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Matrix v1.15

matrix.org

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Re: Matrix v1.15

#41

Post by alisonatwork »

7bit wrote: post #7
luqtas wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if people actually cared about freedom/privacy, Discord wouldn't be a thing, right? and even harder to leave Discord now when a lot of users invested in Nitro fancy emoticons and profile enchantments

I care for privacy. But there has to be a compromise between privacy and socializing otherwise we would all use letters with encrypted text, no?

Not really, because the security of letters is guaranteed by the state. The security of Discord is guaranteed by some private citizens based in the US. At least on paper the state exists for the benefit of the people. Discord exists for the benefit of investors who primarily seem to operate out of China and the US - foreign countries to me.

Re: Matrix v1.15

#42

Post by floren »

crossroadsguy wrote: post #35
Arathorn wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the big problems is that folks judge Matrix based on the legacy Element apps, which have now been succeeded by Element X: https://element.io/blog/we-have-lift-off-element-x-call-and-... etc. Element X kicks ass, in my (very biased) opinion: it's a super-speedy Rust core with fancy SwiftUI and Compose native UI layered on top. It radically outperforms any other encrypted messenger i've used in terms of UI perf…

It's been years of seeing Matrix posts being made on hn here (and founder - that is you - enthusiastically replying to comments; which is actually nice that you still care) and even that is long after I finally gave up on it realising it is (and now it seems was never even planned to be) a communication tool for the "masses" or end users - you know - you, I and our friends and family... kind of. Reason? It is still "…

> Maybe 100% of times you are missing the point why people think that way by just assuming this?

"Am I so out of touch? No, it's the users who are wrong"

Re: Matrix v1.15

#43

Post by cyphar »

WD-42 wrote: post #28
encom wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From time to time, I go and check if there's a stable non-Electron Matrix client available - Qt would be nice. Thus, I'm still on IRC. I've tried participating in some bridged Matrix channels, but the IRC bridges I've encountered were super annoying. All messages come from one user, the bridge. Very often, the same message gets repeated twice or more, for some reason. I guess Matrix has no limit on usernames, so some…

The QT client for Matrix is called Nheko: https://nheko-reborn.github.io/ There's a client in just about every toolkit. Just takes a cursory internet search...

Unfortunately, they still use libolm[1] for e2ee which is deprecated[2] and has known security issues[3]. The maintainers appear to not be interested in switching to the newer Rust-based library. Matrix argue that the timing channel attacks are not possible over a network, but the history of timing channel attacks argues that this very few protocols are this fortunate (most people thought timing attacks against TLS were impossible too, until someone bothered to attack them).

[1]: https://github.com/Nheko-Reborn/nheko/issues/1786 [2]: https://matrix.org/blog/2024/08/libolm-deprecation/ [3]: https://soatok.blog/2024/08/14/security-issues-in-matrixs-ol...

Re: Matrix v1.15

#44

Post by doubled112 »

hashworks wrote: post #15
cpfiffer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why exactly don't people use matrix that much? It strikes me as a reasonably good open, secure comms protocol.

The official client is clunky and being electron on the desktop doesn't make it better. Messengers live and die on UX. Since it's an open protocol alternative clients exist of course, but are often not feature complete. Things are often slow , especially with large group channels with lots of messages. If you host a server yourself - it's great that you can! - you'll try the official implementation, synapse — ...and…

Alternative clients feel like a broken promise to me, since features seem to be optional or implemented differently. You're basically stuck with Element if you want to be reasonably sure you're seeing what other people are.

Even the official clients are a little weird. Element X, their next gen super fast client released in 2023, still won't allow me to create a thread on iOS. It will let me put a caption on a photo though, but Element won't.

Re: Matrix v1.15

#45

Post by godelski »

deberon wrote: post #39

There’s a surprising amount of negativity in here. Matrix is great for me. I’m happy to see the improvements. I’m also happy to hear the team is approaching sustainability. Matrix isn’t perfect but it has only improved in the 5 years I’ve been using it. I’m looking forward to what they can do in another 5 years.

I think HN just tends to be negative, though it seems to be getting more negative. I think a lot of people don't understand that finding problems is easy. Fixing them is hard. Which yes, you need to identify first but criticize, don't complain.

But it's funny because anytime someone talks about Signal lots of people point to Matrix as "better". I'm not going to do the reverse because they solve different problems, which is okay. Besides, we should have a diversity of platforms, competition is good and there's no one size fits all. Biggest problem is people thinking there should be one superapp.

I'm pretty confident people are mostly forming opinions to justify their decisions rather than speaking from informed points of view. My evidence is that these platforms solve different problems. Personally, I don't use matrix other than occasionally playing around. But I'm glad it exists and want it to keep existing

Re: Matrix v1.15

#46

Post by godelski »

Arathorn wrote: post #29
cpfiffer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why exactly don't people use matrix that much? It strikes me as a reasonably good open, secure comms protocol.

One of the big problems is that folks judge Matrix based on the legacy Element apps, which have now been succeeded by Element X: https://element.io/blog/we-have-lift-off-element-x-call-and-... etc. Element X kicks ass, in my (very biased) opinion: it's a super-speedy Rust core with fancy SwiftUI and Compose native UI layered on top. It radically outperforms any other encrypted messenger i've used in terms of UI perf…

I think this happens a lot. At least a lot more than people think. Take Firefox vs Chrom{e,ium} (yes, that includes Brave). The differences are really minor and 99% of people wouldn't notice the difference. But boy do people have strong opinions. I'll make one argument for Firefox and I'm not sure other ones matter nearly as much: there needs to be competition in the browser space, and different colors of Chrome don't count. Having one backbone is good for no one. Yes, even Brave gives Google too much power over the entire internet. Hopefully Ladybird will become competitive, but in the mean time some of you should stop being dumb and use Firefox. Because frankly, it doesn't affect your browsing experience. You're just biased in your evaluation because things are "different".

The reason I brought that up is because there are so many parallels with what you're talking about with Matrix. Even down to the rewrite in rust and people acting like software hasn't improved in a decade. But the competition space is very important in chat platforms, just like browsers. You can support Signal and Matrix at the same time. They solve different problems. You can also use WhatsApp, Telegram, and/or iMessage or whatever. Competition is necessary in this space. We don't want monopolies. Especially if you're a firm believer in distributed systems! Distributed systems can become highly centralized. Just check your email account. I'll bet you have a Gmail account... I'll bet you also have an Outlook account. Or look at your phone!

Totally unrelated fun fact: people consider Coke and Pepsi an oligopoly, yet *combined* they only have a 70% market share. (This is definitely unrelated and definitely doesn't have any connection to our discussion...)

Re: Matrix v1.15

#47

Post by Disposal8433 »

stasy01 wrote: post #34
cpfiffer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why exactly don't people use matrix that much? It strikes me as a reasonably good open, secure comms protocol.

It doesn't look consumer friendly at all to set up

I tried it a few years ago and it was not friendly at all too. I'm sure it hasn't changed and everything felt confusing and complicated.

I don't remember the details but I have this feeling that I won't use it again. It seemed like the server could do everything (good) but they didn't found their niche (bad and impossible for such a generic framework).

Re: Matrix v1.15

#48

Post by bigstrat2003 »

deberon wrote: post #39

There’s a surprising amount of negativity in here. Matrix is great for me. I’m happy to see the improvements. I’m also happy to hear the team is approaching sustainability. Matrix isn’t perfect but it has only improved in the 5 years I’ve been using it. I’m looking forward to what they can do in another 5 years.

Same. Some friends and I use Matrix for keeping in touch, and I've been quite happy with it. I find that it just works and gets out of our way.

Re: Matrix v1.15

#49

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

I use beeper to connect with WhatsApp. Saves me from 4 device WhatsApp web limit that is imposed.

That said, I am personally not so keen on using matrix. Remember India government banned matrix and other apps for "facilitating terrorist communications".

Ah... the joys of democracy.

Re: Matrix v1.15

#50

Post by v3ss0n »

deberon wrote: post #39

There’s a surprising amount of negativity in here. Matrix is great for me. I’m happy to see the improvements. I’m also happy to hear the team is approaching sustainability. Matrix isn’t perfect but it has only improved in the 5 years I’ve been using it. I’m looking forward to what they can do in another 5 years.

When compare to Zulip , Matrix usability is nothing close to that.
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