• jagged_circle
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    2 hours ago

    Will regular Element support it soon? Or am I expected to install a new app?

  • e$tGyr#J2pqM8v
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    7 hours ago

    Could someone smarter than me explain Matrix to me? In particular,

    • What would be the utility for someone, who cares about privacy and currently uses Signal and email for communication?
    • What advantage would it give me over other services?
    • Is Matrix anything good already, or is it something with potential that’s still fully in development?
    • How tech savvy does one need to be to use Matrix?
    • jagged_circle
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      3 hours ago

      Its slack but it can be more secure (e2ee DMs).

      Its good already and used as a public channel for most popular Foss projects’ chats

    • isolatedscotch@discuss.tchncs.de
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      6 hours ago

      What would be the utility for someone, who cares about privacy and currently uses Signal and email for communication?

      Matrix is more like discord, no phone numbers, just email, and you can make big groups with different channels within. More meant for communities then something like Signal, that’s mostly for 1:1 conversation or small groups

      What advantage would it give me over other services? Keeping the discord example i said above, no tracking, possibility to have end to end encryption, and open source code, along with the ability of having different instances that can communicate to each other, just like here on lemmy, so if you don’t trust anyone else you can run your own instance

      Is Matrix anything good already, or is it something with potential that’s still fully in development?

      It’s mostly good already, but as with many other privacy focused services it lacks a wide adoption, so most of the communities there are about privacy, Linux and that type of stuff.

      How tech savvy does one need to be to use Matrix?

      The most used client, Element, is IMO very easy to use, you can directly register through there, and you get the choice of choosing between the official matrix.org instance (which on certain occasions is laggy due to the many people using it), or other instances

    • MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml
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      5 hours ago
      • What would be the utility for someone, who cares about privacy and currently uses Signal and email for communication?

      None? Use signal, as long as it works. If the Signal server goes down tho, you could selfhost Matrix.

    • Laser@feddit.org
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      6 hours ago

      What would be the utility for someone, who cares about privacy and currently uses Signal and email for communication?

      Your organization can’t host a federated Signal server, and email isn’t private.

      Is Matrix anything good already, or is it something with potential that’s still fully in development?

      My previous organization has used it for over 4 years without issues, however mostly limited to text.

      How tech savvy does one need to be to use Matrix?

      Simply using? Not very much, basically like Lemmy.

    • jagged_circle
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      3 hours ago

      Matrix is like one of the most popular apps. I don’t love it, but I use it because there’s more users there than Wire or Threema or XMPP.

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    8 hours ago

    Epic timing, I want to dive in and see if I can mirror setting up Discord communities in the most painless way possible. This seems to be a great step in the right direction. Imagine a place… where you get the best of both worlds and we can leave Discord behind.

  • jg1i@lemmy.world
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    15 hours ago

    Hopefully the clients get much better. I convinced a few friends to get on Matrix last year… and… boy… it was a terrible experience. Everyone ended up going back to Discord and they probably won’t trust another recommendation from me.

    • Konomi@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      11 hours ago

      I’ve been very mindful not to recommend Matrix until the clients and protocol become much more stable. When you’re recommending platforms to average users you really need to jump in and try it yourself. If too many problems come up just don’t recommend. Or alternatively do recommend if you want them to leave you alone :3

    • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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      15 hours ago

      UX is very difficult, unfortunately, especially for open-source projects where the contributors are usually programmers and not so much UX/product managers.

  • Konomi@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    10 hours ago

    If the Matrix Foundation can deliver on all the points of this blog post then Matrix will take off as a platform. The problem I have is that in the past they’ve been poor at handling issues in any sort of reasonable time frame, or at all.

    Hoping they’ll eventually turn over a new leaf.

  • TheFriar@lemm.ee
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    18 hours ago

    But I haven’t even escaped the original matrix. Or the matrix reloaded.

    • Hiko0@feddit.org
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      22 hours ago

      Encryption is a mess with Matrix. Randomly doesn‘t decrypt messages. Most non-techies don‘t get the process of saving key files or creating secure passphrases.

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        21 hours ago

        Looks like someone didn’t read the article. See part 4: Invisible Encryption. (Also note the Conclusion paragraph that explains the new functionality is only just starting to appear in clients.)

        • Hiko0@feddit.org
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          21 hours ago

          I did. I referred to the current version and the comment that is has always been a great project.

          • mox@lemmy.sdf.org
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            11 hours ago

            So you were aware that this announcement includes fixes for the encryption issues, yet you decided to post a comment complaining about them anyway, ignoring the point of this post and giving readers the false impression that the issues are unaddressed.

            And you did it just to contradict someone who finds the project useful.

            That’s not helpful to anyone. Quite the opposite, I’d say.

            • sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              5 hours ago

              Too much in the open source community is people saying this is great! Always has been. You shouldn’t crap on people being honest about the problems that have existed, because track record is important

              • mox@lemmy.sdf.org
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                1 hour ago

                You shouldn’t crap on people being honest about the problems that have existed,

                I haven’t “crapped on” anyone. I just pointed out that a comment, which was an absolute declaration in present tense, is misleading, poorly informed, and needlessly quarrelsome. Because it is. And the author then tried to justify it by putting words (“has always been”) in someone else’s mouth. None of that is honest. It was arguing in bad faith, and it’s important to call that sort of thing out, because letting it go is how misinformation spreads.

                If they had instead just presented their view as historical experience to help inform about track record, I wouldn’t have taken issue with it.

                Too much in the open source community is people saying this is great!

                Perhaps, although that’s common around proprietary software as well.

                Great is subjective. Matrix has struggled with some problems that rightly frustrated people, but it also has accomplished some things that no other messaging platform has. By that measure, it is a great project. And the announcement we’re all discussing here demonstrates that it is getting better. Just as barkingspiders said.

            • Hiko0@feddit.org
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              5 hours ago

              I replied to an answer here. Not to the blog post.

              By that, I referred to the quality of this answer concerning the past, to be more precise to the last three years, we‘ve been using Matrix at work, struggeling with these shortcomings.

              Your personal shortcomings concerning either the use of Lemmy and/or discussions in general are sad, but not my problem.

      • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
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        20 hours ago

        Honestly in my experience all issues with decryption have been solved for more than a year. No matter if im using android, web or desktop. Idk about apple shit but thats just not a priority probably.

        Todays desktop release finally enables the new voice/video calls/rooms feature which was the last serious complaint i had.

      • mox@lemmy.sdf.org
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        10 hours ago

        rolling their own crypto

        No, it uses well-known, well-proven, standard crypto.

        It also uses double-ratchet key management, much like what Signal does.

        The reference server is a bit heavy if you’re federating with large public rooms, but lighter alternative servers are available.

        • jimmy90@lemmy.world
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          9 hours ago

          they do have a special crypto usage which they have sensibly rewritten in Matrix 2.0

  • nadiaraven@lemmy.world
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    20 hours ago

    I tried running a matrix server last year. I guess I will try again and see if a normie like me can make it somewhat usable.

    • Takumidesh@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      With docker it’s quite easy (assuming you are familiar with docker)

      But docker / containerization is a skill that becomes really really helpful to learn if you are interested in this type of thing.