12 ms·
Element – All-in-one secure chat app for teams, friends and organisations
- INTPenis 6y agoMaybe. Not very good PR when matrix.org is having massive performance issues all the time. What fascinates me the most about matrix is that an org could setup their own federation bubble. Like a big game company would setup a new synapse instance for each studio they purchase and just federate them all together for a sort of DIY MS Teams alternative.
- kitkat_new 6y agoafaik this is what France did with their government
- ajot 6y agoDidn't Mozilla migrate their IRC chat to Matrix recently?
- remirk 6y agoYeah, though the performance issues are getting (much) better now that the server software Synapse has more options for scaling. Here's a blog post with the changes they made: https://matrix.org/blog/2020/11/03/how-we-fixed-synapses-scalability https://matrix.org/blog/2020/11/03/how-we-fixed-synapses-sca...
- Hnrobert42 6y agoShould be ShowHN:
- ColinWright 6y agoDisagree. "Show HN" is for when someone has themselves made something and are submitted it to HN to show it. This is not an example of that.
- pw6hv 6y agoThe application was called Riot earlier and went through a rebranding in July 2020: https://element.io/blog/welcome-to-element/ https://element.io/blog/welcome-to-element/
- agilob 6y agoIt also called Vector before.
- meowface 6y agoI suppose it's safe to assume a horrific atomic accident is on the horizon?
- monopoledance 6y agoBoth sound better than 'element' to me. "Comms app" isn't exactly what I expect to be 'atomic', or 'simple', either. Aaand "Element Matrix Services"? bitch, please... XD 'Element' is so un-cybery, feels dated. First association is Bam Margera and teenage skateboard consumer culture. The uncool one, lacking punk rock and attitude. Such a 2000s word. Anyway, naming things is hard and annoying, so I am glad they found something _they like <3
- kitkat_new 6y agouncybery describes it well
- Shared404 6y agoI agree. I believe the change in name was at least partially to make it easier for IT to sell to management. I don't envy the person trying to convince their manager to switch to Riot.
- monopoledance 6y agoBut 'vector' sounds fine and cyber. Or 'scalar'. They could at least go with 'LMNT' (leet manager's new tool) and make the logo a cyber ambigram, like this: ` |_|\|\|¯| `. As you can see, I do sympathize with their struggles XD
- niutech 6y agoPrevious comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23842179 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23842179
- louib 6y agoBeen using Element for a while now (since back when it was called Riot). So far so good. I managed to convince a few friends to switch over from Hangouts and Signal. There's even a Rust Weechat plugin for Matrix, the underlying protocol. Would love to hear feedback if anyone tried it.
- 2Gkashmiri 6y agoSo how much of a vps you need to host like 100k users? More users? I tried to look but couldnt find much information.
- kitkat_new 6y agoprobably twice as much as the German military for 50k
- RL_Quine 6y agoYou would need a serious dedicated server if it was possible at all. Matrix as a protocol is excessively resource hungry, there’s a reason the default matrix.org server runs like treacle.
- 2Gkashmiri 6y agoSo whats the idea for matrix to scale? If they want more people to join servers other than matrix.org, how will it happen?
- feanaro 6y agoThe reference implementation (Synapse) is written in Python. There's a next-gen golang server in development called Dendrite and also Conduit, which is written in Rust. Both of those are expected to have better performance.
- stryan 6y agoBesides what others said, I believe you can now shard Synapse and scale horizontally (part of why matrix.org has gotten faster recently).
- RL_Quine 6y agoMatrix.org still has message latency of over 30 seconds pretty regularly unfortunately.
- skinkestek 6y ago
- remram 6y agoI'm surprised Matrix is on the front page as much as it is. I mean, it's cool tech, and I use it myself, but it really seems like it's up there every other day. Is there an update that warrants this new post?
- profsnuggles 6y agoIt's probably on the front page because of the Prosody post that is on the front page. Matrix is on the front page because it's really the only open protocol that has a chance of gaining non-technical users. I run a matrix server, which has been nothing but a constant pain. My friends that use it can also use my ircv3 server or xmpp server that I run that use no resources and take up none of my time with maintenance. They do not. The only thing I've run that they like better so far is mattermost. I don't like the open core though. Matrix, xmpp and irc are backed by ldap which is impossible with mattermost.
- 2Gkashmiri 6y agoI asked this in the other comment, what is your server specs and user base? Constant pain as in moderation or server breaking ?
- profsnuggles 6y agoWell I was running it on a 2GB VPS, I have since November switched to a 4GB VPS, no issues since then but it's still early days. I haven't benchmarked either VPS, the 2GB I had a single dedicated CPU core, some 3.5+ghz xenon. I didn't check what my cpu allotment was on the new VPS, it was a $65 a year black friday thing. Moderation is not an issue, I only have 5 users other than myself. Here is the last time I complained about matrix. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25100873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25100873 I saw your comment and considered posting a facetious comment about how you would need 80TB of ram and at least twice as much disk space.... but that would add nothing to the discussion.
- kitkat_new 6y ago
- stonesweep 6y agoBrowsing f-droid recently, I found 2 other clients (second one based on Element codebase) also being actively developed: https://syphon.org/ https://syphon.org/ https://schildi.chat/ https://schildi.chat/
- kitkat_new 6y agoDidn't know about Syphon! The design looks good. Hope it exits alpha soon!
- Iv 6y agoThere are a lot of different clients, in various stage of development: https://matrix.org/clients/ https://matrix.org/clients/ Element is kind of the official full feature, basic client implementation but there are lighter clients with different flavors out there.
- stonesweep 6y agoSyphon and Schildi are not mentioned/linked in the above marketing page, the purpose of my sharing was to raise awareness to their existence.
- xorcist 6y agoThere's also https://fluffychat.im/ https://fluffychat.im/
- remirk 6y agoBig fan of SchildiChat on Android! It's Element but with patches to give it extra optional features like chat bubbles and an (experimental) mode which hides 'complex' features nontechnical users might find confusing.
- jhowell 6y agoIt was probably a good idea to rebrand from Riot to Element after this week's deadly violence at the US Capitol. It's difficult for me to imagine endeavoring to protect tribal, potential violent rhetoric given recent historical events. It seems short-sighted to sell a water poisoning solution to people who don't mind destroying themselves to attack their perceived opponents.
- st1x7 6y ago> It was probably a good idea to rebrand from Riot to Element after this week's deadly violence at the US Capitol. They rebranded in July 2020 - https://element.io/blog/welcome-to-element/ https://element.io/blog/welcome-to-element/
- oehtXRwMkIs 6y agoIt's ambiguous, but they might not have been implying it occurred after the Capitol event but rather that the idea itself has proven to be a good one especially after such events.
- swebs 6y agoThey rebranded it back in July, after the deadly violence by BLM.
- Uninen 6y agoI tried the iOS client yesterday but could not log in (to a well-known third-party server) and the app just did not work at all. The error stayed on the login screen no matter what I tried, and it did not offer any debug info or help, and I just couldn't get past it. I've been developing software for 20 years so I know something about buggy software and different stages of completeness so I usually give open source projects more slack but after 30 minutes I just gave up and uninstalled the app. I really hope these kind of projects get more funding and wind behind them to get a bit more mature so there would be serious alternatives for the likes of Whatsapp.
- antpls 6y agoFor anyone wondering how it compares to Signal privacy wise: Signal works with a contact list, for private 1 to 1 and private groups. You need a phone number to use it, and they claim to encrypt almost all metadata, such as message senders. Signal claims they cannot read the content nor the history of users actions (but you have to trust them on that, they claim to use SGX enclave stuff, but can anyone technically verify that they do what they say they are doing?) Element works with rooms, there is no contact list. A 1 to 1 conversation is a room with 2 people. The homeserver Matrix.org stores all metadata and they are readable (metadata are not private/not encrypted) by Matrix for some features to work. You only need a nickname to use it (at least for now). The content of conversations are e2e encrypted. In theory, i understand it would be possible for a matrix server to delete any metadata/messages once messages are delivered, but some features would not work, and you would also have to trust the server to actually delete the metadata. Would be happy to read anyone who could correct or complete me.
- arghwhat 6y agoMatrix: Every home server involved in the chat stores the message, and messages on matrix are therefore most considered permanent. As matrix is federated, every user can be on their own homeserver, which will be storing a copy of all messages seen by that user. E2E is more recent and optional. Most rooms are not E2E, and have browsable history. Signal: Only E2E, with clients themselves storing the only copy of messages. You can only see messages that a device has received. Any app you did not write/review and compile requires trusting the author, so this is not a signal specific concern. A crypto app can always store and send keys to a server if it wanted. However, unlike WhatsApp, these apps are open source and can be reviewed and compiled if you so desire.
- kitkat_new 6y agoI doubt that most rooms are not E2EE. People usually have more private conversations than public ones. Private rooms are the default and they default to E2EE.
- oehtXRwMkIs 6y ago
- gavreh 6y agoI am using this as I move from Google Chat (Hangouts). Convincing friends to move over is the hard thing, but the fact that they have a web interface is key in convincing them to switch, compared to competitors.
- rq1 6y agoWorth to be noted: the app and the underlying protocol are protected against unilateral removal or blocking decisions from different app stores or cloud providers.
- motiejus 6y agoI have replaced Hangouts, WhatsApp and Messenger front-ends on my phone and laptop with Element. I have been running the Matrix bridges for each[1] and am donating monthly to the creator. It's worth it. So far the "network effects" have been coincidental: one small group of colleagues registered on matrix.org after one more colleague from our small circle turned out to have a home server. There are 7-ish of us now, 2 with their home servers (myself and the "other colleague"), and 5 with accounts on matrix.org. To go "native", I see one lacking point with discoverability: I don't know of a way to discover my "contacts" whether they use Matrix without asking them first. Which is not true in any other messaging apps I have tried: Signal and WhatsApp use my address book and their phone numbers, Messenger is tied to my "friends". However, although Matrix allows entering phone and e-mail identifiers, I haven't seen an easy way to "find" them. Any pointers? Overall, Synapse is easy to install and run. Took about two evenings to configure synapse + 3 bridges (whatsapp, messenger, hangouts). [1]: https://matrix.org/bridges/ https://matrix.org/bridges/
- thinkmassive 6y agoRegarding contact discovery, that seems to be the purpose of the identity server: https://matrix.org/faq/#what-is-an-identity-server%3F https://matrix.org/faq/#what-is-an-identity-server%3F Many people run their own homeserver but I haven’t heard much about identity servers besides the official one at vector.im / matrix.org.
- feanaro 6y agoIdentity servers are currently not federated so everyone needs to use the same one if they want to be able to find each other. That's why no one is talking about hosting their own.
- lbotos 6y agoI just installed element messenger on mobile and it asked for my contact list to find other matrix users, so it appears there is progress on that front. (I said no, because for my current needs I don't wanna share any contacts with anyone.
- swebs 6y agoEdit: Whoops, wrong thread
- ncmncm 6y agoI have been experimenting with Element for some time. I made accounts for myself and family members on the German host privacytools.io. (I since learned Debian operates two distinct homeservers, on social.debian.org, but cannot tell which is for what.) The UX is pretty good, but certain oddities stand out. 1. When visiting rooms, it spends a very great amount of time displaying a spinner instead of postings. It displays a banner offering to scroll back to the last read posting, but forgets that you have already seen later ones. It often displays a banner indicating some bot is operating, but no indication what it is for, or any way to control it or find out more. 2. Messages in the scrollback for private rooms are very often replaced with a note, "cannot get key"; and sometimes appear again, much later. 3. Element advertises an ability to conduct audio and video calls, but I have not succeeded in getting the other end to ring, in recent months. 4. There are supposed to be gateways available to direct Signal and SMS traffic to/from one's Matrix client, but I did not succeed in getting them to work--probably just because their documentation was wholly inadequate. I spent quite a few months on a subscription to Purism's LibremOne homeserver, but abandoned it when it became clear they had no intention ever to maintain it. I have not been able to determine whether 1, 2, or 3 above are the fault of my homeserver, or matrix.org, or the protocol. A Matrix client should be able to work in multiple accounts / homeservers at once, as is done with e-mail clients, but I don't know of any that can. It seems like it should be possible to run a homeserver on local equipment, tunneling to ports on a cheap VPS, but I have not found anything suggesting how. Enlightenment on any of the above welcome.
- meremortals 6y agoThis was my friend's experience minutes after registering, searching for my handle (begins with nick): https://www.reddit.com/r/elementchat/comments/kvgbq9/is_there_any_way_to_handle_abusive_accounts_like/ https://www.reddit.com/r/elementchat/comments/kvgbq9/is_ther... He is black.