10 ms·

NovaChat: Multi-Network Chat

122 points by memexy 6y ago

comex 6y ago
This is exactly the functionality I want from a chat client, and have been unable to find. But it’s Electron. Pass. (Unless I find time to go figure out if it can be used with other Matrix clients…)
- erohead 6y ago
  (I made this) It works with any matrix client. But the UI naturally is not as nice. I use it daily with RiotX on Android and it works fine.
  - RMPR 6y ago
    If the claim of GP is true that your app is electron, why mention this? >NovaChat is not a browser/Chromium solution that opens many tabs to different chat networks like Franz, Shift or Station
    - ChrisClark 6y ago
      Because it's not? It's an app built in Electron that talks to their server. It's not an app built in Electron that opens up the official webpages for each of these chat apps.
stonogo 6y ago
Closed-source, single-dev Matrix frontend that doesn't even mention MS Teams. I want to like it, but for a monthly service fee it needs to be absolutely flawless and it needs to have enterprise auth nailed -- including O365/Exchange. I also can't figure out what this does that XMPP did not do -- XMPP did all of the above and still didn't really last.
- erohead 6y ago
  it's (mostly) open source, actually: https://gitlab.com/nova https://gitlab.com/nova
- 0xCMP 6y ago
  There's so many apps and many don't work on the desktop. It's just trying it's best to simplify keeping in touch with people where they want to talk.
addajones 6y ago
Trillian, Adium, Pigdin for 2020? Lol. What a mess the internet has become.
- loceng 6y ago
  Those were all free too if I remember correctly?
  - coding123 6y ago
    Yes they were, except I think Trillian had a pro version.
    - addajones 6y ago
      I remember those! It was free forever then later on that Trillian Pro came around. Adium was my favorite during that time.
- whalesalad 6y ago
  Somehow they are still around. https://blog.trillian.im/introducing-trillian-6.3 https://blog.trillian.im/introducing-trillian-6.3
- jbverschoor 6y ago
  IRC was free too..
- pxtail 6y ago
  Thing is that situation is much worse because there are no official APIs for most of the networks (most popular ones) this project aims to support - and it means constant uphill battle eventually doomed to fail. In addition to that if the project will ever become something more than just a gimmick then I think that entities like FB, Apple will use active countermeasures: technical and legal to discourage authors.
meddlin 6y ago
While I'm sure it's a fine app, this oddly looks like a graduation of using Thunderbird in ~2006 as a multi-email client.
elchin 6y ago
I remember using Trillian back in the day, and the problem was that they couldn't keep up with features of each chat network, so I had go back to using ICQ, MSN Messenger, etc. separately.
coding123 6y ago
The target customer seems a bit odd. Typically people will have exactly 1 paid service for chat. Like, probably Slack. And that's already $$ per month per user. So is this for individuals that have their company pay for slack, and then like, what also pay for the luxury chat client that let's the employee add like a bunch of personal chat accounts? On the other hand, if they're expecting individuals to pay for this (at $10/mo and that's during beta) just like, because, that's going to be a challenging market.
rtomanek 6y ago
> Eric Migicovsky Is this the Eric of Pebble fame? I have a lot of warm feelings here, I actually still wear one. :) While I prefer open communication protocols and clients, the reality seems to be the world has sadly moved on from this. Hopefully Nova will be of as high quality as Pebble was. Good luck!
usbfingers 6y ago
I've built a not for profit multi-platform capable matrix chat client that is now in open alpha called Syphon (https://github.com/syphon-org/syphon https://github.com/syphon-org/syphon) to largely address the issue of proprietary chat clients. Private, secure communication (with a decent brand and ui) should be accessible to everyone by now. Signal does a great job of filling the void for now but if they fail or are blocked by a country or community, the application interface itself is not a protocol to which people could easily pivot to the “gmail” of Signal. I’m hoping that Riot’s upcoming rebrand will mark the start of this transition. We needed centralized efforts to spread usage of matrix, or even a similarly accessible protocol, but make it easy for those to create or maintain their own connection to that network. If all else fails, I guess we’ll have Syphon.
granitDev 6y ago
I'm not sure why this is needed...looks to me like a solution in search of a problem.
- RMPR 6y ago
  There's a blog post talking about the why https://medium.com/@ericmigi/the-universal-communication-bus-42dfb9a141ad https://medium.com/@ericmigi/the-universal-communication-bus...
- smt88 6y ago
  I could not disagree more. This is a probably for me almost every waking hour. Perhaps this is a US-centric problem, but I have groups of friends on WhatsApp (mostly foreign), Hangouts, MMS/SMS, Telegram, and Messenger. Then there's Slack for work. Ever since my Blackberry had my emails, SMS, and BBMs (iMessage-like service for BlackBerry users) all in the same inbox with threads, I have been dying for a service where I can just say, "I want to send a message to [person]," and let the app decide how to contact them or continue my existing thread. I have paid for Franz and Station, both of which were unusable garbage, and now use Hamsket (a fork or Rambox)[1]. 1. https://github.com/TheGoddessInari/hamsket https://github.com/TheGoddessInari/hamsket
myu701 6y ago
2 things. 1) much better name for a matrix client than the others, Nova sounds cool. 2) $10/month is more than Disney+ per month. Could there be the option to accept a $5/month for desktop only and a separate $5/month for mobile? Then a combined $10/month for both? Massive kudos on it looking good (even if electron) and doing Matrix stuff nicely. I will be watching this closely, especially when Signal is ready to go.
- erohead 6y ago
  If you don't want to pay, you can always spin up our entire system on your own server. One way is to use Matrix-Docker-Ansible https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy It is finnicky though. If you promise to give me good feedback and bug reports, sign up for the beta and I will waive the fee though!
  - figers 6y ago
    I'd be happy to provide that to waive the monthly fee, I just filled out your form... Would love to have iMessage working from my windows computer
KishanBagaria 6y ago
We're working on a similar idea at https://texts.com https://texts.com It supports iMessage as well, isn't based on Matrix and is completely local.
- memexy 6y ago
  Thanks for providing a link. I signed up. Looking forward to when it becomes available. I currently use keybase for search and annotation so would like to see keybase included as well.
- bovermyer 6y ago
  Is it based on Electron? Because if it's not, you have my attention.
  - KishanBagaria 6y ago
    Beta is in Electron but native versions are planned!
    - bovermyer 6y ago
      Definitely interested, then. Is there a newsletter signup or something?
- Arathorn 6y ago
  is not being based on Matrix a good thing? :D
  - KishanBagaria 6y ago
    :) Maybe? It has a new abstraction so it's kinda competing with Matrix as well.
- buzzert 6y ago
  How does the iMessage support work?
admax88q 6y ago
I was under the impression that WhatsApp pretty aggressively bans accounts using third party clients. How did you get around this? Or is it not an issue afterall?
- 0xCMP 6y ago
  Seems like they're running a chrome process controlled via the automation APIs.
  - erohead 6y ago
    not exactly, we're using a library that reverse engineered the Whatsapp Web api: https://github.com/Rhymen/go-whatsapp https://github.com/Rhymen/go-whatsapp. I haven't had any problems with the API and I've been using it for a year straight.
    - imrelaxed 6y ago
      Seems like your cloudflare got hugged a few hugs too many.
      - erohead 6y ago
        haha yeah, I did not expect this so I hadn't paid $5 for more workers. Should work now :)
    - admax88q 6y ago
      Interesting, thanks for the info!
GekkePrutser 6y ago
Cool, I'm running a Matrix service like this myself but it's been a bit hit and miss. Keeping all those different bridges running over time is difficult. Especially the signal one is a real PITA, often contacts stop getting my messages from matrix while I still get theirs. And Whatsapp requires whatsapp web so you need to keep the client running on your phone 24/7 or run it in an Android VM which is pretty heavy. And finally the whole Matrix experience is a bit lacking IMO. It doesn't really do 1:1 chats so every time someone chats with you you get a 'room invite' from the bridge, which you have to accept, and all those old rooms stay forever cluttering up the system. I wouldn't mind outsourcing all that work, but $10/month is a lot.. Good idea though! There's definitely a need for this, which is why I've been looking into it too. I'm just getting so sick of all these different chat apps screaming for attention all day, each with their own difficulties. Some don't work on the desktop, others only work on 1 client at a time. And each milking as much data as they can. Why can't people just stick to IRC :)
- cyphar 6y ago
  > Keeping all those different bridges running over time is difficult. The issue is that most of the services Matrix tries to bridge to are basically hostile entities (except IRC and Slack). I'm honestly shocked how well Matrix bridging works when you take that into consideration -- and unsurprisingly the Slack and IRC bridges are the nicest ones to use. But I will admit that I think Matrix's marketing around bridging as being core to their chat model is a bit of a stretch -- while all of the bridges do work, most are a bit dodgy (and some require you to self-host). For instance, the Signal bridge is actually a hacked-up version of the Signal Chrome App with a bunch of hooks added so that they can simulate you doing things through the web app. There is a project that uses libsignal-service-java directly to create a more usable CLI and DBus interface[1], but unfortunately they haven't switched to using that (and if it became widely used, Moxie would probably decide to block it). Whatsapp is probably similarly hacked-together. > It doesn't really do 1:1 chats so every time someone chats with you you get a 'room invite' from the bridge, which you have to accept, and all those old rooms stay forever cluttering up the system. Maybe this is bridge-specific, but I have several long-lived IRC 1:1 chats that are all in one room. There's nothing stopping a bridge from doing this correctly (as far as I know). As for old rooms cluttering up the system, I believe that (non-joinable) rooms with no members get garbage collected but I might be mistaken. [1]: https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli
todotodo 6y ago
I've built a not for profit multi-platform capable matrix client that is now in open alpha called Syphon (https://github.com/syphon-org/syphon https://github.com/syphon-org/syphon). This is largely to address the issue of proprietary chat clients. Private, secure communication (with a decent brand and ui) should be accessible to everyone by now. Signal does a great job of filling the void but if they fail or are blocked by a country or community, the application interface itself is not a protocol to which people could easily pivot. Standing up a viable and federated Signal server is not easy, though I know Session is working on it. I’m hoping that Riot’s upcoming rebrand will mark the start of this transition. We need centralized efforts to spread usage of matrix, or a similarly accessible protocol, while also making it easy for people to create or maintain their own personal connection to that network.
- jeroenhd 6y ago
  While I like your app and definitely consider giving it a try now that it seems to support e2ee, you shouldn't create a new account to post the same message after your other one got voted down so hard. Please consider writing a "show HN" post instead.
  - dang 6y ago
    If by "the other one" you mean https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23694021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23694021, it was killed by software, not downvoted.
anthonyko 6y ago
Been using this client for a few months and am pretty happy with it. Have looked for a replacement for Adium for quite a while and Nova Chat is looking like it will be it. So much relief from not having to juggle multiple desktop chat clients and mobile notifications. Looking forward to the upcoming features! App is getting some nice updates every few weeks.
m12k 6y ago
Can anyone comment on how this compares to Ferdi?
- qmarchi 6y ago
  Ferdi is essentially a proxy into the browser version of the apps, but this looks like it's built to proxy the connections to matrix, with a native front-end.
stryan 6y ago
I'm interested to see how they handle the Facebook messenger bridge since FB seems to rather aggressive about the bridge from logging in. I've been running Tulir's bridge [0] for a few months now and my Facebook account gets locked out every week or so (requiring unlocking and a new password). EDIT: Looking at the code, they use Tulir's bridge as well. I'd be..cautious about claming production level support with it due to the afore mentioned logout issue. Which is a shame since all of Tulir's bridges are high quality. The bridgebox repo appears to be a bunch of bridges in docker containers. I wonder if it's really worth running the bridgebox and not a homeserver, versus using matrix-docker-ansible-deploy [1]. You already need the VPS space. [0]: https://github.com/tulir/mautrix-facebook https://github.com/tulir/mautrix-facebook [1]: https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy
- erohead 6y ago
  Ah well I make no claims to this being production level reliability. It's very much beta software. Very beta :) For those who have the capability of setting up a web server and configuring DNS, I would recommend using matrix-docker-ansible and host it all yourself. The bridgebox is actually designed to run on a raspberry pi, my plan is to give each user a free Pi to run their bridgebox. Send me a note on matrix, I'd love to chat! @eric:nova.chat
  - GekkePrutser 6y ago
    Just wanted to ask: I signed up for the beta but did I commit to anything? I don't mind trying it out, but do we have to pay the $10 from the start and is there a minimum term?
    - erohead 6y ago
      No commitment at all. You can try it out first.
      - GekkePrutser 6y ago
kutorio 6y ago
NovaChat lists WeChat in the "Coming Soon" section. Out of curiosity is it even possible to write a 3rd party client for WeChat? Last time I checked their APIs are extremely limited.
lowmemcpu 6y ago
> NovaChat is a paid app with a monthly fee of $10 (price may go up after beta period) Wow $10/mo?! Pidgin was the multi-network chat tool, and was free! I'd understand $10 one-time, but not per month. And the price may go up? No thanks
- neximo64 6y ago
  And is native!
- o-__-o 6y ago
  As an original contributor to pidgin when it was marko’s gaim, I am flabbergasted at the state of open source chat today. I wonder if libpurple just needs to be updated to support cloud services/various chat apis. I’d be willing to bootstrap that project...
  - erohead 6y ago
    I would love to learn more about pidgin and ecosystem of bridges. Let me know if you're interested in chatting! I funded development of 7 open-source Matrix bridges so far. I would love to contribute more to the community of those trying to liberate the chat world.
    - cbm-vic-20 6y ago
      The current maintainer of Pidgin livestreams several times week on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/rw_grim https://www.twitch.tv/rw_grim
      - runawaybottle 6y ago
        He live streams himself coding? Any other notable people? I know Notch did so once upon a time.
  - the_duke 6y ago
    > I wonder if libpurple just needs to be updated All of the popular chat services (FB Messenger, What's App, Snapchat, Signal, etc) are very keen on remaining closed systems. They don't have an API. The bridges for these are basically dirty hacks that patch Electron apps with some hooks, use web versions (What's App) or even Android apps directly. There is no "just" here.
cw 6y ago
This is the future.
akaktsn 6y ago
Man if we could get something like this for snapchat.
Ocha 6y ago
for a minute I thought I had notion app open due to novachat using same favicon.
- fuddle 6y ago
  They host the site on Notion.
tschellenbach 6y ago
This has been done so many times, I wonder why it never worked out
koiz 6y ago
Why are we repeating the past!
- spullara 6y ago
  I'm sticking with Adium.
  - o-__-o 6y ago
    Pidgin for us Linux (ab)users
- Polarity 6y ago
  we have still captialism
- memexy 6y ago
  It's not repetition though. It's more like a spiral. I like modern chat apps better. My parents and brother can use Signal but they never could use the previous solutions. Plus, vibrant ecosystems are a good thing. Having several chat applications that compete on features is a good thing.
  - koiz 6y ago
    LOL yes it is. Not sure how old you are but we've been here before.
    - memexy 6y ago
      I've seen various cycles a few times now. Cycle times in tech are short. Which makes me think I should use the proper terminology and call them spirals.
bovermyer 6y ago
This is of interest to me, but the Electron thing worries me. I already commit a lot of memory to Electron clients (VSCode, Discord, Slack, etc.). Adding another one, even if it replaces Slack, makes me a little concerned for memory economy.
- adrusi 6y ago
  Sounds like once the discord support is available, it would actually reduce the number of electron apps you're running.
danicgross 6y ago
Between this, Mastodon, Matrix, and others, I feel like we're witnessing the end of the centralized web era (everyone uses one network), and the return to a distributed Internet (lots of different services) with aggregators (Adium or NovaChat). The recent Twitch/Reddit/Twitter bans should only magnify this effect. Congrats Eric! I'm very excited to use this.
- packetlost 6y ago
  Ehhhh maybe. I don't think the general population will be dropping Facebook/Twitter/Reddit anytime soon.
  - entropie 6y ago
    Facebook is actually dying. Ask people around you that younger than 20 years (+- a few). No one is using facebook at that age. Facebook is for boomer.
    - ATsch 6y ago
      Sure but they're using other appps with equally worrying privacy issues
    - packetlost 6y ago
      I'm 23 and about half my friends have and actively use Facebook. It's dying, but not _that_ quick. FB owns Instagram too, which is far more popular with the younger crowd.
- el_dev_hell 6y ago
  I hope that's the case, but I have trouble seeing a future where centralized applications (mostly Facebook, Instagram, and iMessage) will be thrown aside by the masses. People still use Facebook after multiple proven privacy scandals. If that doesn't push people off the platform, what will?
  - lozaning 6y ago
brunoqc 6y ago
10$ per month is a bit much for an app.
c-smile 6y ago
While we are on this page... If someone need my help in creating native Chat UI please let me know, I can help to do it with Sciter: https://terrainformatica.com/2019/09/23/sciter-chat/ https://terrainformatica.com/2019/09/23/sciter-chat/ It could be purely native application or something along the lines of Sciter Quark ( https://quark.sciter.com https://quark.sciter.com )
- memexy 6y ago
  Sciter engine looks interesting. Do you know of good resources for learning how to use it? Like tutorials.
  - c-smile 6y ago
    https://sciter.com/tutorials/ https://sciter.com/tutorials/
- UnnoTed 6y ago
  I'm making one, it wont be open-source but i'll respect privacy, allow free self-hosting... imagine a discord(call features) + slack(paid for companies). https://imgur.com/uSA8AMs.png https://imgur.com/uSA8AMs.png https://imgur.com/P9ckNBn.png https://imgur.com/P9ckNBn.png https://imgur.com/L9fDMKQ.png https://imgur.com/L9fDMKQ.png Ram usage is currently at 12-50mb on windows, up to 90mb with 50 messages with images(unoptimized, no virtual scrolling yet). The server will be a single binary, there is still a lot to do: pin messages, emojis, avatars, community avatar, search... i want it (server+desktop) to be done by the end of the year.
  - c-smile 6y ago
    If Sciter sounds interesting for the project, please contact me at https://sciter.com/contact_us/ https://sciter.com/contact_us/
    - UnnoTed 6y ago
      It already uses Sciter
chrysoprace 6y ago
Since it's just using the Matrix protocol; it should be easy enough to just use bridgebox[0] with an existing Synapse server, right? Is the custom client doing anything that deviates from the standard Matrix protocol? [0]: https://gitlab.com/nova/bridgebox https://gitlab.com/nova/bridgebox
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rglullis 6y ago
I've been running my own Matrix but I haven't really looked at the state of the bridges. Does it allow, e.g, someone on whatsapp to make a video call with me and I see it on Riot?
- jeroenhd 6y ago
  Not as far as I am aware. Most proprietary chat apps have very little support outside basic messaging. Corrections and standard reaction emoji work for platforms that support it, but that's about as far as support goes in most cases. Video calling, especially e2ee direct communication, would probably be unstable and if poor quality if you require the call to go through an extra translation hop. Chat support has been getting better though, bridge performance has increased a lot over the past few months. If the web app for your bridge of choice supports calling, I see no theoretical limitation in implementing a call integration, though it would probably be very hard to get it working correctly.
loulouxiv 6y ago
Why Matrix instead of good old XMPP ?

122 points by memexy 6y ago

This is exactly the functionality I want from a chat client, and have been unable to find. But it’s Electron. Pass. (Unless I find time to go figure out if it can be used with other Matrix clients…)

erohead 6y ago
(I made this) It works with any matrix client. But the UI naturally is not as nice. I use it daily with RiotX on Android and it works fine.
- RMPR 6y ago
  If the claim of GP is true that your app is electron, why mention this? >NovaChat is not a browser/Chromium solution that opens many tabs to different chat networks like Franz, Shift or Station
  - ChrisClark 6y ago
    Because it's not? It's an app built in Electron that talks to their server. It's not an app built in Electron that opens up the official webpages for each of these chat apps.

stonogo 6y ago

Closed-source, single-dev Matrix frontend that doesn't even mention MS Teams. I want to like it, but for a monthly service fee it needs to be absolutely flawless and it needs to have enterprise auth nailed -- including O365/Exchange. I also can't figure out what this does that XMPP did not do -- XMPP did all of the above and still didn't really last.

erohead 6y ago
it's (mostly) open source, actually: https://gitlab.com/nova https://gitlab.com/nova
0xCMP 6y ago
There's so many apps and many don't work on the desktop. It's just trying it's best to simplify keeping in touch with people where they want to talk.

addajones 6y ago

Trillian, Adium, Pigdin for 2020? Lol. What a mess the internet has become.

loceng 6y ago
Those were all free too if I remember correctly?
- coding123 6y ago
  Yes they were, except I think Trillian had a pro version.
  - addajones 6y ago
    I remember those! It was free forever then later on that Trillian Pro came around. Adium was my favorite during that time.
whalesalad 6y ago
Somehow they are still around. https://blog.trillian.im/introducing-trillian-6.3 https://blog.trillian.im/introducing-trillian-6.3
jbverschoor 6y ago
IRC was free too..
pxtail 6y ago
Thing is that situation is much worse because there are no official APIs for most of the networks (most popular ones) this project aims to support - and it means constant uphill battle eventually doomed to fail. In addition to that if the project will ever become something more than just a gimmick then I think that entities like FB, Apple will use active countermeasures: technical and legal to discourage authors.

meddlin 6y ago

While I'm sure it's a fine app, this oddly looks like a graduation of using Thunderbird in ~2006 as a multi-email client.

elchin 6y ago

I remember using Trillian back in the day, and the problem was that they couldn't keep up with features of each chat network, so I had go back to using ICQ, MSN Messenger, etc. separately.

coding123 6y ago

The target customer seems a bit odd. Typically people will have exactly 1 paid service for chat. Like, probably Slack. And that's already $$ per month per user. So is this for individuals that have their company pay for slack, and then like, what also pay for the luxury chat client that let's the employee add like a bunch of personal chat accounts? On the other hand, if they're expecting individuals to pay for this (at $10/mo and that's during beta) just like, because, that's going to be a challenging market.

rtomanek 6y ago

> Eric Migicovsky Is this the Eric of Pebble fame? I have a lot of warm feelings here, I actually still wear one. :) While I prefer open communication protocols and clients, the reality seems to be the world has sadly moved on from this. Hopefully Nova will be of as high quality as Pebble was. Good luck!

usbfingers 6y ago

I've built a not for profit multi-platform capable matrix chat client that is now in open alpha called Syphon (https://github.com/syphon-org/syphon https://github.com/syphon-org/syphon) to largely address the issue of proprietary chat clients. Private, secure communication (with a decent brand and ui) should be accessible to everyone by now. Signal does a great job of filling the void for now but if they fail or are blocked by a country or community, the application interface itself is not a protocol to which people could easily pivot to the “gmail” of Signal. I’m hoping that Riot’s upcoming rebrand will mark the start of this transition. We needed centralized efforts to spread usage of matrix, or even a similarly accessible protocol, but make it easy for those to create or maintain their own connection to that network. If all else fails, I guess we’ll have Syphon.

granitDev 6y ago

I'm not sure why this is needed...looks to me like a solution in search of a problem.

RMPR 6y ago
There's a blog post talking about the why https://medium.com/@ericmigi/the-universal-communication-bus-42dfb9a141ad https://medium.com/@ericmigi/the-universal-communication-bus...
smt88 6y ago
I could not disagree more. This is a probably for me almost every waking hour. Perhaps this is a US-centric problem, but I have groups of friends on WhatsApp (mostly foreign), Hangouts, MMS/SMS, Telegram, and Messenger. Then there's Slack for work. Ever since my Blackberry had my emails, SMS, and BBMs (iMessage-like service for BlackBerry users) all in the same inbox with threads, I have been dying for a service where I can just say, "I want to send a message to [person]," and let the app decide how to contact them or continue my existing thread. I have paid for Franz and Station, both of which were unusable garbage, and now use Hamsket (a fork or Rambox)[1]. 1. https://github.com/TheGoddessInari/hamsket https://github.com/TheGoddessInari/hamsket

myu701 6y ago

2 things. 1) much better name for a matrix client than the others, Nova sounds cool. 2) $10/month is more than Disney+ per month. Could there be the option to accept a $5/month for desktop only and a separate $5/month for mobile? Then a combined $10/month for both? Massive kudos on it looking good (even if electron) and doing Matrix stuff nicely. I will be watching this closely, especially when Signal is ready to go.

erohead 6y ago
If you don't want to pay, you can always spin up our entire system on your own server. One way is to use Matrix-Docker-Ansible https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy It is finnicky though. If you promise to give me good feedback and bug reports, sign up for the beta and I will waive the fee though!
- figers 6y ago
  I'd be happy to provide that to waive the monthly fee, I just filled out your form... Would love to have iMessage working from my windows computer

KishanBagaria 6y ago

We're working on a similar idea at https://texts.com https://texts.com It supports iMessage as well, isn't based on Matrix and is completely local.

memexy 6y ago
Thanks for providing a link. I signed up. Looking forward to when it becomes available. I currently use keybase for search and annotation so would like to see keybase included as well.
bovermyer 6y ago
Is it based on Electron? Because if it's not, you have my attention.
- KishanBagaria 6y ago
  Beta is in Electron but native versions are planned!
  - bovermyer 6y ago
    Definitely interested, then. Is there a newsletter signup or something?
Arathorn 6y ago
is not being based on Matrix a good thing? :D
- KishanBagaria 6y ago
  :) Maybe? It has a new abstraction so it's kinda competing with Matrix as well.
buzzert 6y ago
How does the iMessage support work?

admax88q 6y ago

I was under the impression that WhatsApp pretty aggressively bans accounts using third party clients. How did you get around this? Or is it not an issue afterall?

0xCMP 6y ago
Seems like they're running a chrome process controlled via the automation APIs.
- erohead 6y ago
  not exactly, we're using a library that reverse engineered the Whatsapp Web api: https://github.com/Rhymen/go-whatsapp https://github.com/Rhymen/go-whatsapp. I haven't had any problems with the API and I've been using it for a year straight.
  - imrelaxed 6y ago
    Seems like your cloudflare got hugged a few hugs too many.
    - erohead 6y ago
      haha yeah, I did not expect this so I hadn't paid $5 for more workers. Should work now :)
  - admax88q 6y ago
    Interesting, thanks for the info!

GekkePrutser 6y ago

Cool, I'm running a Matrix service like this myself but it's been a bit hit and miss. Keeping all those different bridges running over time is difficult. Especially the signal one is a real PITA, often contacts stop getting my messages from matrix while I still get theirs. And Whatsapp requires whatsapp web so you need to keep the client running on your phone 24/7 or run it in an Android VM which is pretty heavy. And finally the whole Matrix experience is a bit lacking IMO. It doesn't really do 1:1 chats so every time someone chats with you you get a 'room invite' from the bridge, which you have to accept, and all those old rooms stay forever cluttering up the system. I wouldn't mind outsourcing all that work, but $10/month is a lot.. Good idea though! There's definitely a need for this, which is why I've been looking into it too. I'm just getting so sick of all these different chat apps screaming for attention all day, each with their own difficulties. Some don't work on the desktop, others only work on 1 client at a time. And each milking as much data as they can. Why can't people just stick to IRC :)

cyphar 6y ago
> Keeping all those different bridges running over time is difficult. The issue is that most of the services Matrix tries to bridge to are basically hostile entities (except IRC and Slack). I'm honestly shocked how well Matrix bridging works when you take that into consideration -- and unsurprisingly the Slack and IRC bridges are the nicest ones to use. But I will admit that I think Matrix's marketing around bridging as being core to their chat model is a bit of a stretch -- while all of the bridges do work, most are a bit dodgy (and some require you to self-host). For instance, the Signal bridge is actually a hacked-up version of the Signal Chrome App with a bunch of hooks added so that they can simulate you doing things through the web app. There is a project that uses libsignal-service-java directly to create a more usable CLI and DBus interface[1], but unfortunately they haven't switched to using that (and if it became widely used, Moxie would probably decide to block it). Whatsapp is probably similarly hacked-together. > It doesn't really do 1:1 chats so every time someone chats with you you get a 'room invite' from the bridge, which you have to accept, and all those old rooms stay forever cluttering up the system. Maybe this is bridge-specific, but I have several long-lived IRC 1:1 chats that are all in one room. There's nothing stopping a bridge from doing this correctly (as far as I know). As for old rooms cluttering up the system, I believe that (non-joinable) rooms with no members get garbage collected but I might be mistaken. [1]: https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli

todotodo 6y ago

I've built a not for profit multi-platform capable matrix client that is now in open alpha called Syphon (https://github.com/syphon-org/syphon https://github.com/syphon-org/syphon). This is largely to address the issue of proprietary chat clients. Private, secure communication (with a decent brand and ui) should be accessible to everyone by now. Signal does a great job of filling the void but if they fail or are blocked by a country or community, the application interface itself is not a protocol to which people could easily pivot. Standing up a viable and federated Signal server is not easy, though I know Session is working on it. I’m hoping that Riot’s upcoming rebrand will mark the start of this transition. We need centralized efforts to spread usage of matrix, or a similarly accessible protocol, while also making it easy for people to create or maintain their own personal connection to that network.

jeroenhd 6y ago
While I like your app and definitely consider giving it a try now that it seems to support e2ee, you shouldn't create a new account to post the same message after your other one got voted down so hard. Please consider writing a "show HN" post instead.
- dang 6y ago
  If by "the other one" you mean https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23694021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23694021, it was killed by software, not downvoted.

anthonyko 6y ago

Been using this client for a few months and am pretty happy with it. Have looked for a replacement for Adium for quite a while and Nova Chat is looking like it will be it. So much relief from not having to juggle multiple desktop chat clients and mobile notifications. Looking forward to the upcoming features! App is getting some nice updates every few weeks.

m12k 6y ago

Can anyone comment on how this compares to Ferdi?

qmarchi 6y ago
Ferdi is essentially a proxy into the browser version of the apps, but this looks like it's built to proxy the connections to matrix, with a native front-end.

stryan 6y ago

I'm interested to see how they handle the Facebook messenger bridge since FB seems to rather aggressive about the bridge from logging in. I've been running Tulir's bridge [0] for a few months now and my Facebook account gets locked out every week or so (requiring unlocking and a new password). EDIT: Looking at the code, they use Tulir's bridge as well. I'd be..cautious about claming production level support with it due to the afore mentioned logout issue. Which is a shame since all of Tulir's bridges are high quality. The bridgebox repo appears to be a bunch of bridges in docker containers. I wonder if it's really worth running the bridgebox and not a homeserver, versus using matrix-docker-ansible-deploy [1]. You already need the VPS space. [0]: https://github.com/tulir/mautrix-facebook https://github.com/tulir/mautrix-facebook [1]: https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy

erohead 6y ago
Ah well I make no claims to this being production level reliability. It's very much beta software. Very beta :) For those who have the capability of setting up a web server and configuring DNS, I would recommend using matrix-docker-ansible and host it all yourself. The bridgebox is actually designed to run on a raspberry pi, my plan is to give each user a free Pi to run their bridgebox. Send me a note on matrix, I'd love to chat! @eric:nova.chat
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  Just wanted to ask: I signed up for the beta but did I commit to anything? I don't mind trying it out, but do we have to pay the $10 from the start and is there a minimum term?
  - erohead 6y ago
    No commitment at all. You can try it out first.
    - GekkePrutser 6y ago

kutorio 6y ago

NovaChat lists WeChat in the "Coming Soon" section. Out of curiosity is it even possible to write a 3rd party client for WeChat? Last time I checked their APIs are extremely limited.

lowmemcpu 6y ago

> NovaChat is a paid app with a monthly fee of $10 (price may go up after beta period) Wow $10/mo?! Pidgin was the multi-network chat tool, and was free! I'd understand $10 one-time, but not per month. And the price may go up? No thanks

neximo64 6y ago
And is native!
o-__-o 6y ago
As an original contributor to pidgin when it was marko’s gaim, I am flabbergasted at the state of open source chat today. I wonder if libpurple just needs to be updated to support cloud services/various chat apis. I’d be willing to bootstrap that project...
- erohead 6y ago
  I would love to learn more about pidgin and ecosystem of bridges. Let me know if you're interested in chatting! I funded development of 7 open-source Matrix bridges so far. I would love to contribute more to the community of those trying to liberate the chat world.
  - cbm-vic-20 6y ago
    The current maintainer of Pidgin livestreams several times week on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/rw_grim https://www.twitch.tv/rw_grim
    - runawaybottle 6y ago
      He live streams himself coding? Any other notable people? I know Notch did so once upon a time.
- the_duke 6y ago
  > I wonder if libpurple just needs to be updated All of the popular chat services (FB Messenger, What's App, Snapchat, Signal, etc) are very keen on remaining closed systems. They don't have an API. The bridges for these are basically dirty hacks that patch Electron apps with some hooks, use web versions (What's App) or even Android apps directly. There is no "just" here.

cw 6y ago

This is the future.

akaktsn 6y ago

Man if we could get something like this for snapchat.

Ocha 6y ago

for a minute I thought I had notion app open due to novachat using same favicon.

fuddle 6y ago
They host the site on Notion.

tschellenbach 6y ago

This has been done so many times, I wonder why it never worked out

koiz 6y ago

Why are we repeating the past!

spullara 6y ago
I'm sticking with Adium.
- o-__-o 6y ago
  Pidgin for us Linux (ab)users
Polarity 6y ago
we have still captialism
memexy 6y ago
It's not repetition though. It's more like a spiral. I like modern chat apps better. My parents and brother can use Signal but they never could use the previous solutions. Plus, vibrant ecosystems are a good thing. Having several chat applications that compete on features is a good thing.
- koiz 6y ago
  LOL yes it is. Not sure how old you are but we've been here before.
  - memexy 6y ago
    I've seen various cycles a few times now. Cycle times in tech are short. Which makes me think I should use the proper terminology and call them spirals.

bovermyer 6y ago

This is of interest to me, but the Electron thing worries me. I already commit a lot of memory to Electron clients (VSCode, Discord, Slack, etc.). Adding another one, even if it replaces Slack, makes me a little concerned for memory economy.

adrusi 6y ago
Sounds like once the discord support is available, it would actually reduce the number of electron apps you're running.

danicgross 6y ago

Between this, Mastodon, Matrix, and others, I feel like we're witnessing the end of the centralized web era (everyone uses one network), and the return to a distributed Internet (lots of different services) with aggregators (Adium or NovaChat). The recent Twitch/Reddit/Twitter bans should only magnify this effect. Congrats Eric! I'm very excited to use this.

packetlost 6y ago
Ehhhh maybe. I don't think the general population will be dropping Facebook/Twitter/Reddit anytime soon.
- entropie 6y ago
  Facebook is actually dying. Ask people around you that younger than 20 years (+- a few). No one is using facebook at that age. Facebook is for boomer.
  - ATsch 6y ago
    Sure but they're using other appps with equally worrying privacy issues
  - packetlost 6y ago
    I'm 23 and about half my friends have and actively use Facebook. It's dying, but not _that_ quick. FB owns Instagram too, which is far more popular with the younger crowd.
el_dev_hell 6y ago
I hope that's the case, but I have trouble seeing a future where centralized applications (mostly Facebook, Instagram, and iMessage) will be thrown aside by the masses. People still use Facebook after multiple proven privacy scandals. If that doesn't push people off the platform, what will?
- lozaning 6y ago

brunoqc 6y ago

10$ per month is a bit much for an app.

c-smile 6y ago

While we are on this page... If someone need my help in creating native Chat UI please let me know, I can help to do it with Sciter: https://terrainformatica.com/2019/09/23/sciter-chat/ https://terrainformatica.com/2019/09/23/sciter-chat/ It could be purely native application or something along the lines of Sciter Quark ( https://quark.sciter.com https://quark.sciter.com )

memexy 6y ago
Sciter engine looks interesting. Do you know of good resources for learning how to use it? Like tutorials.
- c-smile 6y ago
  https://sciter.com/tutorials/ https://sciter.com/tutorials/
UnnoTed 6y ago
I'm making one, it wont be open-source but i'll respect privacy, allow free self-hosting... imagine a discord(call features) + slack(paid for companies). https://imgur.com/uSA8AMs.png https://imgur.com/uSA8AMs.png https://imgur.com/P9ckNBn.png https://imgur.com/P9ckNBn.png https://imgur.com/L9fDMKQ.png https://imgur.com/L9fDMKQ.png Ram usage is currently at 12-50mb on windows, up to 90mb with 50 messages with images(unoptimized, no virtual scrolling yet). The server will be a single binary, there is still a lot to do: pin messages, emojis, avatars, community avatar, search... i want it (server+desktop) to be done by the end of the year.
- c-smile 6y ago
  If Sciter sounds interesting for the project, please contact me at https://sciter.com/contact_us/ https://sciter.com/contact_us/
  - UnnoTed 6y ago
    It already uses Sciter

chrysoprace 6y ago

Since it's just using the Matrix protocol; it should be easy enough to just use bridgebox[0] with an existing Synapse server, right? Is the custom client doing anything that deviates from the standard Matrix protocol? [0]: https://gitlab.com/nova/bridgebox https://gitlab.com/nova/bridgebox

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

rglullis 6y ago

I've been running my own Matrix but I haven't really looked at the state of the bridges. Does it allow, e.g, someone on whatsapp to make a video call with me and I see it on Riot?

jeroenhd 6y ago
Not as far as I am aware. Most proprietary chat apps have very little support outside basic messaging. Corrections and standard reaction emoji work for platforms that support it, but that's about as far as support goes in most cases. Video calling, especially e2ee direct communication, would probably be unstable and if poor quality if you require the call to go through an extra translation hop. Chat support has been getting better though, bridge performance has increased a lot over the past few months. If the web app for your bridge of choice supports calling, I see no theoretical limitation in implementing a call integration, though it would probably be very hard to get it working correctly.

loulouxiv 6y ago

Why Matrix instead of good old XMPP ?