23 ms·
Riot is now Element
- sherri-me 6y agoI like it
- totetsu 6y agoPrevious thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23611863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23611863 and blog post about why https://element.io/blog/the-world-is-changing/ https://element.io/blog/the-world-is-changing/ and the blog post about the new name https://element.io/blog/welcome-to-element/ https://element.io/blog/welcome-to-element/
- J_tt 6y agoBlog post: https://element.io/blog/welcome-to-element/ https://element.io/blog/welcome-to-element/ I couldn't find it when I initially posted this. While I understand the change, it was definitely awkward timing given that I was championing a transition to Matrix. I've been encouraging my coworkers to download the client, and next thing I know the website has completely changed and they've removed the link to download the desktop client.
- totetsu 6y agodownload links might still work. https://packages.riot.im/desktop/install/macos/Riot-1.6.8.dmg https://packages.riot.im/desktop/install/macos/Riot-1.6.8.dm...
- Arathorn 6y agoWe're just doing the desktop builds of Element now - you can grab the last release at https://riot.im/download/desktop https://riot.im/download/desktop, but the download link should be fixed shortly. HN: It'd be cool to fix the submission to link to the https://element.io/blog/welcome-to-element/ https://element.io/blog/welcome-to-element/ rather just element.io for more context :)
- neiljohnson 6y agoHey, firstly many thanks for championing Matrix. We know that the name change will be disruptive in the short term and even tried to address this point in the blog specifically for people like yourself trying to fly the flag. Further down the line we hope that rebranding will make such efforts easier since folks will not need to navigate Matrix vs Riot vs Modular vs New Vector maze (in addition to all the other excellent clients and hosting services out there).
- varbhat 6y agoMain reason is that they couldn't trademark the "Riot" name due to "Riot Games" company. Edit: They have mentioned this in the blog. Please read that before downvoting.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoCould they trademark Element though? I mean it is a very general term.
- narrowtux 6y agoWe tried to trademark Element and another generic abbreviation as a combined name and even that was not possible. The german trademark bureau just sent us printed wikipedia articles of both words as "proof" that it's not possible.
- beeman 6y agoGreat name I'd say! If I would consider converting people like my parents to a new app, I'm sure Element has a bigger chance than Riot because of the connotations with the name of the latter.
- izietto 6y agoI don't like the new name, is too generic. I think an original alternative would have been better, like Trello, Slack, ...
- gkoberger 6y agoI think those names are taken. (Really though, Slack is as generic of a word as Element! It just had a strong connotation now)
- izietto 6y agoYeah they are taken, I meant a name of that kind, rather than an already existing word that is pretty common too
- gkoberger 6y agoSlack is an existing word that's pretty common word, though, which was my point. So are Zoom, Medium, Apple, Windows, Segment, etc. We just don't remember that sometimes, because the company has redefined the word.
- izietto 6y agoNo, it's just that I'm not a native English speaker, I'm realizing just now that I checked on WordReference that "slack" is an existing word
- gkoberger 6y agoAh, apologizes then! Didn’t realize you weren’t a native speaker at all :) in that case, I can see it seeming like a made up word!
- KingOfCoders 6y agoPeople often get confused, they think the word is strong (Nike,Google,...) while the word nearly never is. As you've said it's the other way around, what the company evokes in us with their product over time is brought back to the name.
- shash7 6y agoDo these people care about search results? With a name like that, most people will have a difficult time searching for element related stuff.
- thaumasiotes 6y agoWell, quoting them: > We’re obviously aware that Element is (once again) both a dictionary word and a mathematical term - but in practice, looking at search results for Element right now, the top hits are for dictionary sites(!) and the field is wide open.
- bkor 6y agoI tried searching for Element in the Google Play store. It suggests an app dedicated to Asian gay men. The website directs to Riot.im. From the article: > RiotX (our ground-up rewrite of Riot Android) has exited beta, and replaces Riot Android as Element RiotX I can find/see, but it shows as a beta. It's not called Element. I guess it's a slow rollout? I used Riot ages ago, it was the suggested solution to have IRC on mobile. It wasn't that reliable plus it was crazy slow (search . They now suggest Rocket chat, it isn't slow but it doesn't do IRC. So now the community is divided across loads of platforms. There's also some web based things, e.g. Discourse, some still use mailing lists, etc. Plus things like Gitlab. It used to be much easier to follow things ("lurk").
- auscompgeek 6y agoI presume it's in the usual Google Play review queue still. (Welcome to Android development.)
- neiljohnson 6y agoThe new app is with Google, we're just waiting on them and it will be live asap. Folks on iOS can pick it up here https://apps.apple.com/app/vector/id1083446067 https://apps.apple.com/app/vector/id1083446067
- 6y ago
- nix23 6y agoBravo i have to say. Riot was a really good name for a project in the post NSA/Snowden time, but since we already forgot that, Element is much more Acceptable for the big wash ;)
- dividedbyzero 6y agoThat's been long overdue and will hopefully help Matrix make inroads into more conservative organizations; I believe the tech is really promising. It's a definite liability, trying to introduce people to Matrix, when the de-facto default client's name evokes all kinds of unhelpful associations – it doesn't sound like work at all and it does sound like gamers, toys, apparently even like a far-left political organisation. Element should be fine for everyone.
- neiljohnson 6y agoGlad you like it, the original idea was to think of Riot in terms of a 'Riot of Colour', though in practice it can be interpreted in lots of different ways. We think Element has much broader appeal and really like the association with being the smallest indivisible unit.
- choward 6y agoI've honestly never heard it used that way. I have no idea what that means. Is it a British thing? I've only ever heard it used one way.
- AdmiralGinge 6y agoBritish here, I've definitely heard it used that way but it's not the first thing that comes to mind.
- pdabbadabba 6y agoAmerican here. It's not just a British thing, but it's definitely not a very common use of the word. I think "riot of color," however, is just one instance of a particular, positive use of the word "riot." More broadly, "riot" can mean something like "a really fun thing" (as in "Let's hang out with that guy, he's a riot!"). But I'm not surprised that Element/Riot found that this was not the primary association that folks were making.
- echelon 6y agoSpeaking of names, I'm upset that the username I go by is taken. I'm echelon @ { gmail, HN, Twitter, Github, Gitlab, Square Cash, etc }, but found Riot / Matrix just a few months too late to get my username. I'm not satisfied with the "just stand up your own server" response as an alternative. I know it's cutting off my nose, but I've avoided using it because of this. I'm OCD about stupid usernames. I wish unused usernames got garbage collected. I really like how Discord handles usernames.
- tasogare 6y agoWell your username is made of a single common name existing in the dictionary, this situation was very predictable.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- auscompgeek 6y agoMatrix.org is just one of plenty of public homeservers if you don't want to host your own.
- snerbles 6y agoYou can set your display name to whatever you like, and there are loads of other federated homeservers besides matrix.org.
- quickthrower2 6y agoPick a more unique user name. echelonhelicopter, for example
- wccrawford 6y agoI made up a name for an RPG character, and then started using it across the internet. Then I found out that someone else had already made the name a few years before me and was already doing that. Even unique names that aren't at all dictionary words are at risk of collision. I think the smarter tactic is to accept that you won't get that same nickname everywhere, and just have a few alternatives that you'll use if necessary. Complaining to the masses that a name is already taken isn't going to work.
- gadders 6y agoI like what people are doing with Riot/Element/Matrix but it's still a bit janky. Half the chats I join are filled with messages about missing session keys.
- greatgib 6y agoIt will be impossible to find on Google. Also, I'm wondering if it a good choice for such a project to use the hipster '.io' domain regarding the risk in a near future with this domain name.
- jayp1418 6y agoProbably .im might not be available
- chessmango 6y agoFeel like I'm missing something important here. What's happening with .io?
- the-dude 6y agoQuestionable governance : https://hackernoon.com/stop-using-io-domain-names-for-production-traffic-b6aa17eeac20 https://hackernoon.com/stop-using-io-domain-names-for-produc...
- greatgib 6y agoIn addition with management issue, the biggest issue/risk with .io is related to the fact the domain might have to come back Mauritius in a short term/few years as UK ownership of the related islands are unlawful: http://domainincite.com/24236-future-of-io-domains-has-become-party-political-issue-in-the-uk http://domainincite.com/24236-future-of-io-domains-has-becom...
- vanburen 6y agoAgree, it would of been better to focus on a name where getting the .com was feasible. At least element is better than riot.
- rvz 6y agoWhile a name change was a sensible move, I had very high hopes for them to choose a saner non-technical one with a more user-friendly focus, but this name sounds very generic and is more cryptic that "Signal". They now have to do some serious SEO to be the first result on a Google search of "Element".
- neiljohnson 6y agoSorry you don't like the name, hopefully it will grow on you. On SEO, quoting from the post itself "We’re obviously aware that Element is (once again) both a dictionary word and a mathematical term - but in practice, looking at search results for Element right now, the top hits are for dictionary sites(!) and the field is wide open. Conversely, in a virgin browser on VPN, Riot is the 4th hit on Google for Riot; second only to a certain games company. In other words, we’ve shown that we can successfully adopt dictionary words - and if you do find yourself lost searching in a maze of mathematics, just throw in the word ‘chat’ to get back on track." So yes there is a big SEO job ahead of us, we don't take anything for granted, but see a viable path to getting a good ranking.
- slightwinder 6y agoMaybe your Google-Bubble is just broken? For me searching for Element brings up mostly companies and products which are using this name. Just a low number of results are dictionaries and knowledge-sites. Good luck competing with all of them.
- kick 6y agoYour first sentence makes no sense, given in the comment right above you (which is quoting the article) it points out that it was with a cookie-less browser and a VPN. You're far more likely to be the one who's bubbled in differently than your average person.
- LarvaFX 6y agoI don't like the name because it is so generic and for me the word invokes no association with communication whatsoever.
- teruakohatu 6y agoI just think Element14. I agree with you, it is so generic as to be meaningless. Signal makes sense. iMessage & Facetime do what they say. Whatsapp at least sounds like a fun app even if the name is meaningless.
- exochrono 6y agoI think WhatsApp is a play on "What's Up" which actually makes a lot of sense given that's pretty much the point of a lot of casual conversation haha
- hoffs 6y agoI think of Element the skateboarding company
- mitch-snipline 6y agoSame here.
- hellofunk 6y agoHow about another very generic and common word, “Apple.”
- nytpu 6y agoExcept they were originally "Apple Computers" until they slowly gained enough recognition to rebrand to "Apple," plus that was in 1984, there wasn't an oversatuated market of other computer brands also called "Apple," unlike "Element" which has tons of existing tech-related and non–tech-related overlap and is generic on top of it.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- easytiger 6y agoPress release pro tip: sidle in what the company or app does very early in. Verging on all of the releases I read on HN don't do this but are for companies I've not heard of. So you leave knowing almost nothing about the company
- rado 6y agoAlso on a company home/about page.
- MrDresden 6y agoThat's a good point. I've noticed larger enterprises doing this with their pr's, which has always struck me as bit silly when it is a house hold name (Oracle, Canonical, VMWare etc) but ofc not everyone would know them. But for smaller vendors this becomes even more important.
- easytiger 6y agoYes indeed its pretty universal for PLCs to do it. Some examples to demonstrate [1] ...LexisNexis® CounselLink®, a leading cloud-based enterprise legal management solution for corporate law departments, today announced the release... [2] ...RecVue, Inc., the fastest growing next generation order-to-cash automation platform, today announced... etc [1] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lexisnexis-counsellink-releases-2020-enterprise-legal-management-trends-report-301092606.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lexisnexis-counsell... [2] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/recvue-achieves-soc-1-and-soc-2-compliance-for-strong-internal-controls-over-financial-reporting-and-security-301093514.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/recvue-achieves-soc...
- phreeza 6y agoHousehold names for a very specific set of households :)
- Arathorn 6y agooops, excellent point. I've added "For those discovering us for the first time: Element is the flagship secure collaboration app for the decentralised Matrix communication network." as the 2nd main para.
- subroutine 6y agoDiscord is next.
- mariocesar 6y agoDiscord is a great name, why the will change it ?
- subroutine 6y agoDiscord wants to attract communities beyond games (e.g. python developers). Their name means a disagreement between people. I think they will aim for a name more like "Discourse".
- holler 6y agoI think they'd have to change more than their name. The entire nomenclature of their app is gaming focused. That would also expose them to great risk of losing their core user base, at a time when another company Guilded has just launched a strictly gaming-focused chat app.
- jjice 6y agoThey've started to make changes, like changing their TLD from .gg to .com, and they removed the game store. They had a popup after a recent update describing the changes and why their doing it (to appeal to more than just gamers). I think that other than those bits of branding, it can be pretty gamer agnostic, though I haven't used it in a workplace to actually catch the inconsistencies.
- holler 6y ago> they removed the game store seems like that might be because no one was playing? https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/13/20864278/discord-nitro-games-subscription-bundle-discontinued https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/13/20864278/discord-nitro-ga... It certainly can be gamer-agnostic, but if they lose the gamer base, it could be significant for their success.
- andersonrkton 6y agoSo the game developer is now the Linux distro.
- neilalexander 6y agoThe distro I believe you're thinking of is "elementaryOS".
- pteraspidomorph 6y agoI don't care about SEO, but as an infrequent user I always liked that Riot was a snappy, two syllable, memorable name (I never forgot it). Synapse and Matrix are also easy for me to remember, I must add. I suspect I may forget Element--too close to a word I use every day (HTML elements, chemical elements, etc.) We'll see. Either way I expect I can get there by looking up "matrix client," of course. EDIT: one -> two
- dfee 6y agoRiot is two syllables.
- pteraspidomorph 6y agoOh, sorry. I'm not a native english speaker.
- dfee 6y agoI speak English, but I can’t follow what this means: > In fact we have simplified all our naming: Element is also the name for New Vector (the company behind Riot) while Modular, our flagship Matrix hosting service, has become Element Matrix Services. Is New Vector now names Element, too? Or is this some sort of nickname? A doing business as name?
- Arathorn 6y agoRiot -> Element New Vector -> Element Modular -> Element Matrix Services (Although we haven't legally changed New Vector's name yet).
- badrabbit 6y agoNo!!! Of all the names in the world why this. "Hey bro, let's chat on Element" ,not quite a ring to it. The hardest problem in computer science strikes again! Matrix,Riot and Libolm are epic projects, I wish them all the success but man, even Riot was a hard sell as a brand. I would seriously be dissapointed if it loses popularity over this. I don't think the project maintainers understand that their core users/fans are waiting for a product they can sell to friends,family and coworkers. People who don't know tech rely on branding/brand reputation and word of mouth reputation to decide if they are intetested in even trying out a product to begin with. Which of these is unlike the others? 1) Signal 2) Telegram 3) Element 4) Whatsapp Hint: The theme is messaging and communication.
- teekert 6y agoTbh, I don't see any problems with the name? I like it.
- bartread 6y agoTry googling "element", and then try googling "whatsapp". See the difference? I get frustrated when brands, products, and even more so OSS software projects, choose names that have too many other meanings/brands associated with them because it can make it unnecessarily difficult to find relevant information using current search engine technology[0]. I've had situations where I've been clicking through pages and pages of results to find something relevant to what I'm looking for, even with more qualified searches. You can critique WhatsApp for any number of reasons, if you're so inclined, but it's hard to argue that they didn't pick a good name. It's eminently searchable and doesn't spam results pages for unrelated/tangentially related topics. [0] I find names like "Signal" irritating for the opposite reason. You're searching for information about the other meanings and yet much of what you get is brand "spam" results related to the messaging system. Great if that's what you're searching for, not if it isn't.
- IshKebab 6y ago> See the difference? Well obviously it doesn't come up because they only just changed the name! In general Google is pretty good at returning the correct result for ambiguous searches. E.g. try searching for "Signal". Every result is about the signal app for me.
- lousken 6y agoany plans to fix riot.imX beta on older android versions (5.X)? my friend can't even send messages (they are all just red) since some 0.9X version (not sure which exactly)
- teekert 6y agoThe post references their new website [0] and talks about RiotX, their new website [1] however links to Riot.im [2], not RiotX [3], what to get? Also, I have to set a password, but also a recovery password which should not be the same... Yet, I store them together in my KeepassXC db. Why would that be? Oh, now I run into a message key, the third to store in the same db entry :) [0] https://element.io/ https://element.io/ [1] https://element.io/get-started https://element.io/get-started [2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.vector.app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.vector.app [3] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.vector.riotx https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.vector.riot...
- neiljohnson 6y agoWe are still in the review queue for Android. iOS folks can pick it up the Element release here https://apps.apple.com/app/vector/id1083446067 https://apps.apple.com/app/vector/id1083446067
- teekert 6y agoAh, ok, I just entered the preview, I guess then I also get the latest greatest?
- t3chguy 6y ago> Why would that be? One password that you send to the server to authenticate. The other is a passphrase used to seed an encryption key for the data you store on the server securely in a manner the server has no access to.
- C4stor 6y agoAfter various HN threads about this company, and taking a tour on the element.io website, I'm still not sure what this is about to be honest. I understand it's a chat app, but - The pricing is really confusing (seems like the app is free, but having an account is paying ?). - Is this a professional thing, like slack, or more of a whatsapp-like thing ? Trying to do both ? The whole differentation point seems to be based on the Matrix thing, but it's not really clear why is that important ? (I don't typically care about the backend of the app I use). I mean, the front page says : "All-in-one secure chat app for teams, friends and organisations. Keeps conversations in your control, safe from data-mining and ads. Talk to everyone through the open global Matrix network, protected by proper end-to-end encryption." So, the starter is what everyone says. "Safe from data mining and ads" is good, it makes me curious about what is the pricing then, and I wouldn't mind paying a cheap price for a correct messaging app. And then there's this Matrix bit, and I don't even know if it's good or bad. So I went to the pricing page (which doesn't exist, but there are "plans") and here, well the app is free, and I can get my account hosted either somewhere free, or either on the Element Matrix servers, where it should be safe from eavesdropping ? But with proper end to end encryption, it should be safe everywhere ? Or is the app by default not end to end encrypted, but hosting it somewhere makes it so ? It sounds really weird to be honest. So really, good for you for renaming, but I don't think it's what will make me change (even though since whatsapp is facebook owned, I'm ready to migrate myself and my whole family on something else once the ads are there).
- cyphar 6y agoMatrix is a decentralised e2e-encrypted chat protocol (similar model to email) that you can self-host and is all free software. Encryption is between devices so the homeserver doesn't see the contents, but if you self-host then only the homeservers involved in the chat ever see your encrypted messages -- this is in contrast to centralised services like Signal where everything goes through one entity. You can create a free account on Matrix.org and it works perfectly fine. But you're quite right that most users might not care about that (though a fair number of people care about having control over their data, which Matrix gives them since you can self-host a federated server). Element is now an umbrella brand for several things: * The most widely used cross-platform Matrix client (used to be called Riot and even further back was called Vector). * A paid service where they will host a Matrix homeserver for you (used to be called Modular). This is what all of the pricing plans you saw are talking about. Unless you want to host your own server and don't want to manage it yourself, this isn't relevant for you. * The legal entity which hired people to develop those things as well as contribute to Matrix (used to be called VectorLabs). This isn't really that big of an announcement, Matrix has existed for at least 5 years now and I've been using it for a while. It's just that a common complaint (the scatter-brained branding) is being resolved by giving a single name to all of these parts (save Matrix -- the protocol -- which is keeping its name).
- bzb3 6y agoSometimes it feels like riot is being sabotaged from the inside.
- notthemessiah 6y agoMaybe they could have renamed it Agent Provocateur. Still a better name than Element.
- reilly3000 6y agoAnybody who is questioning the need for the a name change in the first place should read up on the story of Piwik, Piwik Pro, and Matomo. Hostile forks are real, and they are fantastic messes.
- Avamander 6y agoMumble has the same problem with Mumble com but the official one is Mumble.info.
- dharma1 6y agoNice, look forward to the web/desktop version! I think the name is fine, people will routinely use the new name in a few months time. Better to change the name now than 10 million users later. The new site looks great, but the pricing page is a bit confusing. Godspeed!
- lvturner 6y agoSo many of these comments just feel like bikeshedding. By most arguments here basecamp is an awful name for a company and hey is a terrible name for an email application - it doesn't seem to be holding them back though. For those not familiar with bikeshedding please see: http://bikeshed.com/ http://bikeshed.com/
- natural219 6y agoThe bikeshedding is incredibly infuriating. Probably the main problem with adoption of decentralized services is the overwhelming entitlement users feel to have everything delivered to them by megacorps. Stop doing this!!! Stop being a whiny brat and think deeply about the trade-offs between centralized services and not having everything perfect right out of the gate. It's maddening.
- boffinism 6y agoI mean, the article is literally a press release about a name change. Of course the comments are going to be a discussion about the name change rather than anything more substantial about the product or business or underlying tech.
- lrvick 6y agoLove the name. Simple, and is going to be pretty hard for society to attach negative connotations to it. Elements are the flexible foundation of everything and in turn Element can be a flexible foundation for communication. At the end of the day it boils down to getting control of a namespace and then owning it over time. Slack and Apple have clearly shown this works just fine.
- sixhobbits 6y agoEven as someone who has kind of been following along with Matrix development and this renaming thing, this post is really confusing. If you go through a major rebrand, you've probably spent something like 1000 hours thinking about names and what they mean. Your users haven't. Get someone else to write the explanation of the rebrand. You can't do it yourself when you're too involved.
- natural219 6y agoI gotta say; I haven't paid attention to Matrix for years, but I downloaded the Riot client again last week and HOLY COW. Everything is so smooth, beautiful, performant, and feature-filled. They have Slack/Discord-like communities, awesome easy E2E verification, and almost every feature I want out of Discord, including video/voice chat powered by WebRTC out of the box. Really incredible work the Matrix team has done on this. I was a decentralization reseracher for years, and I'd never imagined things would get this polished from a UI perspective. I think Matrix is the best current bet for decentralization services (Urbit following up in a close second), and will plan on digging in to hosting my own server at some point. If you haven't used Riot / Element in a while, I highly recommend you give it a try. Smooth as butter. [edit: the bikeshedding here is infuriating. "Element chat" is a perfectly fine Google query. users being entitled primadonnas (sorry, I know that's hostile, but I think it's warranted) and expecting every software release to have Google/Facebook tier marketing effort behind them is the #1 problem in the adoption of decentralized platforms, and should be eradicated from civil discourse about internet infrastructure. just my two cents.]
- tantalor 6y agoIs this not Riot Games?
- 40four 6y agoI was never really aware of these products before, and I’m very interested! So I browsed over to the main site, found the pricing page and got this. ” We're busy building our pricing table & purchasing experience on mobile, for now please visit this page on your desktop.” Um, what? I mean, I’m honestly more interested in self hosting, but this really seems like a good way to miss out on a lot of sales. Won’t something simple suffice as a placeholder, until the larger ‘experience’ is finished? How many people have seen this when they aren’t near a desktop, only to never return?
- abrowne 6y agoAnother post on the homepage now: "Element wins deal to supply half a million licences for German education system". I was going to point out that it's a pretty generic name being used by other groups, but when I read that linked article I see it's the same Element :-D
- x87678r 6y agoI still dont understand why Slack is popular when there is a free open source solution matrix/riot/element that works just as well.
- fb03 6y agoEven if you wanna still keep 'proprietary', there are better alternatives to Slack, like Discord.
- Karunamon 6y agoI wouldn't call Discord "better" for enterprise. No SSO, bad uptime, no paid support, very few business-related third party integrations, and more.
- faitswulff 6y agoBecause normal people don’t care about open source and slack is cheap enough.
- mritchie712 6y agoSales and marketing. Also, the cost of Slack is insignificant to most companies and most others start by using the free tier, so the price isn't even a consideration. The open source selling point is also irrelevant to most people outside of HN.
- J_tt 6y agoStress on most in that, I found out about the name change due to actively rolling it out to replace slack. Charging that sort of price for just chat felt wrong, so we transitioned to keep message history.
- samdixon 6y agoDespite all of slacks flaws it still works better for most people IMO. I am very interested in matrix and personally use it, but there are a few areas where it is weaker to slack/discord. 1. Network effects. All your friends are already on slack/discord. 2. Difficulty to get started. Simply understanding what Matrix does, especially for someone non-technical, is more complex than setting up an entire slack workspace and inviting your friends. 3. Clients. While the slack client is a resource hog, for most people it is better than Riot/Element or other 3rd party options such as weechat. I think all of these things are improving and Matrix absolutely will gain ground, but it will take time.
- paride5745 6y agoNow I wish Mattermost would become a Matrix client!
- numeromancer 6y agoMaybe they should have called it "Protest".
- over5000 6y agoToo many riots already, it's a good move.
- usbfingers 6y agoIf you dislike the new name, branding, or user experience, instead of arguing over why or why not it is a good decision, I'd encourage you to get yourself involved and be that change. Before the rebrand, or even any talk user experience and design from Element (Riot), I didn't want to wait and started working on a privacy centric matrix client that focused on branding and user experience. I managed to get E2EE working by myself within a month using the Matrix provided encryption library. https://syphon.org https://syphon.org https://github.com/syphon-org/syphon https://github.com/syphon-org/syphon For the record, I don't think Element is a bad name. Regardless of the name itself, this is a massive leap forward for their branding. The user experience seems to have been cleaned up dramatically in the new versions of their iOS and Android apps.
- seizethegdgap 6y agoWow, this is slick. I'm sure there's a lot of work to be done, but how far along is cross-signing at this point?
- usbfingers 6y agoit's next on the list after group E2EE is stable along with key import/exports
- INTPenis 6y agoSpeaking of branding, Dart isn't the best brand either. I mean anyone interested in it would search for Dart language. Just like anyone interested would sarch for Element matrix. I tried your client with my own synapse instance but couldn't login, no error message. I click the question mark to search for instances, click use my instance, fill in username:instance.tld but nothing happens. It works with RiotX.
- seizethegdgap 6y agoIs your "<synapse_domain>/.well-known/matrix/client" set up?
- troymc 6y agoOne problem with "Element" is its potential for confusion with other, similarly-named tech products, such as: - Adobe Photoshop Elements - Adobe Premiere Elements - Elementor, one of the more popular WordPress plugins - Element UI, a Vue 2.0 based component library - Elements XS, GIS-centric asset management software There's even an IT company named Element Technologies: https://www.ele-ment.com/ https://www.ele-ment.com/ (no affiliation).
- jesseb 6y agoThere's also a prominent apparel/skateboarding company named Element which has been around for decades and is the top search result for "element" for me. https://www.elementbrand.com/ https://www.elementbrand.com/
- arkano 6y agoNot to be confused with element.ai
- olah_1 6y agoAwesome! And now that RiotX is out of beta, please divert those resources to Element iOS because it _desperately_ needs some UX love.
- justaj 6y agoPSA for all Riot/Element Android users: RiotX came out of beta too soon. Voice and video calls don't seem to be implemented in non-DM encrypted rooms. So if you created an e2e room and invited someone there, you can no longer call them.
- Twisell 6y agoDunno elsewhere but in France pretty solid fist results on both Google and DDG referring to element hardware from matrix audio (founded 2009). Look like once a legal team enjoyed the fun of legal dispute they always ask for more... https://www.matrix-digi.com https://www.matrix-digi.com
- shmerl 6y agoCan't connect to Element after logging in. Even old Riot.im stopped working properly. A pretty bumpy switch I suppose.
- cpeterso 6y agoJust for fun: here's the City Barge pub in London mentioned in the blog post's UI screenshot. :) https://www.timeout.com/london/bars-and-pubs/city-barge https://www.timeout.com/london/bars-and-pubs/city-barge
- deckar01 6y ago> We’re obviously aware that Element is (once again) both a dictionary word and a mathematical term. and a ~30 year old, mainstream skateboard brand owned by the billion dollar, international Quiksilver company.
- surround 6y agoOn the thread 3 months ago for Launch HN: Riot (YC W20) - Phishing training for your team > Hi Ben - cool product! Speaking as the lead for Riot.im, I would recommend picking another name asap, if nothing else because Riot Games has an awful lot of lawyers (as we know first hand, unfortunately). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22677841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22677841 Then, 22 days ago, We’ve decided to rename riot https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23611863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23611863
- dmix 6y agoI know a couple other products/services named Element already... not that you have to worry about lawyering but it's pretty generic and doesn't sound like a messenger, sadly. Oh well, they are doing great work.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- cyberbanjo 6y agoDidn't they just rename it from something else?
- aaaaarghZombies 6y agoOK serious question perhaps someone connected to matrix / element will see this. The name change from riot coincided with the murder of George Floyd and following surge unrest under the banner of Black Lives Matter. What's the teams position this, are they trying to distance themselves from the protests, if so why? If not, why?
- asimops 6y agoWhat I don't understand: 'Riot is now Element', yet when you click on 'Get Element' on the website and select the android app > 'Riot.im' by 'Vector Creations Limited' package name 'im.vector.app' IMHO if you rebrand it, everything should be in place.
- adultSwim 6y agoRiot, Slack, Discord, ... those names sound bad
- jakubnarebski 6y agoIt looks like Riot.im accounts got forcible password change - at least I cannot login with my saved riot.im password to element.io There is nothing of note there in my case, but resetting/changing password supposedly means loosing conversation history. Not good!