poorly that other things have eclipsed?
Re: What's next Google? Dropping SMTP support?
#23I have been trying to move away from Google services for a long time, unfortunately it is very tightly integrated in my life (Gmail, Android etc.) and I am both lazy and loath to spend money. Google is fine for now but I won't hesitate to jump ship if I find myself looking at better options.
Re: What's next Google? Dropping SMTP support?
#24I'm pretty disappointed by the recent dropping of standards that Google has been doing. I'm quite a sceptical person and I've never been a fan of any big corp, but Google has been the one that I've trusted my data in the most and that I've been happiest with. I still trust them with some of my data, but I'm rapidly losing faith in them and in fact I'm starting to think that Microsoft are a more "open" company... and…
>I'm starting to think that Microsoft are a more "open" company...
I am disappointed too. But why is Microsoft more open? Does Microsoft have an open messaging protocol that I don't know of? Or an open source operating system? Or an open source browser? The last I checked, they were forcing manufacturers to ship computers with locked down bootloaders so you can't install your own operating system.
>But they're privacy policies for GDrive scare me, so I don't use that.
Can you clarify exactly what point in the privacy policy you are talking about?
Re: What's next Google? Dropping SMTP support?
#25Hyperbole aside (they won’t drop SMTP) that is a very narrow and unfair view on the situation, they at least tried for years to make it work with these standards and failed. They were obviously the last ones doing so, and this new approach is mainly about modernising their infrastructure. Is there anyone else of any consequence out there who is building these sorts of messaging apps on top of XMPP? Google was the las…
Other than a basic understanding of what it is, I don't know anything about XMPP. What's wrong with it? Or, more specifically, what does it do poorly that other things have eclipsed?
It is federated in such a way that it is sometimes difficult to establish new features, as there are a multitude of servers and clients, which would all have to support said new features for them to stick.
Some see that as an advantage, but it definitely doesn’t help ‘innovate’ and re-invent the wheel every other month. GPG encryption, for example, while standardised in XEP-something, is still not really supported in widely available clients. OTR encryption is more of a layer atop the actual protocol and hence somewhat inelegant (and also not that widely available).
Also it’s XML-based, which could be argued is even worse than base64, but that should be a rather small concern given how popular JSON and the likes are nowadays.
Re: What's next Google? Dropping SMTP support?
#26Hyperbole aside (they won’t drop SMTP) that is a very narrow and unfair view on the situation, they at least tried for years to make it work with these standards and failed. They were obviously the last ones doing so, and this new approach is mainly about modernising their infrastructure. Is there anyone else of any consequence out there who is building these sorts of messaging apps on top of XMPP? Google was the las…
Coincidentally, only yesterday I installed an XMPP daemon on one of my servers and configured it as a message relay so I can send and receive SMS from my PC via my phone.
Facebook chat also uses XMPP.
So in answer to your question: yes, there are people still building new stuff on top of XMPP.
However I will concede that I'm also a bit IRC advocate - so I'm probably the wrong person to comment on the best newest social protocols.
Re: What's next Google? Dropping SMTP support?
#27Can someone confirm Google is killing XMPP and its server-to-server federation? The Verge says Hangouts is not using XMPP but does it mean that XMPP (Google Talk) is definitely going away?
They are not in short term. But do you expect them to keep it going when they have alternative, preferred way of doing and limited resources?
Re: What's next Google? Dropping SMTP support?
#28Everybody knows that SMTP is old, inefficient (hey, it’s nearly plain-text!), insecure, diversified (so many different servers to choose from!) and generally just bad. Clearly a closed web interface that only runs in Chrome would be much better for everyone! Then people could always be sure with whom they communicate, nobody could hack or social-engineer their way into other accounts, and everyone would have to follo…
SMTP is worse than plain text. It's plain text and base64 (which increases file sizes by ~30%). It's a horrid protocol, but sadly it's what we're currently stuck with. But this is all moot as the article is about XMPP, WebDav and RSS. The SMTP headline is nothing more than clickbait.
People keep banging on about "plain text, plain text" what is wrong with plain text? And what is wrong with SMTP?
Also email attachments can be binary encoded, base64 is just one option.
People are free to say that SMTP is "bad" or "broken" but they have to say exactly why that is the case. And "there are multiple different implementations" is a pretty poor justification, as a SMTP replacement would likely have the same issue (or worse).
Re: What's next Google? Dropping SMTP support?
#29Don't forget, they tried "open" with Google Wave, which was a total flop. Developers did not buy into it. You can't expect to have it both ways, especially since Apple has proven that a closed infrastructure (walled garden) works.
I think the App Store does well on ios because it's the only way to load apps onto those devices, but I don't think it works as well on OS X. (I've found that most apps I install on my mbp aren't from the App Store).
I suppose, for everyday consumers (ie: less tech savvy), the experience may be different.
Anyway, I think developers will go where they think it's cool. And also, they'll go where they can get the most market share (and hence higher ROI potential). If that were to be an open platform, then so be it. In this case, it's not so open.
Re: What's next Google? Dropping SMTP support?
#30Everybody knows that SMTP is old, inefficient (hey, it’s nearly plain-text!), insecure, diversified (so many different servers to choose from!) and generally just bad. Clearly a closed web interface that only runs in Chrome would be much better for everyone! Then people could always be sure with whom they communicate, nobody could hack or social-engineer their way into other accounts, and everyone would have to follo…
Bill Gates is a goy so he can not be king of the internet. But Google would make a good king, so just bow down.
wtf is that supposed to mean?