5 ms·

God fucking dammit. I literally just put my reputation on the line with family last week that we should all switch to Signal. All I want is a decent E2EE messag

God fucking dammit. I literally just put my reputation on the line with family last week that we should all switch to Signal. All I want is a decent E2EE messaging app. Between this and their upcoming crypto payment system, I’m thinking I made a huge mistake switching from Telegram.

i5heu 5y ago
What speaks against riot+matrix?
- noman-land 5y ago
  I agree matrix is the dream but getting people to use Signal was hard enough and the UX of Element is good but not _quite_ up to snuff for the general populus yet.
- theshrike79 5y ago
  Matrix as an underlying technology is pretty good. All of the clients are varying degrees of suck though. What I want is a 1:1 copy of Discord's client UX. That's it.
- crossroadsguy 5y ago
  Matrix[1] is fantasising and WhatsApp/Telegram are reality. Signal is somewhere in the middle trying to be something that solves nobody’s messaging problem except a small set of people (journalists, whistleblowers?) where the communication is mostly like “A needs to discreetly communicate with B and they both can use Signal”, anything other than that it’s pretty useless (yes, I’ve tried it for really long and convinced many others to try it). 1. Especially all the clients. And not again Fluffy chat please. Name alone puts off most.
- mlok 5y ago
  Related : I converted some friends to Element+Matrix. Then some unbearable bug showed up in Element UI and we had to move away immediately (I reported the bug to the Element project, and a year after the correction is still in progress) so I moved us to the next best solution : Signal. It works really fine. (although a pain not offering conveniences like : easy chat backups, and difficulty to move your conversations to a new phone and stuffs like that...) I can't wait for the Matrix ecosystem to be mature enough !
  - Arathorn 5y ago
    Please can you point me at the bug in question? It shouldn't be taking us a year to fix unbearable stuff :(
    - ldarby 5y ago
      I'm not OP but a while ago I wrote this comment which you responded to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27206569 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27206569 Since then basically none of the specific bugs I cared about got fixed (that I think could be unbearable to me, some of them definitely are, not sure about all), which are: 8751, 9437, 9811, 10287, 10577, 13263, 13485, 14323, 14424, 15416, 15565, 16123, 16184, 16763, and 16807, all these were all opened before my comment, and everything earlier than 16123 is more than one year old and still open. Maybe one of those is miok's. Newer ones raised since then that also look important to me at first glance: 20046, 20005, 19929, 18458, 17838, 17218. Also there is this closed bug still attracting comments: https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/15500#issuecomment-794055293 https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/15500#issuec.... As much as I hate NPS scores in the industry, I think these bugs are preventing Matrix from getting new promoters.
      - Arathorn 5y ago
        Yes. We now have a dedicated crypto team which is literally wading through that bug list. It's taking longer than I'd like but folks have momentum now and are on the case.
    - mlok 5y ago
      This is the one I am talking about : https://github.com/vector-im/element-android/issues/516 https://github.com/vector-im/element-android/issues/516 Same issue is discussed here : https://github.com/vector-im/element-android/issues/1192 https://github.com/vector-im/element-android/issues/1192 (I cannot find my own ticket which was a dupe of these ones) The first mention of it is 2.5 years old. For my non tech friend this was so annoying (whatever she tried that stuck message was still there) that she wanted a solution fast. I gave up after a few tries to solve this. (Like the classic : uninstall / reinstall) And I decided she didn't have to suffer this, just because I have ideals about software philosophy. Thanks god, Signal exists and my friends were okay to trust me on this one more time :) I really hope to come back to Matrix one day ! (We really enjoyed it for nearly a year before this bug came up)
jimkleiber 5y ago
I'm confused at how stories may make this no longer a decent e2ee app. Is it that you actively dislike stories and don't want other people to have the option to use them? While you may not want them, is it possible your family does and this may even make it easier for them to switch to Signal (and stay) than not? Not trying to add snark, just genuinely curious why the addition of stories would detract from its e2ee nature.
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  Budgets are necessarily spent somewhere. A useless feature is paid work away from maintenance and staying relevant.
  - jimkleiber 5y ago
    Ah, spreading too thin. Yes, I think that's a possibility. I also think not developing certain features can make one lose relevance. It's a trade off, no? I guess it just depends on someone's definition of a feature being "useless" and "irrelevant." Someone else sees live location as a necessary feature, I've never used it. Whereas I use statuses on WhatsApp almost every day.
    - hypertele-Xii 5y ago
      Yup. Social media is constantly searching for the perfect product by trying out ridiculous but interesting combinations of technologies. Something works, we try out different stuff and hope to make progress. But where is progress taking us? Should we follow it blindly?
      - jimkleiber 5y ago
        But how to know whether it makes progress or not?
        hypertele-Xii 5y ago
        Exactly. Maybe it's all just a very clever proof of waste. Advertizement industry certainly looks like a cancer on collective conscioussness. Maybe art can supplant it. Extravagant displays of nothing in particular.
spurgu 5y ago
> All I want is a decent E2EE messaging app. > I’m thinking I made a huge mistake switching from Telegram. Does not compute.
remram 5y ago
I'm disappointed as well. I wish they would fix bugs such as messages presented out of order, non-stop ringing when syncing messages you've already read on another device, or add a robust backup solution.
senectus1 5y ago
take a deep breath, calm down. this does not invalidate anything you want or use.

i5heu 5y ago

What speaks against riot+matrix?

noman-land 5y ago
I agree matrix is the dream but getting people to use Signal was hard enough and the UX of Element is good but not _quite_ up to snuff for the general populus yet.
theshrike79 5y ago
Matrix as an underlying technology is pretty good. All of the clients are varying degrees of suck though. What I want is a 1:1 copy of Discord's client UX. That's it.
crossroadsguy 5y ago
Matrix[1] is fantasising and WhatsApp/Telegram are reality. Signal is somewhere in the middle trying to be something that solves nobody’s messaging problem except a small set of people (journalists, whistleblowers?) where the communication is mostly like “A needs to discreetly communicate with B and they both can use Signal”, anything other than that it’s pretty useless (yes, I’ve tried it for really long and convinced many others to try it). 1. Especially all the clients. And not again Fluffy chat please. Name alone puts off most.
mlok 5y ago
Related : I converted some friends to Element+Matrix. Then some unbearable bug showed up in Element UI and we had to move away immediately (I reported the bug to the Element project, and a year after the correction is still in progress) so I moved us to the next best solution : Signal. It works really fine. (although a pain not offering conveniences like : easy chat backups, and difficulty to move your conversations to a new phone and stuffs like that...) I can't wait for the Matrix ecosystem to be mature enough !
- Arathorn 5y ago
  Please can you point me at the bug in question? It shouldn't be taking us a year to fix unbearable stuff :(
  - ldarby 5y ago
    I'm not OP but a while ago I wrote this comment which you responded to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27206569 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27206569 Since then basically none of the specific bugs I cared about got fixed (that I think could be unbearable to me, some of them definitely are, not sure about all), which are: 8751, 9437, 9811, 10287, 10577, 13263, 13485, 14323, 14424, 15416, 15565, 16123, 16184, 16763, and 16807, all these were all opened before my comment, and everything earlier than 16123 is more than one year old and still open. Maybe one of those is miok's. Newer ones raised since then that also look important to me at first glance: 20046, 20005, 19929, 18458, 17838, 17218. Also there is this closed bug still attracting comments: https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/15500#issuecomment-794055293 https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/15500#issuec.... As much as I hate NPS scores in the industry, I think these bugs are preventing Matrix from getting new promoters.
    - Arathorn 5y ago
      Yes. We now have a dedicated crypto team which is literally wading through that bug list. It's taking longer than I'd like but folks have momentum now and are on the case.
  - mlok 5y ago
    This is the one I am talking about : https://github.com/vector-im/element-android/issues/516 https://github.com/vector-im/element-android/issues/516 Same issue is discussed here : https://github.com/vector-im/element-android/issues/1192 https://github.com/vector-im/element-android/issues/1192 (I cannot find my own ticket which was a dupe of these ones) The first mention of it is 2.5 years old. For my non tech friend this was so annoying (whatever she tried that stuck message was still there) that she wanted a solution fast. I gave up after a few tries to solve this. (Like the classic : uninstall / reinstall) And I decided she didn't have to suffer this, just because I have ideals about software philosophy. Thanks god, Signal exists and my friends were okay to trust me on this one more time :) I really hope to come back to Matrix one day ! (We really enjoyed it for nearly a year before this bug came up)

jimkleiber 5y ago

I'm confused at how stories may make this no longer a decent e2ee app. Is it that you actively dislike stories and don't want other people to have the option to use them? While you may not want them, is it possible your family does and this may even make it easier for them to switch to Signal (and stay) than not? Not trying to add snark, just genuinely curious why the addition of stories would detract from its e2ee nature.

hypertele-Xii 5y ago
Budgets are necessarily spent somewhere. A useless feature is paid work away from maintenance and staying relevant.
- jimkleiber 5y ago
  Ah, spreading too thin. Yes, I think that's a possibility. I also think not developing certain features can make one lose relevance. It's a trade off, no? I guess it just depends on someone's definition of a feature being "useless" and "irrelevant." Someone else sees live location as a necessary feature, I've never used it. Whereas I use statuses on WhatsApp almost every day.
  - hypertele-Xii 5y ago
    Yup. Social media is constantly searching for the perfect product by trying out ridiculous but interesting combinations of technologies. Something works, we try out different stuff and hope to make progress. But where is progress taking us? Should we follow it blindly?
    - jimkleiber 5y ago
      But how to know whether it makes progress or not?
      - hypertele-Xii 5y ago
        Exactly. Maybe it's all just a very clever proof of waste. Advertizement industry certainly looks like a cancer on collective conscioussness. Maybe art can supplant it. Extravagant displays of nothing in particular.

spurgu 5y ago

> All I want is a decent E2EE messaging app. > I’m thinking I made a huge mistake switching from Telegram. Does not compute.

remram 5y ago

I'm disappointed as well. I wish they would fix bugs such as messages presented out of order, non-stop ringing when syncing messages you've already read on another device, or add a robust backup solution.

senectus1 5y ago

take a deep breath, calm down. this does not invalidate anything you want or use.