Nice to see some of the alternative client apps listed at the end of the article.
I'm especially looking forward to the upcoming new voice chat system: Element Call.
this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
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Matrix is awesome. Such a pitty that not more people are using it. Though 110 million is already quite a lot
The main problem with Matrix is that the protocol is too big. There's no server and client that's feature complete, other than Synapse and Element.
Encryption key handling is horrible. It makes Matrix a terrible choice for non-technical users.
As a replacement for IRC, it's fine. Bridging is limited to a small handful of platforms, or a limited set of fairly technical users with access to money to run cloud services and the willingness to take on maintenance of a hodgepodge of software services and the corresponding network security risks. I'd argue that this part was poorly thought out. It puts the core value features out of reach of the majority of the population.
It would have been better to focus on a client-side bridging design. Or, something more accessible. And the fucking horrible encryption design, oy.
What do you mean specifically by encryption key handling? You log in, confirm it with one other device, done. Don't see where I ever used technical knowledge?
I agree there are weird glitches und sometimes bugs, but they mostly get fixed. Mostly :d
You log in, confirm it with another device (better hope it's nearby! That first setup of a 2nd client is a doozy of a feel bad, if it isn't), then a few days later it just stops letting you do anything, doesn't really tell you what to do about it, and you have to reconfirm with a 2ne device all over again (which, again, had better be nearby).
You log in, confirm it with another device (better hope it’s nearby! That first setup of a 2nd client is a doozy of a feel bad, if it isn’t),
Your devices don't have to be nearby to verify them. You can enter a key backup passphrase instead.
then a few days later it just stops letting you do anything,
That's not normal. Looks like you ran into a bug. Did you report it, so it can be tracked and fixed?
I gather from their weekly reports that they've been fixing encryption bugs lately, and that the clients now in testing (the Element X code base) seem to have them solved. You might want to try those, or one of the third-party clients.
The new Rust library is really solid. Once things start moving to that instead of rolling their own, it will get a lot more smooth.
Can you tell me more about this? I’m running a synapse server at the moment, but if there’s about to be a smoother Rust option, I’m interested!
It’s a client library only. Keep running Synapse. :D
Yeah, I do wish they just let you disable encryption for all rooms at a server level. But years ago people gave the team so much shit for not supporting encryption that they added really good encryption, but it makes things harder. Nothing is free.
Any good matrix server recommendations?
I can recommend tchncs.de if you are in germany
A 1% recommendation 👌
I think more people would understand what you mean if you asked for community recommendations (or space recommendations if you want to use the Matrix-specific term). What Discord calls a "server" is not a server in any normal sense of the word, so it's going to confuse people who aren't Discord regulars, especially when we're talking about a different network that has actual servers and self-hosting support.
+1 to this I open matrix and its very boring compared to opening discord. ☹️
It doesn't matter which server you are on;You can join any Matrix rooms. Additionally, you can bridge your important Discord announcements or chats using t2bot.io .
If you are looking for professional hosting, https://communick.com/services/matrix has been around for some years. ;)
If you just want a free, donation-based alternative: I hear good things from techncs.de
No I'm not looking for hosting. I am looking for a server of alcoholic schizos and political extremists.
Ah, you're looking for reddit?
you mean a chat room.
nitro.chat
The question is, how many servers run sliding sync?
How do they know? :-D
opt-in analytics! servers running Synapse can choose to send a bit of analytics information like number of users, but it's opt-in so the number is potentially even higher
Matrix isn't decentralized, it's federated.
Federated is a form of decentralized.
look at the word, decentralized just means it's not centralized, which is true for matrix.
the word you're thinking of is "distributed" like with torrents, which matrix can sort of be but isn't in practice.
Matrix is decentralized, as the servers are independent from each other. They choose to cooperate, so that people can talk to each other. But the servers are run by different people or organizations and act independently. Or do I get it wrong? If so, can you explain why Matrix is not decentralized?
You got it right. Matrix is decentralized. It's just not peer-to-peer (although there has been some work toward making it so).
If Matrix was here, he’d laugh too.