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Element One – All of Matrix, WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram in one place

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Re: Element One – All of Matrix, WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram in one place

#81

Post by elnygren »

I already have a way to unify my messaging across different apps. It's called MacOS and cmd+tab. Sometimes on the road I use something called iOS. Sure it's not the same. But is it that different either?

All messaging apps have their own native features, some have E2E encryption etc. Not sure if there's a common subset that is enjoyable enough to use that it's worth it.

That being said, I do wonder what will be the "Facebook Events" (invite all your friends to an event) equivalent in the future when everyone is in a closed garden chat platform instead of Facebook.

Re: Element One – All of Matrix, WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram in one place

#82

Post by yetanother-1 »

elnygren wrote: post #81

I already have a way to unify my messaging across different apps. It's called MacOS and cmd+tab. Sometimes on the road I use something called iOS. Sure it's not the same. But is it that different either? All messaging apps have their own native features, some have E2E encryption etc. Not sure if there's a common subset that is enjoyable enough to use that it's worth it. That being said, I do wonder what will be the "…

I use normal calendar event, it is forwardable, and I get confirmations per email who will be coming. I find it to work just as well.

Re: Element One – All of Matrix, WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram in one place

#83

Post by fastball »

elnygren wrote: post #81

I already have a way to unify my messaging across different apps. It's called MacOS and cmd+tab. Sometimes on the road I use something called iOS. Sure it's not the same. But is it that different either? All messaging apps have their own native features, some have E2E encryption etc. Not sure if there's a common subset that is enjoyable enough to use that it's worth it. That being said, I do wonder what will be the "…

There is definitely a benefit to having a unified interface. The vast majority of the time I don't want to use each chat apps specific features, I just want to message people. And then sometimes I want to be distraction free and turn off notifications. This is much easier if everything is routed through one app.

I'm also on macOS but I've been using Texts[1] for a few months and it has been a great experience.

[1] https://texts.com/

Re: Element One – All of Matrix, WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram in one place

#84

Post by h0nd »

dTal wrote: post #40
personjerry wrote: post #35

Back in the day before the rise of Facebook, there was an open source service that combined all the popular messaging protocols - MSN, AoL, IRC, etc. It was called Pidgin[0], and it never got particularly big. I see the same thing here. While it's interesting, I'm failing to see what the use case is. What's the niche that needs this solved in a big way? [0] https://www.pidgin.im/

No, it wasn't a "service" - it was a program. Unlike this thing. The main difference between this and Pidgin seems to be that you pay a monthly fee for someone to man-in-the-middle all your communications.

Why would I want a man in the middle of my communications?

Re: Element One – All of Matrix, WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram in one place

#85

Post by oblio »

Vinnl wrote: post #76
dTal wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it wasn't a "service" - it was a program. Unlike this thing. The main difference between this and Pidgin seems to be that you pay a monthly fee for someone to man-in-the-middle all your communications.

Of course the protocols Pidgin bridged were only used for real-time communication, rather than for leaving messages which could be attended to (or delivered) later.

No, it wasn't. Yahoo had offline messages. So did many of its other protocols.

Re: Element One – All of Matrix, WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram in one place

#86

Post by h0nd »

personjerry wrote: post #35

Back in the day before the rise of Facebook, there was an open source service that combined all the popular messaging protocols - MSN, AoL, IRC, etc. It was called Pidgin[0], and it never got particularly big. I see the same thing here. While it's interesting, I'm failing to see what the use case is. What's the niche that needs this solved in a big way? [0] https://www.pidgin.im/

Two decades ago I used trillian and mirianda for all the popular messaging protocols,

https://trillian.im/ https://www.miranda-ng.org/en/

Re: Element One – All of Matrix, WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram in one place

#87

Post by oblio »

arp242 wrote: post #70
personjerry wrote: post #35

Back in the day before the rise of Facebook, there was an open source service that combined all the popular messaging protocols - MSN, AoL, IRC, etc. It was called Pidgin[0], and it never got particularly big. I see the same thing here. While it's interesting, I'm failing to see what the use case is. What's the niche that needs this solved in a big way? [0] https://www.pidgin.im/

> I see the same thing here. While it's interesting, I'm failing to see what the use case is. What's the niche that needs this solved in a big way? I used Pidgin a lot. I always found it very convenient to have everything in one place and UI. Better one client than MSN + AOL + ICQ + IRC + Yahoo! + XMPP. In the last few years I haven't used it much, but that's because it just doesn't support the popular messaging apps…

Pidgin was extremely convenient. But it was commoditizing messaging platforms so of course it had to be shot in the head by them.

Re: Element One – All of Matrix, WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram in one place

#88

Post by capableweb »

Spivak wrote: post #79
saurik wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pidgin doesn't use a "bridge"... it is just a generic local client that supports plugins for various protocols that are implemented via adversarial interoperability.

And because of that Pidgin is horribly unreliable. Don’t get me wrong, I used it for years, but over time all the plug-ins broke for one reason or another.

Law makers are required here to solve the situation, as platforms themselves refuse to work with each other. If Facebook and Google had to operate a common protocol (just like IMAP), Pidgin would work much better or wouldn't even be needed.

But no, they want to prevent people from talking with each other via other platforms because "we're best" or whatever.

Re: Element One – All of Matrix, WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram in one place

#89

Post by unicornporn »

dTal wrote: post #40
personjerry wrote: post #35

Back in the day before the rise of Facebook, there was an open source service that combined all the popular messaging protocols - MSN, AoL, IRC, etc. It was called Pidgin[0], and it never got particularly big. I see the same thing here. While it's interesting, I'm failing to see what the use case is. What's the niche that needs this solved in a big way? [0] https://www.pidgin.im/

No, it wasn't a "service" - it was a program. Unlike this thing. The main difference between this and Pidgin seems to be that you pay a monthly fee for someone to man-in-the-middle all your communications.

Thank you. Let us not forget what general purpose computing was like.

Re: Element One – All of Matrix, WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram in one place

#90

Post by bluesign »

scrollaway wrote: post #75
Steltek wrote: post #60

This is nicely timed. Brief history: when Hangouts was going away and Google Chat coming in, I pitched Matrix to my friends as a better alternative that didn't require unique phone numbers, awkward desktop limitations, and a better federated future. We stuck with Google Chat because inertia and networks suck that way. I revisited the instance I had setup and got the mautrix-googlechat bridge working. It's pretty nice…

Beeper implements Google Chat. I've been using it, it works really well. https://www.beeper.com/

Only if you can signup though, been very long time since I registered for invite.
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