8 ms·

At least your friends don't need a whole lot of instruction to join. Inserting pictures is pretty easy. And it's mobile.

downtide 7y ago
Still with a lot of this tech, if someone sat you down for an hour and helped you, the barrier wouldn't be there.
- 0b0001 7y ago
  Sitting down for an hour and talking about tech /is/ the barrier.
  - downtide 7y ago
    I'm reading this as you'd prefer something inherently intuitive. Which yes would be great. Some tools need at least some instruction and guidance.
    - elcomet 7y ago
      Well the point is that Whatsapp doesn't.
      - downtide 7y ago
        I didn't see Whatsapp singled out in the article or by the parent. But good to know it has a simple UI. There is a comment in the story about cross platform woes and incompatibilities. I've never managed to install Whatsapp on my computer.
        0b0001 7y ago
        You don't /need/ to install it on your computer. Most users won't use it that way anyway, but if you want, you just use the web interface. That doesn't even require any riddles about adding another end-to-end encryption keypair.
        otachack 7y ago
        For sure, it piggybacks off the mobile device you connect with. It's a really solid, seamless, and easy way of starting a desktop client. I wish Telegram would adapt it as well but the current way it handles isn't terrible (1 time code).
        skinnymuch 7y ago
        I think telegram should def add it as another way. But as a more power user of Telegram and Whatsapp I would def prefer native sleek clients for both. Whatsapp issues go beyond that like not being able to log into a tablet. But none of that goes away from the point of both being intuitive.
        downtide 7y ago
        About as intuitive as comic chat - seems you need a mobile and phone number to get going with Whatsapp.
yoz-y 7y ago
Many irc channels are as easy to join as clicking a link. Webchat has gone a long way now.
- chongli 7y ago
  That doesn't solve the problem of name registration, file/picture sharing, group membership/moderation, customization/emoji, planning, etc. that are handled easily with something like Facebook Messenger groups. IRC is super clunky by comparison.
  - qxcbr 7y ago
    No emoji/pictures/link previews is a feature to me. You know if someone posts a link nobody's going to click.
    - jamesgeck0 7y ago
      There are other groups who heavily use these features. We've got over a thousand custom emojis in my Slack at work. Our interactions would be just slightly less rich without :badpokerface:, :sadpanda:, or :superhero:.
      - astazangasta 7y ago
        Balls. Emoticons were plenty rich, they just require too much creativity for this lazy set.
        hombre_fatal 7y ago
        For some reason these IRC vs X discussions always have the IRC party attributing character flaws to everyone else. Like not being creative enough to read the same amount of information from ":)" and specific, rich, custom emoji like, I don't know, someone simply shrugging. That's some bizarre self-aggrandizement. I encourage you to go on a Twitch channel and tell me the :) equivalent of all the custom Twitch/channel images you see in chat. https://www.polygon.com/2018/5/14/17335670/twitch-emotes-meaning-list-kappa-monkas-omegalul-pepe-trihard https://www.polygon.com/2018/5/14/17335670/twitch-emotes-mea... Could you break these down for us?
Insanity 7y ago
You can use irccloud and you got irc on mobile, with easy picture integration and you don't miss messages when not online. (Like slack/discord).
- dmitriid 7y ago
  HN has a very strange hate/love relationship with modern chat systems. Slack/Discord/whatever: they are proprietary, they are closed-source, they are bad. IRCCloud (which is proprietary, closed source etc.): oh, it's so good, use it.
  - trampi 7y ago
    use The Lounge if you want to host something like that yourself, it is open source. I like it. https://thelounge.chat/ https://thelounge.chat/
  - swiley 7y ago
    This is probably because IRCCloud is not the one running the server the channel is hosted on; You don’t have to use it if your friends do. If that changed the average HN user’s attitude would probably change as well.
  - xfitm3 7y ago
    IRCCloud's privacy policy should be of concern: "We keep logs of your IRC communications until you delete your account with us, or a connection, or channel. This means that, even if you stop using IRCCloud for a while, when you next log in, it will be as if you never went away."
    - qxcbr 7y ago
      So like any other messenger? You can delete your logs whenever you like, but they don't get deleted automatically.
  - Fnoord 7y ago
    > HN has a very strange hate/love relationship with modern chat systems. > Slack/Discord/whatever: they are proprietary, they are closed-source, they are bad. > IRCCloud (which is proprietary, closed source etc.): oh, it's so good, use it. Who exactly is "HN"? How did you even decide "HN" has opinion X or Y? I'm fine with Discord because its mostly used for gaming. Given the previous options (Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, Mumble, Skype), it is miles better. And of these, only Mumble is fully FOSS. A clear disadvantage is however privacy-related, but for gaming that isn't a huge issue. What I'm not fine with is being forced to use Slack for work-related material. You don't want such sensitive data centralized. You want to host such yourself, or have the private keys yourself. IRCCloud, whatever it is, probably does not have the same amount of users as the previously mentioned two. But if it uses the IRC protocol (which the name suggests), at least that is open and there's no vendor lock-in like with Slack/Discord. Which, given that Slack is used for commercial endeavors, is worse for Slack.
Crinus 7y ago
I remember IRC in the late 90s, early 2000s having A LOT (like 9 out of 10) of people who otherwise had no idea about computers (remember droves of people disconnecting after 'Press Alt+F4 to get @'?). People who didn't knew the difference between a file and a directory (or folder) were on IRC with channels having hundreds of people. If someone can figure out Facebook (and trust me, Facebook is far from intuitive for someone who doesn't know) or any other web-based service, they can figure out IRC. The main reason people do not use IRC much nowadays is that other people moved off IRC to Facebook and other social places. It isn't a technical thing, it is mainly a social thing.
- fenwick67 7y ago
  Your point about Facebook is spot on, if you have never used it before it's a nightmare
  - Fnoord 7y ago
    Especially hardening all the default settings to more privacy minded ones.
- wlesieutre 7y ago
  Lack of conversation persistence is a real problem. It's 2019 and people expect to have it. If messages disappear into the ether while I'm not actively connected to the room, it's not going to work for participating in a group conversation. Yeah you can set up some always-connected relay on a server and bounce your client through it to still get the conversation backlog when you weren't online, but it's not reasonable to expect an average computer user even have an always-connected machine to run it on, let alone actually get a relay working. If they can use Facebook they could use IRCCloud, but that's $5/month and Messenger/WhatsApp/Discord/Slack are free.
  - nixpulvis 7y ago
    Well that's the whole idea behind Snapchat, but I get your point. Sometimes I wish I didn't have so many messages saved forever tho, honestly.
chapium 7y ago
AOL and mIRC didn't require any nongui commands as I recall.
cowmoo728 7y ago
Yes but I currently have discord, hangouts, slack, line, and messenger installed, and have used keybase, signal, and matrix on top of that. It's a bit extreme.
- pcf 7y ago
  Try Franz to gather many of them in one program?
  - skinnymuch 7y ago
    The ram and random cpu usage spike on a Mac is too much for me to handle. I’ll never use Franz again after giving it multiple chances. There’s more native FBM options as well as Slack and Discord combined clients (Ripcord) though the latter might not look or behave the way people want.
ggg2 7y ago
mIRC was probably as easy as slack. but you didn't have to force everyone to use mIRC. Same for aim, icq... greedy killed all of those, not the ability to create better open clients. Namely msn and gtalk (not the jabber offering, which was a joke attempt of making federated icq for corporations, enterprisey java codebase and all)

downtide 7y ago

Still with a lot of this tech, if someone sat you down for an hour and helped you, the barrier wouldn't be there.

0b0001 7y ago
Sitting down for an hour and talking about tech /is/ the barrier.
- downtide 7y ago
  I'm reading this as you'd prefer something inherently intuitive. Which yes would be great. Some tools need at least some instruction and guidance.
  - elcomet 7y ago
    Well the point is that Whatsapp doesn't.
    - downtide 7y ago
      I didn't see Whatsapp singled out in the article or by the parent. But good to know it has a simple UI. There is a comment in the story about cross platform woes and incompatibilities. I've never managed to install Whatsapp on my computer.
      - 0b0001 7y ago
        You don't /need/ to install it on your computer. Most users won't use it that way anyway, but if you want, you just use the web interface. That doesn't even require any riddles about adding another end-to-end encryption keypair.
        otachack 7y ago
        For sure, it piggybacks off the mobile device you connect with. It's a really solid, seamless, and easy way of starting a desktop client. I wish Telegram would adapt it as well but the current way it handles isn't terrible (1 time code).
        skinnymuch 7y ago
        I think telegram should def add it as another way. But as a more power user of Telegram and Whatsapp I would def prefer native sleek clients for both. Whatsapp issues go beyond that like not being able to log into a tablet. But none of that goes away from the point of both being intuitive.
        downtide 7y ago
        About as intuitive as comic chat - seems you need a mobile and phone number to get going with Whatsapp.

yoz-y 7y ago

Many irc channels are as easy to join as clicking a link. Webchat has gone a long way now.

chongli 7y ago
That doesn't solve the problem of name registration, file/picture sharing, group membership/moderation, customization/emoji, planning, etc. that are handled easily with something like Facebook Messenger groups. IRC is super clunky by comparison.
- qxcbr 7y ago
  No emoji/pictures/link previews is a feature to me. You know if someone posts a link nobody's going to click.
  - jamesgeck0 7y ago
    There are other groups who heavily use these features. We've got over a thousand custom emojis in my Slack at work. Our interactions would be just slightly less rich without :badpokerface:, :sadpanda:, or :superhero:.
    - astazangasta 7y ago
      Balls. Emoticons were plenty rich, they just require too much creativity for this lazy set.
      - hombre_fatal 7y ago
        For some reason these IRC vs X discussions always have the IRC party attributing character flaws to everyone else. Like not being creative enough to read the same amount of information from ":)" and specific, rich, custom emoji like, I don't know, someone simply shrugging. That's some bizarre self-aggrandizement. I encourage you to go on a Twitch channel and tell me the :) equivalent of all the custom Twitch/channel images you see in chat. https://www.polygon.com/2018/5/14/17335670/twitch-emotes-meaning-list-kappa-monkas-omegalul-pepe-trihard https://www.polygon.com/2018/5/14/17335670/twitch-emotes-mea... Could you break these down for us?

Insanity 7y ago

You can use irccloud and you got irc on mobile, with easy picture integration and you don't miss messages when not online. (Like slack/discord).

dmitriid 7y ago
HN has a very strange hate/love relationship with modern chat systems. Slack/Discord/whatever: they are proprietary, they are closed-source, they are bad. IRCCloud (which is proprietary, closed source etc.): oh, it's so good, use it.
- trampi 7y ago
  use The Lounge if you want to host something like that yourself, it is open source. I like it. https://thelounge.chat/ https://thelounge.chat/
- swiley 7y ago
  This is probably because IRCCloud is not the one running the server the channel is hosted on; You don’t have to use it if your friends do. If that changed the average HN user’s attitude would probably change as well.
- xfitm3 7y ago
  IRCCloud's privacy policy should be of concern: "We keep logs of your IRC communications until you delete your account with us, or a connection, or channel. This means that, even if you stop using IRCCloud for a while, when you next log in, it will be as if you never went away."
  - qxcbr 7y ago
    So like any other messenger? You can delete your logs whenever you like, but they don't get deleted automatically.
- Fnoord 7y ago
  > HN has a very strange hate/love relationship with modern chat systems. > Slack/Discord/whatever: they are proprietary, they are closed-source, they are bad. > IRCCloud (which is proprietary, closed source etc.): oh, it's so good, use it. Who exactly is "HN"? How did you even decide "HN" has opinion X or Y? I'm fine with Discord because its mostly used for gaming. Given the previous options (Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, Mumble, Skype), it is miles better. And of these, only Mumble is fully FOSS. A clear disadvantage is however privacy-related, but for gaming that isn't a huge issue. What I'm not fine with is being forced to use Slack for work-related material. You don't want such sensitive data centralized. You want to host such yourself, or have the private keys yourself. IRCCloud, whatever it is, probably does not have the same amount of users as the previously mentioned two. But if it uses the IRC protocol (which the name suggests), at least that is open and there's no vendor lock-in like with Slack/Discord. Which, given that Slack is used for commercial endeavors, is worse for Slack.

Crinus 7y ago

I remember IRC in the late 90s, early 2000s having A LOT (like 9 out of 10) of people who otherwise had no idea about computers (remember droves of people disconnecting after 'Press Alt+F4 to get @'?). People who didn't knew the difference between a file and a directory (or folder) were on IRC with channels having hundreds of people. If someone can figure out Facebook (and trust me, Facebook is far from intuitive for someone who doesn't know) or any other web-based service, they can figure out IRC. The main reason people do not use IRC much nowadays is that other people moved off IRC to Facebook and other social places. It isn't a technical thing, it is mainly a social thing.

fenwick67 7y ago
Your point about Facebook is spot on, if you have never used it before it's a nightmare
- Fnoord 7y ago
  Especially hardening all the default settings to more privacy minded ones.
wlesieutre 7y ago
Lack of conversation persistence is a real problem. It's 2019 and people expect to have it. If messages disappear into the ether while I'm not actively connected to the room, it's not going to work for participating in a group conversation. Yeah you can set up some always-connected relay on a server and bounce your client through it to still get the conversation backlog when you weren't online, but it's not reasonable to expect an average computer user even have an always-connected machine to run it on, let alone actually get a relay working. If they can use Facebook they could use IRCCloud, but that's $5/month and Messenger/WhatsApp/Discord/Slack are free.
- nixpulvis 7y ago
  Well that's the whole idea behind Snapchat, but I get your point. Sometimes I wish I didn't have so many messages saved forever tho, honestly.

chapium 7y ago

AOL and mIRC didn't require any nongui commands as I recall.

cowmoo728 7y ago

Yes but I currently have discord, hangouts, slack, line, and messenger installed, and have used keybase, signal, and matrix on top of that. It's a bit extreme.

pcf 7y ago
Try Franz to gather many of them in one program?
- skinnymuch 7y ago
  The ram and random cpu usage spike on a Mac is too much for me to handle. I’ll never use Franz again after giving it multiple chances. There’s more native FBM options as well as Slack and Discord combined clients (Ripcord) though the latter might not look or behave the way people want.

ggg2 7y ago

mIRC was probably as easy as slack. but you didn't have to force everyone to use mIRC. Same for aim, icq... greedy killed all of those, not the ability to create better open clients. Namely msn and gtalk (not the jabber offering, which was a joke attempt of making federated icq for corporations, enterprisey java codebase and all)