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Hi, former (current) uTox coder/maintainer. uTox has been dormant for some time. And while I'm mostly proud of it and still completely standby uTox. Tox isn't t

Hi, former (current) uTox coder/maintainer. uTox has been dormant for some time. And while I'm mostly proud of it and still completely standby uTox. Tox isn't the easiest messaging protocol to use. Not hard but not easy, user beware :) Kinda shocked to see it on HN given the last commit date, but I'm happy to answer questions all the same. Bonus suggestion: My friend is still working on aTox https://github.com/evilcorpltd/aTox/ https://github.com/evilcorpltd/aTox/ (Tox for android) and it's an easy recommendation to make. The client is awesome, and if you're gonna use a messenger, it probably should be from your phone :)

deleted 3y ago
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bboygravity 3y ago
AFAIK Tox allows for direct p2p connections between devices (no server in between). How does it get through NATs/firewalls/other to achieve this? Does it "cheat" like Bittorrent and Syncthing by using relays/trackers or another type of server to establish connections? And if so how does it solve this problem?
- grayhatter 3y ago
  In cases with poorly behaved NATs it'll start with a TCP connection to a node willing to relay a packet to a friend. Then it'll attempt to hole punch to reach your friend/peer. I'm not sure I'd call it cheating but I assume that's the same thing you're talking about. Both clients need to attempt to connect to each other to get udp nat hole punching to work. So I guess yes? If it can't, it will fall back to TCP and relays, so it will totally cheat using relays if it has to :)
Semaphor 3y ago
> and if you're gonna use a messenger, it probably should be from your phone It’s my least favorite place to use a messenger from, I even completely refused WhatsApp until they had a stable desktop client.
- grayhatter 3y ago
  yeah, I feel you on that one. But I'd much rather be able to continue conversations when I leave my desk. So if assuming you can only pick one... I'd definitely rather use desktop, but I'd be less annoyed if my only choice, was mobile

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bboygravity 3y ago

AFAIK Tox allows for direct p2p connections between devices (no server in between). How does it get through NATs/firewalls/other to achieve this? Does it "cheat" like Bittorrent and Syncthing by using relays/trackers or another type of server to establish connections? And if so how does it solve this problem?

grayhatter 3y ago
In cases with poorly behaved NATs it'll start with a TCP connection to a node willing to relay a packet to a friend. Then it'll attempt to hole punch to reach your friend/peer. I'm not sure I'd call it cheating but I assume that's the same thing you're talking about. Both clients need to attempt to connect to each other to get udp nat hole punching to work. So I guess yes? If it can't, it will fall back to TCP and relays, so it will totally cheat using relays if it has to :)

Semaphor 3y ago

> and if you're gonna use a messenger, it probably should be from your phone It’s my least favorite place to use a messenger from, I even completely refused WhatsApp until they had a stable desktop client.

grayhatter 3y ago
yeah, I feel you on that one. But I'd much rather be able to continue conversations when I leave my desk. So if assuming you can only pick one... I'd definitely rather use desktop, but I'd be less annoyed if my only choice, was mobile