19 ms·

Matrix 2.0: The Future of Matrix

599 points by jrepinc 3y ago

tetrisgm 3y ago
I always get so confused by the naming between Matrix and Element. I get that Element is the client, but I honestly thought that the name Matrix for the server (or is it just the standard for the protocol?) was sunset. Great service though and hope if gets UX improvements too, as Discord and Slack keep getting more clutter.
- CameronNemo 3y ago
  Maybe you are confused because the old client name, Riot, was sunset in favor of Element? AIUI the protocol was and is called Matrix. There seems to be no intention to depart from that name.
  - hparadiz 3y ago
    They renamed Riot to Element in the wake of the George Floyd protests in the United States. It's the same code base. Matrix is a protocol. Synapse is the primary server implementation of Matrix written in Python.
    - Macha 3y ago
      Here's their blog post at a time: https://element.io/blog/the-world-is-changing/?ref=itsfoss.com https://element.io/blog/the-world-is-changing/?ref=itsfoss.c... It's worth nothing that the conflict with Riot Games over trademark rights was also a motivating factor.
    - Arathorn 3y ago
      (We actually renamed Riot to Element because the nice people at Riot Games sent us a cease & desist :)
      - nadir_ishiguro 3y ago
        I still remember when that happened. I was really bummed because Riot is just such a fun name. Didn't help that that particular company was the reason. I bet you were even more bummed though. It's interesting seeing a myth build around your reasons for the name change already, with the blog post still up. Makes me wonder though how native speakers would have felt about the name after the protests. I'm not a native speaker, so I don't feel the connotations of the name.
- SushiHippie 3y ago
  Element is to matrix what chrome is to http. The most used client for that protocol.
  - progval 3y ago
    Element is the trading name of a company, of three clients with mostly-independent codebases written by that company (web, android, iOS; not counting the two Element X rewrites), and of a hosting service (EMS).
    - SushiHippie 3y ago
      Yes New Vector Ltd
- infinitezest 3y ago
  As much as I love the fact that I have my choice of server and client I have to say that it does make me wonder if it affects adoption. When the Mastodon growth spikes happened the complaint that I heard most often was from people that couldn't figure out which client to use or which instance to use. Too much choice tends to paralyze people and they default to proprietary services because they don't know what choices to make.
- cvwright 3y ago
  Yeah. I still think that the Matrix.org Foundation should have a branded client, simply called “Matrix”, available in all the major app stores. Lock it to the matrix.org server and offer membership in the foundation as an in-app purchase. Could help with some of their recent funding issues.
  - toastal 3y ago
    The fact that the group in control of the spec, the reference server, the most popular client, & the biggest server is the same entity is problem enough as it is for control/decentralization. Branding it top to bottom as Matrix would be the beginning of the end to me.
    - nostrfanboi 3y ago
      Matrix federation is inherently too centralized to my taste. You always rely on a server and a domain name. HN geeks can run their own server but still depend on ICANN down the line.
      - cvwright 3y ago
        Username checks out :)
  - gorgoiler 3y ago
    Growth in revenue-free end users might not be fantastic news for the Matrix team. As I understand it they make money from b2b integrations (eg French government) and supporting a horde of WhatsApp transplants is only ever going to be a net negative cost centre for them. There aren’t exactly many so it’s a bit hard to generalise but free, large scale chat apps are the side projects of tech companies with existing revenue streams.
  - thisisabore 3y ago
    Do you think email should have a branded client, simply called "email" available in all the major app stores? Or XMPP have a branded client, simply called "XMPP" etc.? Align on a protocol, experiment and compete with clients is a good way to make progress.
- notthemessiah 3y ago
  I just feel like the use of linear algebra terminology pollutes search results. Maybe they should have named it Passta/Meetball or some unique dumb name, and continued the naming scheme after satirical religions (Church of the Subgenius -> Slack, Discordianism -> Discord, Pastafarianism -> Meetball), like name the protocol Passta (maybe figure out a backronym for it), and the client software "Meetball".
  - anticensor 3y ago
    The use of math terms is intentional.
- bobbylarrybobby 3y ago
  A matrix is made up of elements :)
- thisisabore 3y ago
  Matrix = email. Element = Thunderbird, Outlook, etc. The Matrix name has never budged since the beginning of the project. One of the Matrix servers is called Synapse. Others include Conduit or Dendrite (see https://matrix.org/ecosystem/servers/ https://matrix.org/ecosystem/servers/). So yes, Matrix is the protocol, not the/a server.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
UltimateEdge 3y ago
> Therefore to use Element X, you need to be running a homeserver with Sliding Sync support, which (for now) means running a sliding-sync proxy which bolts Sliding Sync support on to existing homeservers. I am excited to try out Element X, but I do not want to administer yet another service, namely the Sliding Sync proxy. From a practical perspective, Sliding Sync (MSC3575) is still on the level of a proposal/experiment and I wish that we would be having this conversation about Element X after it becomes usable with any spec-compliant server.
- Arathorn 3y ago
  Matrix evolves as a protocol by folks proposing new APIs (e.g. MSC3575), implementing them, showing that they work, and making the case that they should be merged into the main spec. Sliding Sync is an interesting case in that it clearly does work, and it kicks ass - but it turns out to be unnecessarily complicated for the subset of features that you actually need when implementing something like Element X (which is my fault entirely, fwiw). However, should we hold off on putting it in people's hands while we sort that? Nope. Is it a pain to temporarily run a proxy shim service while the protocol stabilises? Yes. It's like running a SPDY or QUIC-aware reverse proxy in front of a webapp that only speaks HTTP/1.1 while waiting for SPDY to be ratified as HTTP/2. Sure, it's another moving part to look after, but the spectacular improvement is likely worth the pain. YMMV though :)
  - UltimateEdge 3y ago
    > Matrix evolves as a protocol by folks proposing new APIs (e.g. MSC3575), implementing them, showing that they work, and making the case that they should be merged into the main spec. Yes, it is just unfortunate that it is not clear enough to more people (such as the_common_man below) that Sliding Sync is only at the MSC stage at the moment and not part of the Matrix spec. I am glad that at least Element X allows this MSC to improve and for those nits you have mentioned to be resolved.
- the_common_man 3y ago
  Why is sliding sync a separate service and not just part of synapse itself?
abdullahkhalids 3y ago
Is Matrix simple enough now that I can invite my grandpa/grandma and they will be able to join? How does ease up sign up and use compare to discord? Assume that I make the choice of which client to direct them to.
- masfuerte 3y ago
  My octogenarian mother uses it.
  - airstrike 3y ago
    Did she set it up herself?
    - masfuerte 3y ago
      No, but that's true of all the software she uses.
- Arathorn 3y ago
  Matrix itself is a protocol, so is as hard or easy to use as the client that you use to access it. Matrix 2.0 is all about demonstrating that a really really fast, mainstream-grade app can be built on Matrix, in the form of Element X: https://element.io/blog/element-x-ignition/ https://element.io/blog/element-x-ignition/. However, right now Element X is intended for existing Matrix users - so unless you have a bleeding edge homeserver, sign-up doesn't work yet. So it's not quite in grandma/grandpa territory yet... but once you're in, it most certainly is.
- soupbowl 3y ago
  It is less simple than discord and I does not have good audio rooms. I setup family accounts and store their security key for them. Then I help them setup their app in a few minutes and paste them their security key once they are on my matrix server. In the past I left sign up and setup to family and the element app and it has never worked smoothly. They don't understand the security key purpose or verifying clients. So to answer your first question, yeah you can invite grandma and grandpa but they probably will need some hand holding at the start. Once they are in, it just works™**. YMMV
neilv 3y ago
Thoughts on how this will get us towards when libre software privacy&security type people are ready to advise friends to move to Matrix for personal communication? (To be clear, the platform has to be all open source and open standards, actually decentralized, guided by those principles -- not an effectively proprietary play even if nominally open. For example, you should be able to get all the same functionality with Element, Fluffychat, Thunderbird, and other user agents, and with any home server, both now and on an ongoing basis. And the user agent implementation difficulty should become tractable enough, in terms of size&complexity and specification, that one person could write a new one -- not like Web browsers have become, where there's mainly only one, that company has been funding the runner-up, and that company can pretty much dictate 'standards'.)
- Arathorn 3y ago
  Matrix 2.0 is a major step towards getting friends & family on Matrix. Firstly, it's not introducing new features - it's just making the current featureset work super-efficiently (while retaining compatibility with today's Matrix). So there should be no fragmentation between Element/Fluffychat/Thunderbird, with the possible exception of the new scalable encrypted VoIP conferencing (but then very few Matrix clients implemented the old VoIP conferencing, plus you can always just embed an Element Call instance to get at it now - as Element X does today). Secondly, we're explicitly working to protect Matrix from the commercial interests from Element (the company set up by the team who created Matrix, of which I'm ceo/cto as well as Matrix project lead). We already have The Matrix.org Foundation (https://matrix.org/foundation https://matrix.org/foundation) as an independent non-profit to hold the Matrix IP and maintain its neutrality - but we also just hired Josh Simmons (former President of the OSI) as its independent Managing Director (https://matrix.org/blog/2023/09/introducing-josh-simmons-managing-director/ https://matrix.org/blog/2023/09/introducing-josh-simmons-man...). So: going forwards, the Foundation increasingly does not have to depend on Element not being evil, but instead has its own independent management to ensure the protocol exists to support everyone in the ecosystem, without fragmentation, as per the guiding principles at https://matrix.org/foundation https://matrix.org/foundation - under its own autonomy. I'd say this is is good news for libre software privacy & security type people, but then again I'm biased. Practically, the only thing getting in the way of getting friends & family on Matrix is that Element X requires fancy OIDC-native homeservers for registration, so newbies won't be able to use Element X to join Matrix yet. But the app itself should be an excellent way to get folks on board in the very near future.
amstan 3y ago
It's quite disappointing that there's huge ongoing work around reinventing clients from scratch where the basic functionality of not ringing all my devices while I'm using only one of them [1] is still not there (bug open for years), despite it being a pretty simple fix. [1] https://github.com/vector-im/element-meta/issues/360 https://github.com/vector-im/element-meta/issues/360
- Arathorn 3y ago
  The team rewriting Element as Element X is completely different to the folks who would need to make the change in Synapse to not send push to devices who are currently syncing. Agreed we should have fixed this years ago, especially as it's actually a feature in our pre-Matrix system back in 2012. There's basically a blindspot on long-lived missing serverside features like this; i've added it to a new hitlist we're experimenting with for trying to clear these up.
  - amstan 3y ago
    I offered a simple fix: delay notifications on all except the active client for 30 seconds, if a read reciept gets triggered from the active client then cancel the timer. I couldn't even get anyone in the team to even look at my solution 3 years ago. Not sure why this feature keeps getting defered for "just about to land and things might be better after" server-side features (see how it has 7 out of 9 "dependencies" resolved) when none are needed. I've had a couple of friend actually give up on matrix due to this. I also have to keep my phone on silent or else I can't be chatting on matrix without the constant bzzzing. I'm also amused about the ever growing (currently at $760) bounty on this feature.
    - freilanzer 3y ago
      > I've had a couple of friend actually give up on matrix due to this. I and several others have also given up and just stay with Signal and WhatsApp.
  - freilanzer 3y ago
    Well, that doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the project for me.
self_awareness 3y ago
How Matrix decentralisation is an improvement over Jabber's decentralisation? (disclaimer: I have no knowledge about neither spec, I'm not suggesting Jabber was better)
- kevincox 3y ago
  IIUC Jabber never really had decentralized group chats? It had MUC but these were federated, so if the server hosting the room went down the chat also died. Matrix rooms are fully decentralized and can survive any servers failing. (Although note that not much else in the protocol is decentralized, much of it is only federated.)
  - ezst 3y ago
    > IIUC Jabber never really had decentralized group chats? Jaber had something like that 5 years before Matrix: https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0289.html https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0289.html but decided it wasn't an avenue worth pursuing, as a non-issue in practice. This is further proven by WhatsApp (which is based on XMPP/ejabberd) and its billion active users: you don't have to shove this complexity into the protocol level when it runs natively on a distributed/federated infrastructure (the erlang VM in this case). > Matrix rooms are fully decentralized and can survive any servers failing. In practice the room survives in a "split brain" mode where different users see different participants, the room isn't available to the users whose instance went dark as its no longer hosting their identity, and messages are popping mid history while the state resolution is working hard to reach consensus. When the servers finally come back online, there is a risk of never catching up fully, or worse, for the rooms to remain split forever. And I adventure a hot take there: this property of staying seemingly online (in a frankenbizarre way) came handy way fewer times in the history of Matrix than for all the incurred complexity reflected in daily bugs, privacy, security, performance issues and inconsistencies.
    - MattJ100 3y ago
      > but decided it wasn't an avenue worth pursuing To add some colour - there are commercial implementations of that (e.g. https://www.isode.com/whitepapers/federated-muc.html https://www.isode.com/whitepapers/federated-muc.html ). But from my perspective as a server developer, I've seen minimal interest in this for the public network. Probably because server failures are rare enough events in the general case. That's not to say there aren't use cases where it is more valuable to have this functionality.
amatecha 3y ago
Regular reminder Matrix/Element work closely with law-enforcement to provide encrypted comms for them. It's a sector Matrix/Element actively markets to and deals with. My personal view is I'm not using a chat platform designed/developed by an organization so eager to partner with governments and law enforcement agencies. There's Element's Chief Product Officer & Managing Director presenting at the European Police Congress[0]: https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/110310853505977058 https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/110310853505977058 And a quick post about their excitement at participating in this conference: https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/110304013472307767 https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/110304013472307767 I mean, whatever, it's just doing business, right? When someone criticized this, they gave a snarky, surprisingly unprofessional response: https://mastodon.matrix.org/@matrix/110334695988903649 https://mastodon.matrix.org/@matrix/110334695988903649 Dunno about anyone else but my trust in them is just gone. I'm not saying you have to care (and I don't care if you do). I'm sharing this for the people who do care, and don't want to use "secure messaging" made by people who actively market to and collaborate closely with law enforcement and governments. [0] https://www.european-police.eu/ https://www.european-police.eu/
- __s 3y ago
  What's the problem with e2e encryption for those organizations? The problem is if they give those orgs a backdoor
  - amatecha 3y ago
    Oh yeah, I actually asked them about that. They said there aren't any backdoors[0]. We're all good, no worries! :) :) [0] https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/110340953550548309 https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/110340953550548309
    - panick21_ 3y ago
      Its open source and the crypto library is also 3rd party verified. I don't get your problem.
    - 3y ago
orblivion 3y ago
> The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) is a huge step in that direction - regulation that mandates that if the large centralised messaging providers are to operate in the EU, they must interoperate. Wow. Not interested in winning the war this way.
- kibwen 3y ago
  Requiring protocols for interoperation results in more competition in implementations, which is often the better scenario as far as users are concerned.
- Lacusch 3y ago
  Maybe you're not but I know a few people (myself included) who will take any win on the privacy front we can get.
rabbitofdeath 3y ago
I love matrix - I've been running a Synapse homeserver for over 2 years now for friends and family. We love it. Despite minor problems (upgrading postgres for example) it has been smooth sailing. I really want to stay up to date but they don't make it easy! I'd love to add sliding-sync to my existing docker stack, but I feel like I'm in way over my head!
- geek_at 3y ago
  I love the idea of matrix (synapse + element + mobile apps) and I have started moving my family there too but we had so many problems with notifications not being sent to the phone unless you actively open the app. There is a huge discussion about that on git and some can't reproduce, some can't get a single notification even though the apps notification checkmarks were all green. So it had a very very low WAF [1] and I scrapped it sadly. This was a few years ago, any signs of these problems still existing? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wife_acceptance_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wife_acceptance_factor
  - chagaif 3y ago
    You probably just need to change the settings to battery saver - no restrictions for Element. Your OS is probably killing the app aggressively (I've seen this with telegram a lot as well with many people).
  - soupbowl 3y ago
    I had this problem 2 years ago and it ended getting fixed. Recently I seen it again and the problem was that my container running synapse did not have working DNS which caused all notifications to stop working. Once I fixed up resolv.conf all was working. I am not suggesting that was your issue but it might help somebody.
  - Arathorn 3y ago
    Hmm… we haven’t had notification problems like that in many years, from memory. Any idea if this was trying to deliver push notifs to Android without using Google? (Which historically has been painful thanks to Android OS versions terminating the app in the bg). Element X has totally rewritten notification code (given it’s moved from Kotlin to Rust) and should be much more robust for bugs like this. Sorry you got bitten by it.
tptacek 3y ago
Just a question, I haven't been paying attention, but where is Matrix on resolving the Nebuchadnezzar vulnerabilities, and is the project still tracking towards switching to MLS instead of Olm/Megolm?
- contact9879 3y ago
  > Outside of Matrix 2.0 work, other big items on the horizon include: - Adding Rust matrix-sdk-crypto to matrix-js-sdk, at which point all the official Matrix.org client SDKs will (at last!) be using the same stable performant E2EE implementation - Continuing to contribute Matrix input to the MIMI working group in IETF for > Digital Markets Act interoperability - Working on MLS for next-generation E2EE IIRC, the rust matrix-sdk-crypto was their intended fix for the vulnerabilities.
- Arathorn 3y ago
  The main remaining Nebuchadnezzar issue is mitigating server-controlled group membership. The first step has been to kill off the 1st gen E2EE implementations, which were responsible for the implementation vulns found by RHUL - and we should hopefully conclude that next week by moving everything into the matrix-rust-sdk crypto crate implmentation: https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/21972#issuecomment-1705224936 https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/21972#issuec... is the tracker. Then, we can address the harder server-controlled group membership issue in one place. First step will be to improve device verification & trust so that trust is the default, not the exception, to make it easier to spot and warn about unexpected devices in the room. The full solution is then either MSC3917 (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/fayed/cryptographic-membership/proposals/3917-cryptographic-membership.md https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/fay...) - or potentially to switch everything to MLS. We're working on MLS anyway in parallel to RHUL mitigation work; you can see the progress at https://arewemlsyet.com https://arewemlsyet.com, and it's looking good. I'm guessing you're not interested in doing a podcast on "yay we converged our crypto implementations on a single robust Rust implementation so we can fix the remaining bugs in one place", but as soon as the server-controlled group membership thing is solved we'll be in touch. Work has also gone much slower than hoped on this, thanks to the joys of funding open source.
eviks 3y ago
Do they also plan to ditch the desktop Electron version for the users to enjoy similar performance improvements?
- Arathorn 3y ago
  Element X actually runs really well on macOS already on Apple Silicon; I regularly use it as my desktop app whenever Element Web is having... issues. It would be amazing to plonk matrix-rust-sdk into Element Web and switch Electron for Tauri or something... but one thing at a time.
  - fabrice_d 3y ago
    It would be nice to provide first class support for state of the art web clients (both desktop and mobile). That would fit your opening stance of "Matrix has been going for over 9 years now, providing an open standard for secure, decentralised communication for the open Web" more than apps tied to the iOS/Android app ecosystems.
  - tormeh 3y ago
    I’ve wondered about this for a long time: Why not Flutter? Should give you one codebase for all platforms, while being significantly faster than webtech-based solutions.
    - Arathorn 3y ago
      I guess we just prefer to use the platform’s native UI (SwiftUI/UIKit, Jetpack Compose, HTML) on each respective platform, rather than an abstraction like Flutter. All the heavy lifting is done by matrix-rust-sdk now anyway.
internetguy 3y ago
Awesome! I've been using matrix on and off for around 3 years and I absolutely love it.
kibwen 3y ago
Techy friend group of mine migrated from Discord to a self-hosted private Matrix server a few months back. No complaints so far, although we didn't use Discord's voice/video/screen-sharing features (which I hear that Matrix intends to support eventually). UX-wise, it made me appreciate the distinction between Discord's "everyone is subscribed to every channel in a server by default" stance, and IRC/Matrix's opposite approach. The latter certainly scales better, but the former is so, so much better for discoverability, so it's probably the better default for small servers. And if you're looking for a Matrix client with a Discord-like UI, try Cinny.
- Arathorn 3y ago
  The plan on Discord-style voice/video/screensharing features is Element Call (https://call.element.io https://call.element.io) which is built to be embeddable into Matrix clients. It’s already in Element X, and is in Element Web/Desktop behind a labs flag. Meanwhile you can always embed Jitsi.
  - solarkraft 3y ago
    As far as I'm able to tell most call functionality is built into the JS SDK (is this true), so what will embedding Element Call actually gain me? The (beautiful!) UI?
    - Arathorn 3y ago
      It will gain you: * The ability to use the end-to-end encryption identity & verification from your normal Matrix account, by piggybacking on the 'host' matrix client. Whereas call.element.io is not remotely designed (at all) to work with your normal Matrix account, and doesn't have any of the E2EE UI hooked up, and instead relies on a shared secret to access E2EE rooms * The ability to place VoIP calls inside existing Matrix rooms from your normal Matrix account. * The ability to reliably background the app & lock the phone when on a call. * The ability to receive inbound calls via push notifications and CallKit/ConnectionService - i.e. presenting the calls in the native dialer UI of the phone, and treating Element X like a VoIP dialer. You get the same beautiful UI whether you use call.element.io directly or embed it inside another Matrix client like Element X :P
brunoqc 3y ago
Rip matrix p2p. I wonder if they were serious about it, or if it was just vaporware (a la Musk) to get more funding. It has been announced years ago, they raised millions and they have big governments contracts. WTF is going on?
- contact9879 3y ago
  It's still in development[1]. Seems like p2p will depend on dendrite so until dendrite is stable, p2p will not be available. [1]: https://arewep2pyet.com/ https://arewep2pyet.com/
- Arathorn 3y ago
  wtf is going on is that: a) p2p matrix works pretty well as a proof of concept - you can try it from https://arewep2pyet.com https://arewep2pyet.com; it’s not remotely vapourware. b) funding has been spent on core Matrix dev and making Element kick ass (cf Element X) c) an awful lot of very large Matrix + Element deployments (eg LuxChat in Luxembourg, Merkury 2.0 in the Polish MOD, many German local authorities) decide to run Matrix deployments without routing a single $ to support development at either the Matrix Foundation or Element, such are the joys of the Apache license. As a result, we’ve had to pause some of the longer-term R&D. I very much hope that P2P will resume (especially if someone explicitly funds it) and the team is still at Element (but working on sliding sync and account portability). But right now we’re focusing exclusively on fixing the core problems in both Matrix and Element which others in this thread are complaining about. Hence Matrix 2.0, and Element X.
  - brunoqc 3y ago
    Thanks Matthew, I always appreciate your comments. I also do appreciate the Apache license. Sorry for the vapourware comment. It's hard to tell these days. Was the Google self-driving car thing vapourware? It never went anywhere. I know that pinecone worked as a PoC. I ran a node for years, for fun. It's just that it always felt like the progress was crazy slow. The yggdrasil demo was what, 4 years ago? How fucked up will the world be in 4 years? Not that it's your fault. And I care about matrix. I was the one who suggested arewep2pyet.com, I made 1-2 friends use it (matrix), I made 1-2 coworkers use it. Also, zulip threads now or I riot.
smashah 3y ago
Matrix is great but when is the tech industry going to deal with the fact that many, if not all, bridges are against the respective services' ToS and subsequently put the developers of those bridges under legal risk? Whatsapp has already sent legal threats to multiple bridge-component level project maintainers without any recourse.
- amstan 3y ago
  My Facebook bridge constantly locks up my account. [1] [1] https://github.com/mautrix/facebook/issues/236 https://github.com/mautrix/facebook/issues/236
  - smashah 3y ago
    I strongly believe users should be able to automate and interact with their accounts through whatever clients they wish however I think blocks/bans/technical countermeasures is fair game. Count yourself lucky for not having an undeterminable, unfightable legal threat over your head from a $800bn mega corp.
  - derin 3y ago
    You should use your bridge off of a residential IP in the same city as your other devices, or else Facebook finds the activity suspicious.
- progval 3y ago
  The EU just designated Whatsapp as a gatekeeper under the Digital Markets Act: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_4328 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_... following the "full list of do's and don'ts" link on that page: > Gatekeeper platforms will have to: > - allow third parties to inter-operate with the gatekeeper’s own services in certain specific situations > - allow their business users to access the data that they generate in their use of the gatekeeper’s platform
  - unicornporn 3y ago
    This is likely also the sole reason[1] that Meta is considering connecting Threads to the fediverse. [1] https://yiffit.net/comment/498225 https://yiffit.net/comment/498225
lousken 3y ago
> Rather than exposing a kitchen sink of features and settings, we’re keeping Element X truly focused: doing one job and absolutely nailing it - all while harnessing the power of Matrix for secure, interoperable, open-standard communication. does this mean the Element X is more for the mainstream user and regular Element is better suited for power users?
- Arathorn 3y ago
  Element X also is geared up for powerusers (e.g. as project lead, I consider myself a poweruser) and i've been absolutely loving it as my daily driver for the last few months on mobile. For instance, my account is in around 4,000 chatrooms, and Element iOS was taking ~10s to launch and sync, and could easily take minutes to sync in the morning (heaven forbid the app was offline for more than overnight). Meanwhile, Element X launches in around 100ms, no matter how long it's been offline, and syncs in around a second. The model that we're going for is similar to iOS or macOS: something which is incredibly simple for normal users, but can also scale up seamlessly for crazy powerusers. In terms of specific poweruser features: I suspect the strategy will be to see if we can provide the same end result without actually adding the feature - and failing that, add the feature very strategically via progressive disclosure... or perhaps not at all, and rely on other Matrix apps to pick it up. The intention is to fairly rapidly replace regular Element on mobile with Element X, eitherway.
  - lousken 3y ago
    Ok, I understand... one last thing I ask every year - custom emojis when? :) And thank you for your the hard work!
    - Arathorn 3y ago
      But we just entirely rewrote both mobile clients to get out of having to implement custom emojis! :D Joking aside, it's easily one of the biggest features missing from Element/Element X, and I for one can't wait for it to land. Unfortunately we also don't have any paying Element customers asking for it, though, which is why it keeps getting deprioritised in favour of other stuff.
infogulch 3y ago
I wrote a summary of the post: https://twitter.com/infogulch/status/1704933396508553385 https://twitter.com/infogulch/status/1704933396508553385
rebolek 3y ago
The future of Matrix is robots and people as batteries.
preya2k 3y ago
Once more, Kudos to Arathorn/Matthew (the head of Matrix/Element) taking the time to answer most Hacker News comments, as he mostly does for all Matrix-related HN threads. It's really nice to see him answer in a calm and mostly objective tone while people are blaming him for shortcomings and problems of all the different Matrix-related software projects. Admitting to failures and problems that Matrix definitely has, while still defending the overall project and giving insight into the status of MSCs/projects is admirable. Thank you Matthew. I wish you an endless amount of patience for the future.
- Arathorn 3y ago
  thanks :) sorry for monopolising the thread, but it's too tempting when I have the answers to hand, for better or worse...
  - preya2k 3y ago
    Looking forward to your talk tomorrow in Berlin.
    - Arathorn 3y ago
      if I get there; my flight just got cancelled…
    - jacooper 3y ago
      Which talk? Is there a link?
      - preya2k 3y ago
        This one: https://summit2023.matrixmeetup.de/conference/talk/AXGMEA/ https://summit2023.matrixmeetup.de/conference/talk/AXGMEA/ Don’t think there’s a live stream. But there might be a recording afterwards.
        Arathorn 3y ago
teawrecks 3y ago
I'm curious if someone could build a discord replacement on top of matrix, most importantly with voice chat and video streaming functionality. Discord is clearly focused on monetization at this point, the only changes happening now are ones that make your experience objectively worse. I've also been on Linux for a few years now and discord still doesn't support streaming game audio. And before someone suggests it, I tried Revolt, and it's not there yet. The latest client (as of a few months ago) couldn't find my audio devices at all, and came with a big warning about how their audio backend was being completely rewritten, and what I was using was now legacy.
- Arathorn 3y ago
  Absolutely. Element is already quite close to that, and once Element Call and native Matrix group VoIP matures more, hopefully it'll be even easier to converge on Discord's featureset.
whiterock 3y ago
my biggest struggle with matrix, is that, at least in element-ios, messages keep transpositioning, i.e. at some random time a message that is 2 days old is pushed all the way down to the new messages. also the aop frequently crashes with some media. but apart from that I of course love the idea of an „SMTP approach“ to instant messaging :)
- Arathorn 3y ago
  this is literally why we rewrote element-ios in rust, in the form of Element X iOS :) https://element.io/labs/element-x https://element.io/labs/element-x
  - whiterock 3y ago
    oh that‘s so cool. will give it a try now! :) really looking forward to the search feature btw hehe.
  - tentacleuno 3y ago
    Why not fix the issues with the current implementation as well as rewriting it?
    - ptman 3y ago
      time and money?
chamik 3y ago
This is an amazing step in the right direction. I host a small conduit server for a friend group and I can't wait for the improvements this will bring as a whole! Good work.
noname120 3y ago
Oh wow congrats to the entire team for this amazing achievement! And the cake under the cherry is… Element X is open-source as well[1][2]! I really can't wait for Beeper[3] to rebuild their fork on top of Element X (it's currently based on Element, formerly called Riot). When this happens it will be an absolute game-changer for the messaging ecosystem. ———— [1] https://github.com/vector-im/element-x-ios https://github.com/vector-im/element-x-ios [2] https://github.com/vector-im/element-x-android https://github.com/vector-im/element-x-android [3] https://www.beeper.com/ https://www.beeper.com/
- Arathorn 3y ago
  Beeper don't seem to like Sliding Sync, for whatever reason, so I wouldn't hold your breath on it ;)
  - 16 3y ago
    From what I understand, the Beeper team has invested a lot of time and effort (and code!) into their own "make matrix go vroom" solution which also benefits their complex bridging system, and I imagine it would take some significant engineering time to unravel it for sliding sync.
notsahil 3y ago
Synapse already eats up lots of space, adding sliding sync will boost it up and will be difficult to self-host it.
- Arathorn 3y ago
  Yup, it's true that sliding sync proxy increases disk space further, although it's not so bad. A big advantage once it's stable and merged into a native homeserver will be reducing the storage duplication between the proxy and the HS. Meanwhile, we really need to get https://github.com/matrix-org/rust-synapse-compress-state/pull/69 https://github.com/matrix-org/rust-synapse-compress-state/pu... hooked up in Synapse so that it automatically compresses state; I don't know why this never landed when it was written in in 2021 :(
  - COGlory 3y ago
    I just went through a HUGE pain in the ass with my homeserver. I was on the Hetzner cloud plan and at the highest storage tier already. I had about 80 GB free, and setup sliding sync. It filled up the remaining space (unbeknownst to me) and my homeserver stopped working. Fortunately I was still able to login, but no disk space was available for the Postgres vacuum. I wound up having to rsync everything over to my desktop, setting up Docker on my desktop, running the compression tools on my desktop, and re-uploading. I now have a 20GB dummy file on that server.
    - ptman 3y ago
      Running out of disk space (or inodes!) is probably how everyone running a server learns about monitoring and alerts
wkat4242 3y ago
There's no web version of element X though? It's what I use most of the time. I'll try the Android app anyway, I've been having a really annoying bug with the normal one anyway that hasn't been fixed for a year. So perhaps X doesn't have it.
- Arathorn 3y ago
  Element X works pretty well on macOS as a desktop client if you have an Apple Silicon Mac. Otherwise, the big Element Web rework is yet to happen. On Android, I can almost guarantee your bug will be fixed: Element X Android doesn’t share any code with Element Android at all, as far as I know (given the former is mainly written in Rust, and the latter is all Kotlin)
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    Ah ok no I don't have a Mac, I use FreeBSD :) And thanks I'll try that out!! I really hope it fixes that sync bug. Thanks for all your work on it. It's a great platform.
  - Macha 3y ago
    This is the second time you've rewritten the Android app with Riot -> RiotX/Element -> ElementX. Just wondering why you throw it away rather than improve it, and if you're at risk of replacing one set of bugs with another?
    - mycall 3y ago
      Probably from too many mistakes and/or new maintainer and/or better ways to do it. Same as it ever was.
      - Arathorn 3y ago
        The reason for Riot->RiotX (aka Element) on Android was to both move to a modern Android UI idiom, move to Kotlin, and have a well defined storage interface and switch to Rx patterns, whereas the original app had been built somewhat organically. And yes, the maintainer had changed. The reason for Element -> Element X is in order to share precisely the same Rust SDK between iOS and Android (and maybe other platforms in future), so all the heavylifting happens in one single audited codebase, rather than doubling up all the development between iOS and Android, doubling the bug count, etc. It’s also a good opportunity to simplify the data flows, which are surprisingly subtle and performant in a messaging app; I’m not sure how much Rx remains. In this instance, the maintaining team remained the same.
monlockandkey 3y ago
Does anyone know how to integrate chats into a web app using Matrix. Rather than writing a messaging web app from scratch, can I hook into matrix?
- ezst 3y ago
  That's a use-case where XMPP shines, historically. There are embeddable/lightweight clients doing that job well without all the matrix fuss.
- tcfhgj 3y ago
  You could use the matrix-js-sdk or matrix-rust-sdk if you want to deal with wasm
- Arathorn 3y ago
  https://github.com/vector-im/hydrogen-web/blob/master/doc/SDK.md https://github.com/vector-im/hydrogen-web/blob/master/doc/SD... is the best option currently.
iptq 3y ago
exciting to hear! I only wish i had more time to contribute. Has there been any movement on migrating away from long polling (#475)? I didn't see anything about it in the announcements or comments despite such a big milestone
- Arathorn 3y ago
  Low Bandwidth Matrix is the answer to that, and it’s currently on hold unless it gets funded: https://matrix.org/blog/2021/06/10/low-bandwidth-matrix-an-implementation-guide/ https://matrix.org/blog/2021/06/10/low-bandwidth-matrix-an-i... It might also get changed as part of Sliding Sync refinement.
  - xvilka 3y ago
    Hopefully it will be the default once implemented. Everyone will benefit from compact protocol in the long run. Should have been done from the very beginning.
  - snvzz 3y ago
    Is there going to be a way to have very simple clients, perhaps with a helper in the server side? It'd be nice to bring matrix to microcontrollers and "retro" computer platforms.
    - Arathorn 3y ago
      the API already is super simple, and low bandwidth could already work on retro machines (I had 6809 in mind when experimenting with it). The problem is e2ee, but we have the Pantalaimon e2ee proxy to convert unencrypted Matrix traffic into E2EE traffic for precisely this sort of thing :)
      - snvzz 3y ago
        That's promising :) I had 68000, 8086/88 and 6502 in mind.
benatkin 3y ago
Looks like there's an open protocol and an open source client implementation for video calls. https://github.com/vector-im/element-call https://github.com/vector-im/element-call This is great! Jitsi has never clicked for me. I tried it a few times, and read about it, and was never excited about it. I just tried Element Call, albeit an empty room, and the UI feels right.
- deleted 3y ago
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dmix 3y ago
Does anyone use Matrix/Element for a serious workplace, instead of something like Slack?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- reducible 3y ago
  I work at a 25 person startup and we've been using Element as our main chat platform for the past 6 months (paid hosting), however we're now in the process of migrating away. I really wanted to like it because it supports good encryption and is open source, but unfortunately it's just too buggy. The main pain points are: - Stuck notifications [1] - Being unable to decrypt messages (from certain users sending from certain devices; some people can read them, others can't) - No proper notifications for old threads - Various GUI instability bugs: chats that are suddenly empty, text suddenly randomly overlaid on other text, randomly missing scroll bars, etc. 1: https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/24392 https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/24392
- sfink 3y ago
  We use Matrix (mostly via Element) at Mozilla alongside Slack. It's mainly public stuff on Matrix, and the usage pattern varies between teams: some teams are mainly Slack and barely pay attention to Matrix rooms, other teams (like mine) kick and scream if they're forced to use Slack for anything but internal corporate purposes. New hires in such teams tend to assume Slack initially and gradually notice that they get very slow responses on Slack, and then switch mainly over to Matrix to talk to the rest of us. It's been good to us. Note that our primary comparison point is IRC, not Slack, mainly because of our project roots of openness and widely distributed contributors. So it's a serious workplace, but an atypical one. Encryption has periodically caused problems. Leaving the company and maintaining access to your communication seems to be a bit painful. Search is not great. Threads are tolerable. Inviting outside people in works well. Abuse is vastly more manageable than it was on IRC. Performance is mostly good. Both Element Web and Element on Android are very usable. Notifications are a little wonky, but I don't rely on them much so I can't really gauge whether they're good enough if you do.
turbobooster 3y ago
[dead]
Ilikeruby 3y ago
I see Decentrilised and I see secure and I see a scam
LWIRVoltage 3y ago
Being a user of E2EE video chat tools and calling apps, - I've been following this, especially more closely ever since Jitsi disabled anonymous video calling on thier main instance /Jitsi Meet (Yes, there is a the Jitsi Meet Community Instances that are still with the original full functionality that people can access- If they search for Jitsi alternative community instances on a search engine, which isn't something most will be aware of for your average user...) Having been a user of the Jitsi Meet Electron App even on Linux and Windows(along with the web accessible variant)- and having followed closely the efforts by Firefox on RTCRtpScriptTransform (formerly webrtc insertable streams) mainly to support Jitsi E2EE calls- has been interesting to watch. Though now with the new Google/Meta/Microsoft account requirement/non anonymous aspect, all of that minus the community instances web interface sites are of use to me now. If i follow fully, Element Call in a way replaces Jitsi Meet's original capability- though E2EE encryption doesn't have to be "Turned On " in a Chromium based browser - and Element Call isn't yet something that can be launched from a desktop app on Windows or Linux in a similar user-friendly way (I see the Vector IM client is a thing) - The main difference being for using Element/Element X, one new from the Jitsi Meet ecosystem /usecases i've mentioned, will have to make an account- and for your average user who cannot easily learn about and deploy a server and how to host that on their own- but is looking for privacy- it is trickier to judge and will be more steps , to achieve anonymity from a privacy perspective. I see the P2P effort is another step towards this as well I'll likely try to use Element Call and point those I know who use tools like this towards it due to Jitsi's recent changes - as Element Call's web interface is user-friendly enough, and that is the main challenge. What Element is outside of that- and how it integrates into everything and how to use it in the same way in it's other forms- will be interesting to introduce, as those are developed further.
astroderf 3y ago
Can this perennial scam get off the front page already. ffs.
yobid20 3y ago
As someone who works for a company thats developed their own end to end conferencing stack (utilizing webrtc stack on the client side and all custom conference servers and sfu on the backend), what would be the benefits of adding Matrix support and how exactly would that be done (at a high level)? What would the benefits to users be? Trying to understand what all the hype is about here, and whether or not this would be a venture to pursue and what the business justification would be.
- Arathorn 3y ago
  Using Matrix would mean: * You get best practice audited (in the near future) end-to-end encryption * You get decentralisation if your users want to host the stack themselves * You get bridges to other systems (although not many FOSS voip bridges for Matrix exist today, admittedly) * Similarly, you get an open standard API on which you and others can write bots/apps and other extensions to add new functionality, and benefit from the wider ecosystem * You get some preexisting clients like Element Call to build on.
  - yobid20 3y ago
    Well, we dont want e2ee because then we cant decode audio and transcribe, or record meetings. All of which are high demand user requirements. We dont want decentralisation either for the same reason. We dont interop with other video conference systems other than asterisk for dial in/out. And the ones that we might consider doing that for dont support matrix either. We want a fully integrated system for our users so i dont see external clients being a thing. An open standard api is a plus but in my experience there's always something they fall short on requiring something custom. This is why i find it difficult to see where matrix could improve anything for us. Trying to find some benefit but I really don't think there is one other than maybe marketing and saying we play nice with open source or open standards.
czard 3y ago
Honestly what's the point given XMPP? Tried setting up Matrix, was a pain, went for ejabberd and it was a breeze. Gajim and c0nnecteasy work perfectly. Can't help but feel like if half the efforts of building Matrix went into XEPs or something we would have a rock solid IM alternative and clients by now. And tbf, can Matrix do group video calls? That's the only really useful feature missing from XMPP now, for which there's actually a XEP that recently went into a Deferred state, for a lack of participation/experiment. So, what's the point?
- zaik 3y ago
  Dino the XMPP client can do group video calls.
- Arathorn 3y ago
  the original post has a full section about Matrix’s support for E2EE group video calls, which you can play with at https://call.element.io https://call.element.io. This, and much more, is the point.

599 points by jrepinc 3y ago

I always get so confused by the naming between Matrix and Element. I get that Element is the client, but I honestly thought that the name Matrix for the server (or is it just the standard for the protocol?) was sunset. Great service though and hope if gets UX improvements too, as Discord and Slack keep getting more clutter.

CameronNemo 3y ago
Maybe you are confused because the old client name, Riot, was sunset in favor of Element? AIUI the protocol was and is called Matrix. There seems to be no intention to depart from that name.
- hparadiz 3y ago
  They renamed Riot to Element in the wake of the George Floyd protests in the United States. It's the same code base. Matrix is a protocol. Synapse is the primary server implementation of Matrix written in Python.
  - Macha 3y ago
    Here's their blog post at a time: https://element.io/blog/the-world-is-changing/?ref=itsfoss.com https://element.io/blog/the-world-is-changing/?ref=itsfoss.c... It's worth nothing that the conflict with Riot Games over trademark rights was also a motivating factor.
  - Arathorn 3y ago
    (We actually renamed Riot to Element because the nice people at Riot Games sent us a cease & desist :)
    - nadir_ishiguro 3y ago
      I still remember when that happened. I was really bummed because Riot is just such a fun name. Didn't help that that particular company was the reason. I bet you were even more bummed though. It's interesting seeing a myth build around your reasons for the name change already, with the blog post still up. Makes me wonder though how native speakers would have felt about the name after the protests. I'm not a native speaker, so I don't feel the connotations of the name.
SushiHippie 3y ago
Element is to matrix what chrome is to http. The most used client for that protocol.
- progval 3y ago
  Element is the trading name of a company, of three clients with mostly-independent codebases written by that company (web, android, iOS; not counting the two Element X rewrites), and of a hosting service (EMS).
  - SushiHippie 3y ago
    Yes New Vector Ltd
infinitezest 3y ago
As much as I love the fact that I have my choice of server and client I have to say that it does make me wonder if it affects adoption. When the Mastodon growth spikes happened the complaint that I heard most often was from people that couldn't figure out which client to use or which instance to use. Too much choice tends to paralyze people and they default to proprietary services because they don't know what choices to make.
cvwright 3y ago
Yeah. I still think that the Matrix.org Foundation should have a branded client, simply called “Matrix”, available in all the major app stores. Lock it to the matrix.org server and offer membership in the foundation as an in-app purchase. Could help with some of their recent funding issues.
- toastal 3y ago
  The fact that the group in control of the spec, the reference server, the most popular client, & the biggest server is the same entity is problem enough as it is for control/decentralization. Branding it top to bottom as Matrix would be the beginning of the end to me.
  - nostrfanboi 3y ago
    Matrix federation is inherently too centralized to my taste. You always rely on a server and a domain name. HN geeks can run their own server but still depend on ICANN down the line.
    - cvwright 3y ago
      Username checks out :)
- gorgoiler 3y ago
  Growth in revenue-free end users might not be fantastic news for the Matrix team. As I understand it they make money from b2b integrations (eg French government) and supporting a horde of WhatsApp transplants is only ever going to be a net negative cost centre for them. There aren’t exactly many so it’s a bit hard to generalise but free, large scale chat apps are the side projects of tech companies with existing revenue streams.
- thisisabore 3y ago
  Do you think email should have a branded client, simply called "email" available in all the major app stores? Or XMPP have a branded client, simply called "XMPP" etc.? Align on a protocol, experiment and compete with clients is a good way to make progress.
notthemessiah 3y ago
I just feel like the use of linear algebra terminology pollutes search results. Maybe they should have named it Passta/Meetball or some unique dumb name, and continued the naming scheme after satirical religions (Church of the Subgenius -> Slack, Discordianism -> Discord, Pastafarianism -> Meetball), like name the protocol Passta (maybe figure out a backronym for it), and the client software "Meetball".
- anticensor 3y ago
  The use of math terms is intentional.
bobbylarrybobby 3y ago
A matrix is made up of elements :)
thisisabore 3y ago
Matrix = email. Element = Thunderbird, Outlook, etc. The Matrix name has never budged since the beginning of the project. One of the Matrix servers is called Synapse. Others include Conduit or Dendrite (see https://matrix.org/ecosystem/servers/ https://matrix.org/ecosystem/servers/). So yes, Matrix is the protocol, not the/a server.

deleted 3y ago

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UltimateEdge 3y ago

> Therefore to use Element X, you need to be running a homeserver with Sliding Sync support, which (for now) means running a sliding-sync proxy which bolts Sliding Sync support on to existing homeservers. I am excited to try out Element X, but I do not want to administer yet another service, namely the Sliding Sync proxy. From a practical perspective, Sliding Sync (MSC3575) is still on the level of a proposal/experiment and I wish that we would be having this conversation about Element X after it becomes usable with any spec-compliant server.

Arathorn 3y ago
Matrix evolves as a protocol by folks proposing new APIs (e.g. MSC3575), implementing them, showing that they work, and making the case that they should be merged into the main spec. Sliding Sync is an interesting case in that it clearly does work, and it kicks ass - but it turns out to be unnecessarily complicated for the subset of features that you actually need when implementing something like Element X (which is my fault entirely, fwiw). However, should we hold off on putting it in people's hands while we sort that? Nope. Is it a pain to temporarily run a proxy shim service while the protocol stabilises? Yes. It's like running a SPDY or QUIC-aware reverse proxy in front of a webapp that only speaks HTTP/1.1 while waiting for SPDY to be ratified as HTTP/2. Sure, it's another moving part to look after, but the spectacular improvement is likely worth the pain. YMMV though :)
- UltimateEdge 3y ago
  > Matrix evolves as a protocol by folks proposing new APIs (e.g. MSC3575), implementing them, showing that they work, and making the case that they should be merged into the main spec. Yes, it is just unfortunate that it is not clear enough to more people (such as the_common_man below) that Sliding Sync is only at the MSC stage at the moment and not part of the Matrix spec. I am glad that at least Element X allows this MSC to improve and for those nits you have mentioned to be resolved.
the_common_man 3y ago
Why is sliding sync a separate service and not just part of synapse itself?

abdullahkhalids 3y ago

Is Matrix simple enough now that I can invite my grandpa/grandma and they will be able to join? How does ease up sign up and use compare to discord? Assume that I make the choice of which client to direct them to.

masfuerte 3y ago
My octogenarian mother uses it.
- airstrike 3y ago
  Did she set it up herself?
  - masfuerte 3y ago
    No, but that's true of all the software she uses.
Arathorn 3y ago
Matrix itself is a protocol, so is as hard or easy to use as the client that you use to access it. Matrix 2.0 is all about demonstrating that a really really fast, mainstream-grade app can be built on Matrix, in the form of Element X: https://element.io/blog/element-x-ignition/ https://element.io/blog/element-x-ignition/. However, right now Element X is intended for existing Matrix users - so unless you have a bleeding edge homeserver, sign-up doesn't work yet. So it's not quite in grandma/grandpa territory yet... but once you're in, it most certainly is.
soupbowl 3y ago
It is less simple than discord and I does not have good audio rooms. I setup family accounts and store their security key for them. Then I help them setup their app in a few minutes and paste them their security key once they are on my matrix server. In the past I left sign up and setup to family and the element app and it has never worked smoothly. They don't understand the security key purpose or verifying clients. So to answer your first question, yeah you can invite grandma and grandpa but they probably will need some hand holding at the start. Once they are in, it just works™**. YMMV

neilv 3y ago

Thoughts on how this will get us towards when libre software privacy&security type people are ready to advise friends to move to Matrix for personal communication? (To be clear, the platform has to be all open source and open standards, actually decentralized, guided by those principles -- not an effectively proprietary play even if nominally open. For example, you should be able to get all the same functionality with Element, Fluffychat, Thunderbird, and other user agents, and with any home server, both now and on an ongoing basis. And the user agent implementation difficulty should become tractable enough, in terms of size&complexity and specification, that one person could write a new one -- not like Web browsers have become, where there's mainly only one, that company has been funding the runner-up, and that company can pretty much dictate 'standards'.)

Arathorn 3y ago
Matrix 2.0 is a major step towards getting friends & family on Matrix. Firstly, it's not introducing new features - it's just making the current featureset work super-efficiently (while retaining compatibility with today's Matrix). So there should be no fragmentation between Element/Fluffychat/Thunderbird, with the possible exception of the new scalable encrypted VoIP conferencing (but then very few Matrix clients implemented the old VoIP conferencing, plus you can always just embed an Element Call instance to get at it now - as Element X does today). Secondly, we're explicitly working to protect Matrix from the commercial interests from Element (the company set up by the team who created Matrix, of which I'm ceo/cto as well as Matrix project lead). We already have The Matrix.org Foundation (https://matrix.org/foundation https://matrix.org/foundation) as an independent non-profit to hold the Matrix IP and maintain its neutrality - but we also just hired Josh Simmons (former President of the OSI) as its independent Managing Director (https://matrix.org/blog/2023/09/introducing-josh-simmons-managing-director/ https://matrix.org/blog/2023/09/introducing-josh-simmons-man...). So: going forwards, the Foundation increasingly does not have to depend on Element not being evil, but instead has its own independent management to ensure the protocol exists to support everyone in the ecosystem, without fragmentation, as per the guiding principles at https://matrix.org/foundation https://matrix.org/foundation - under its own autonomy. I'd say this is is good news for libre software privacy & security type people, but then again I'm biased. Practically, the only thing getting in the way of getting friends & family on Matrix is that Element X requires fancy OIDC-native homeservers for registration, so newbies won't be able to use Element X to join Matrix yet. But the app itself should be an excellent way to get folks on board in the very near future.

amstan 3y ago

It's quite disappointing that there's huge ongoing work around reinventing clients from scratch where the basic functionality of not ringing all my devices while I'm using only one of them [1] is still not there (bug open for years), despite it being a pretty simple fix. [1] https://github.com/vector-im/element-meta/issues/360 https://github.com/vector-im/element-meta/issues/360

Arathorn 3y ago
The team rewriting Element as Element X is completely different to the folks who would need to make the change in Synapse to not send push to devices who are currently syncing. Agreed we should have fixed this years ago, especially as it's actually a feature in our pre-Matrix system back in 2012. There's basically a blindspot on long-lived missing serverside features like this; i've added it to a new hitlist we're experimenting with for trying to clear these up.
- amstan 3y ago
  I offered a simple fix: delay notifications on all except the active client for 30 seconds, if a read reciept gets triggered from the active client then cancel the timer. I couldn't even get anyone in the team to even look at my solution 3 years ago. Not sure why this feature keeps getting defered for "just about to land and things might be better after" server-side features (see how it has 7 out of 9 "dependencies" resolved) when none are needed. I've had a couple of friend actually give up on matrix due to this. I also have to keep my phone on silent or else I can't be chatting on matrix without the constant bzzzing. I'm also amused about the ever growing (currently at $760) bounty on this feature.
  - freilanzer 3y ago
    > I've had a couple of friend actually give up on matrix due to this. I and several others have also given up and just stay with Signal and WhatsApp.
- freilanzer 3y ago
  Well, that doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the project for me.

self_awareness 3y ago

How Matrix decentralisation is an improvement over Jabber's decentralisation? (disclaimer: I have no knowledge about neither spec, I'm not suggesting Jabber was better)

kevincox 3y ago
IIUC Jabber never really had decentralized group chats? It had MUC but these were federated, so if the server hosting the room went down the chat also died. Matrix rooms are fully decentralized and can survive any servers failing. (Although note that not much else in the protocol is decentralized, much of it is only federated.)
- ezst 3y ago
  > IIUC Jabber never really had decentralized group chats? Jaber had something like that 5 years before Matrix: https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0289.html https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0289.html but decided it wasn't an avenue worth pursuing, as a non-issue in practice. This is further proven by WhatsApp (which is based on XMPP/ejabberd) and its billion active users: you don't have to shove this complexity into the protocol level when it runs natively on a distributed/federated infrastructure (the erlang VM in this case). > Matrix rooms are fully decentralized and can survive any servers failing. In practice the room survives in a "split brain" mode where different users see different participants, the room isn't available to the users whose instance went dark as its no longer hosting their identity, and messages are popping mid history while the state resolution is working hard to reach consensus. When the servers finally come back online, there is a risk of never catching up fully, or worse, for the rooms to remain split forever. And I adventure a hot take there: this property of staying seemingly online (in a frankenbizarre way) came handy way fewer times in the history of Matrix than for all the incurred complexity reflected in daily bugs, privacy, security, performance issues and inconsistencies.
  - MattJ100 3y ago
    > but decided it wasn't an avenue worth pursuing To add some colour - there are commercial implementations of that (e.g. https://www.isode.com/whitepapers/federated-muc.html https://www.isode.com/whitepapers/federated-muc.html ). But from my perspective as a server developer, I've seen minimal interest in this for the public network. Probably because server failures are rare enough events in the general case. That's not to say there aren't use cases where it is more valuable to have this functionality.

amatecha 3y ago

Regular reminder Matrix/Element work closely with law-enforcement to provide encrypted comms for them. It's a sector Matrix/Element actively markets to and deals with. My personal view is I'm not using a chat platform designed/developed by an organization so eager to partner with governments and law enforcement agencies. There's Element's Chief Product Officer & Managing Director presenting at the European Police Congress[0]: https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/110310853505977058 https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/110310853505977058 And a quick post about their excitement at participating in this conference: https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/110304013472307767 https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/110304013472307767 I mean, whatever, it's just doing business, right? When someone criticized this, they gave a snarky, surprisingly unprofessional response: https://mastodon.matrix.org/@matrix/110334695988903649 https://mastodon.matrix.org/@matrix/110334695988903649 Dunno about anyone else but my trust in them is just gone. I'm not saying you have to care (and I don't care if you do). I'm sharing this for the people who do care, and don't want to use "secure messaging" made by people who actively market to and collaborate closely with law enforcement and governments. [0] https://www.european-police.eu/ https://www.european-police.eu/

__s 3y ago
What's the problem with e2e encryption for those organizations? The problem is if they give those orgs a backdoor
- amatecha 3y ago
  Oh yeah, I actually asked them about that. They said there aren't any backdoors[0]. We're all good, no worries! :) :) [0] https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/110340953550548309 https://mastodon.matrix.org/@element/110340953550548309
  - panick21_ 3y ago
    Its open source and the crypto library is also 3rd party verified. I don't get your problem.
  - 3y ago

orblivion 3y ago

> The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) is a huge step in that direction - regulation that mandates that if the large centralised messaging providers are to operate in the EU, they must interoperate. Wow. Not interested in winning the war this way.

kibwen 3y ago
Requiring protocols for interoperation results in more competition in implementations, which is often the better scenario as far as users are concerned.
Lacusch 3y ago
Maybe you're not but I know a few people (myself included) who will take any win on the privacy front we can get.

rabbitofdeath 3y ago

I love matrix - I've been running a Synapse homeserver for over 2 years now for friends and family. We love it. Despite minor problems (upgrading postgres for example) it has been smooth sailing. I really want to stay up to date but they don't make it easy! I'd love to add sliding-sync to my existing docker stack, but I feel like I'm in way over my head!

geek_at 3y ago
I love the idea of matrix (synapse + element + mobile apps) and I have started moving my family there too but we had so many problems with notifications not being sent to the phone unless you actively open the app. There is a huge discussion about that on git and some can't reproduce, some can't get a single notification even though the apps notification checkmarks were all green. So it had a very very low WAF [1] and I scrapped it sadly. This was a few years ago, any signs of these problems still existing? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wife_acceptance_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wife_acceptance_factor
- chagaif 3y ago
  You probably just need to change the settings to battery saver - no restrictions for Element. Your OS is probably killing the app aggressively (I've seen this with telegram a lot as well with many people).
- soupbowl 3y ago
  I had this problem 2 years ago and it ended getting fixed. Recently I seen it again and the problem was that my container running synapse did not have working DNS which caused all notifications to stop working. Once I fixed up resolv.conf all was working. I am not suggesting that was your issue but it might help somebody.
- Arathorn 3y ago
  Hmm… we haven’t had notification problems like that in many years, from memory. Any idea if this was trying to deliver push notifs to Android without using Google? (Which historically has been painful thanks to Android OS versions terminating the app in the bg). Element X has totally rewritten notification code (given it’s moved from Kotlin to Rust) and should be much more robust for bugs like this. Sorry you got bitten by it.

tptacek 3y ago

Just a question, I haven't been paying attention, but where is Matrix on resolving the Nebuchadnezzar vulnerabilities, and is the project still tracking towards switching to MLS instead of Olm/Megolm?

contact9879 3y ago
> Outside of Matrix 2.0 work, other big items on the horizon include: - Adding Rust matrix-sdk-crypto to matrix-js-sdk, at which point all the official Matrix.org client SDKs will (at last!) be using the same stable performant E2EE implementation - Continuing to contribute Matrix input to the MIMI working group in IETF for > Digital Markets Act interoperability - Working on MLS for next-generation E2EE IIRC, the rust matrix-sdk-crypto was their intended fix for the vulnerabilities.
Arathorn 3y ago
The main remaining Nebuchadnezzar issue is mitigating server-controlled group membership. The first step has been to kill off the 1st gen E2EE implementations, which were responsible for the implementation vulns found by RHUL - and we should hopefully conclude that next week by moving everything into the matrix-rust-sdk crypto crate implmentation: https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/21972#issuecomment-1705224936 https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/21972#issuec... is the tracker. Then, we can address the harder server-controlled group membership issue in one place. First step will be to improve device verification & trust so that trust is the default, not the exception, to make it easier to spot and warn about unexpected devices in the room. The full solution is then either MSC3917 (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/fayed/cryptographic-membership/proposals/3917-cryptographic-membership.md https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/fay...) - or potentially to switch everything to MLS. We're working on MLS anyway in parallel to RHUL mitigation work; you can see the progress at https://arewemlsyet.com https://arewemlsyet.com, and it's looking good. I'm guessing you're not interested in doing a podcast on "yay we converged our crypto implementations on a single robust Rust implementation so we can fix the remaining bugs in one place", but as soon as the server-controlled group membership thing is solved we'll be in touch. Work has also gone much slower than hoped on this, thanks to the joys of funding open source.

eviks 3y ago

Do they also plan to ditch the desktop Electron version for the users to enjoy similar performance improvements?

Arathorn 3y ago
Element X actually runs really well on macOS already on Apple Silicon; I regularly use it as my desktop app whenever Element Web is having... issues. It would be amazing to plonk matrix-rust-sdk into Element Web and switch Electron for Tauri or something... but one thing at a time.
- fabrice_d 3y ago
  It would be nice to provide first class support for state of the art web clients (both desktop and mobile). That would fit your opening stance of "Matrix has been going for over 9 years now, providing an open standard for secure, decentralised communication for the open Web" more than apps tied to the iOS/Android app ecosystems.
- tormeh 3y ago
  I’ve wondered about this for a long time: Why not Flutter? Should give you one codebase for all platforms, while being significantly faster than webtech-based solutions.
  - Arathorn 3y ago
    I guess we just prefer to use the platform’s native UI (SwiftUI/UIKit, Jetpack Compose, HTML) on each respective platform, rather than an abstraction like Flutter. All the heavy lifting is done by matrix-rust-sdk now anyway.

internetguy 3y ago

Awesome! I've been using matrix on and off for around 3 years and I absolutely love it.

kibwen 3y ago

Techy friend group of mine migrated from Discord to a self-hosted private Matrix server a few months back. No complaints so far, although we didn't use Discord's voice/video/screen-sharing features (which I hear that Matrix intends to support eventually). UX-wise, it made me appreciate the distinction between Discord's "everyone is subscribed to every channel in a server by default" stance, and IRC/Matrix's opposite approach. The latter certainly scales better, but the former is so, so much better for discoverability, so it's probably the better default for small servers. And if you're looking for a Matrix client with a Discord-like UI, try Cinny.

Arathorn 3y ago
The plan on Discord-style voice/video/screensharing features is Element Call (https://call.element.io https://call.element.io) which is built to be embeddable into Matrix clients. It’s already in Element X, and is in Element Web/Desktop behind a labs flag. Meanwhile you can always embed Jitsi.
- solarkraft 3y ago
  As far as I'm able to tell most call functionality is built into the JS SDK (is this true), so what will embedding Element Call actually gain me? The (beautiful!) UI?
  - Arathorn 3y ago
    It will gain you: * The ability to use the end-to-end encryption identity & verification from your normal Matrix account, by piggybacking on the 'host' matrix client. Whereas call.element.io is not remotely designed (at all) to work with your normal Matrix account, and doesn't have any of the E2EE UI hooked up, and instead relies on a shared secret to access E2EE rooms * The ability to place VoIP calls inside existing Matrix rooms from your normal Matrix account. * The ability to reliably background the app & lock the phone when on a call. * The ability to receive inbound calls via push notifications and CallKit/ConnectionService - i.e. presenting the calls in the native dialer UI of the phone, and treating Element X like a VoIP dialer. You get the same beautiful UI whether you use call.element.io directly or embed it inside another Matrix client like Element X :P

brunoqc 3y ago

Rip matrix p2p. I wonder if they were serious about it, or if it was just vaporware (a la Musk) to get more funding. It has been announced years ago, they raised millions and they have big governments contracts. WTF is going on?

contact9879 3y ago
It's still in development[1]. Seems like p2p will depend on dendrite so until dendrite is stable, p2p will not be available. [1]: https://arewep2pyet.com/ https://arewep2pyet.com/
Arathorn 3y ago
wtf is going on is that: a) p2p matrix works pretty well as a proof of concept - you can try it from https://arewep2pyet.com https://arewep2pyet.com; it’s not remotely vapourware. b) funding has been spent on core Matrix dev and making Element kick ass (cf Element X) c) an awful lot of very large Matrix + Element deployments (eg LuxChat in Luxembourg, Merkury 2.0 in the Polish MOD, many German local authorities) decide to run Matrix deployments without routing a single $ to support development at either the Matrix Foundation or Element, such are the joys of the Apache license. As a result, we’ve had to pause some of the longer-term R&D. I very much hope that P2P will resume (especially if someone explicitly funds it) and the team is still at Element (but working on sliding sync and account portability). But right now we’re focusing exclusively on fixing the core problems in both Matrix and Element which others in this thread are complaining about. Hence Matrix 2.0, and Element X.
- brunoqc 3y ago
  Thanks Matthew, I always appreciate your comments. I also do appreciate the Apache license. Sorry for the vapourware comment. It's hard to tell these days. Was the Google self-driving car thing vapourware? It never went anywhere. I know that pinecone worked as a PoC. I ran a node for years, for fun. It's just that it always felt like the progress was crazy slow. The yggdrasil demo was what, 4 years ago? How fucked up will the world be in 4 years? Not that it's your fault. And I care about matrix. I was the one who suggested arewep2pyet.com, I made 1-2 friends use it (matrix), I made 1-2 coworkers use it. Also, zulip threads now or I riot.

smashah 3y ago

Matrix is great but when is the tech industry going to deal with the fact that many, if not all, bridges are against the respective services' ToS and subsequently put the developers of those bridges under legal risk? Whatsapp has already sent legal threats to multiple bridge-component level project maintainers without any recourse.

amstan 3y ago
My Facebook bridge constantly locks up my account. [1] [1] https://github.com/mautrix/facebook/issues/236 https://github.com/mautrix/facebook/issues/236
- smashah 3y ago
  I strongly believe users should be able to automate and interact with their accounts through whatever clients they wish however I think blocks/bans/technical countermeasures is fair game. Count yourself lucky for not having an undeterminable, unfightable legal threat over your head from a $800bn mega corp.
- derin 3y ago
  You should use your bridge off of a residential IP in the same city as your other devices, or else Facebook finds the activity suspicious.
progval 3y ago
The EU just designated Whatsapp as a gatekeeper under the Digital Markets Act: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_4328 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_... following the "full list of do's and don'ts" link on that page: > Gatekeeper platforms will have to: > - allow third parties to inter-operate with the gatekeeper’s own services in certain specific situations > - allow their business users to access the data that they generate in their use of the gatekeeper’s platform
- unicornporn 3y ago
  This is likely also the sole reason[1] that Meta is considering connecting Threads to the fediverse. [1] https://yiffit.net/comment/498225 https://yiffit.net/comment/498225

lousken 3y ago

> Rather than exposing a kitchen sink of features and settings, we’re keeping Element X truly focused: doing one job and absolutely nailing it - all while harnessing the power of Matrix for secure, interoperable, open-standard communication. does this mean the Element X is more for the mainstream user and regular Element is better suited for power users?

Arathorn 3y ago
Element X also is geared up for powerusers (e.g. as project lead, I consider myself a poweruser) and i've been absolutely loving it as my daily driver for the last few months on mobile. For instance, my account is in around 4,000 chatrooms, and Element iOS was taking ~10s to launch and sync, and could easily take minutes to sync in the morning (heaven forbid the app was offline for more than overnight). Meanwhile, Element X launches in around 100ms, no matter how long it's been offline, and syncs in around a second. The model that we're going for is similar to iOS or macOS: something which is incredibly simple for normal users, but can also scale up seamlessly for crazy powerusers. In terms of specific poweruser features: I suspect the strategy will be to see if we can provide the same end result without actually adding the feature - and failing that, add the feature very strategically via progressive disclosure... or perhaps not at all, and rely on other Matrix apps to pick it up. The intention is to fairly rapidly replace regular Element on mobile with Element X, eitherway.
- lousken 3y ago
  Ok, I understand... one last thing I ask every year - custom emojis when? :) And thank you for your the hard work!
  - Arathorn 3y ago
    But we just entirely rewrote both mobile clients to get out of having to implement custom emojis! :D Joking aside, it's easily one of the biggest features missing from Element/Element X, and I for one can't wait for it to land. Unfortunately we also don't have any paying Element customers asking for it, though, which is why it keeps getting deprioritised in favour of other stuff.

infogulch 3y ago

I wrote a summary of the post: https://twitter.com/infogulch/status/1704933396508553385 https://twitter.com/infogulch/status/1704933396508553385

rebolek 3y ago

The future of Matrix is robots and people as batteries.

preya2k 3y ago

Once more, Kudos to Arathorn/Matthew (the head of Matrix/Element) taking the time to answer most Hacker News comments, as he mostly does for all Matrix-related HN threads. It's really nice to see him answer in a calm and mostly objective tone while people are blaming him for shortcomings and problems of all the different Matrix-related software projects. Admitting to failures and problems that Matrix definitely has, while still defending the overall project and giving insight into the status of MSCs/projects is admirable. Thank you Matthew. I wish you an endless amount of patience for the future.

Arathorn 3y ago
thanks :) sorry for monopolising the thread, but it's too tempting when I have the answers to hand, for better or worse...
- preya2k 3y ago
  Looking forward to your talk tomorrow in Berlin.
  - Arathorn 3y ago
    if I get there; my flight just got cancelled…
  - jacooper 3y ago
    Which talk? Is there a link?
    - preya2k 3y ago
      This one: https://summit2023.matrixmeetup.de/conference/talk/AXGMEA/ https://summit2023.matrixmeetup.de/conference/talk/AXGMEA/ Don’t think there’s a live stream. But there might be a recording afterwards.
      - Arathorn 3y ago

teawrecks 3y ago

I'm curious if someone could build a discord replacement on top of matrix, most importantly with voice chat and video streaming functionality. Discord is clearly focused on monetization at this point, the only changes happening now are ones that make your experience objectively worse. I've also been on Linux for a few years now and discord still doesn't support streaming game audio. And before someone suggests it, I tried Revolt, and it's not there yet. The latest client (as of a few months ago) couldn't find my audio devices at all, and came with a big warning about how their audio backend was being completely rewritten, and what I was using was now legacy.

Arathorn 3y ago
Absolutely. Element is already quite close to that, and once Element Call and native Matrix group VoIP matures more, hopefully it'll be even easier to converge on Discord's featureset.

whiterock 3y ago

my biggest struggle with matrix, is that, at least in element-ios, messages keep transpositioning, i.e. at some random time a message that is 2 days old is pushed all the way down to the new messages. also the aop frequently crashes with some media. but apart from that I of course love the idea of an „SMTP approach“ to instant messaging :)

Arathorn 3y ago
this is literally why we rewrote element-ios in rust, in the form of Element X iOS :) https://element.io/labs/element-x https://element.io/labs/element-x
- whiterock 3y ago
  oh that‘s so cool. will give it a try now! :) really looking forward to the search feature btw hehe.
- tentacleuno 3y ago
  Why not fix the issues with the current implementation as well as rewriting it?
  - ptman 3y ago
    time and money?

chamik 3y ago

This is an amazing step in the right direction. I host a small conduit server for a friend group and I can't wait for the improvements this will bring as a whole! Good work.

noname120 3y ago

Oh wow congrats to the entire team for this amazing achievement! And the cake under the cherry is… Element X is open-source as well[1][2]! I really can't wait for Beeper[3] to rebuild their fork on top of Element X (it's currently based on Element, formerly called Riot). When this happens it will be an absolute game-changer for the messaging ecosystem. ———— [1] https://github.com/vector-im/element-x-ios https://github.com/vector-im/element-x-ios [2] https://github.com/vector-im/element-x-android https://github.com/vector-im/element-x-android [3] https://www.beeper.com/ https://www.beeper.com/

Arathorn 3y ago
Beeper don't seem to like Sliding Sync, for whatever reason, so I wouldn't hold your breath on it ;)
- 16 3y ago
  From what I understand, the Beeper team has invested a lot of time and effort (and code!) into their own "make matrix go vroom" solution which also benefits their complex bridging system, and I imagine it would take some significant engineering time to unravel it for sliding sync.

notsahil 3y ago

Synapse already eats up lots of space, adding sliding sync will boost it up and will be difficult to self-host it.

Arathorn 3y ago
Yup, it's true that sliding sync proxy increases disk space further, although it's not so bad. A big advantage once it's stable and merged into a native homeserver will be reducing the storage duplication between the proxy and the HS. Meanwhile, we really need to get https://github.com/matrix-org/rust-synapse-compress-state/pull/69 https://github.com/matrix-org/rust-synapse-compress-state/pu... hooked up in Synapse so that it automatically compresses state; I don't know why this never landed when it was written in in 2021 :(
- COGlory 3y ago
  I just went through a HUGE pain in the ass with my homeserver. I was on the Hetzner cloud plan and at the highest storage tier already. I had about 80 GB free, and setup sliding sync. It filled up the remaining space (unbeknownst to me) and my homeserver stopped working. Fortunately I was still able to login, but no disk space was available for the Postgres vacuum. I wound up having to rsync everything over to my desktop, setting up Docker on my desktop, running the compression tools on my desktop, and re-uploading. I now have a 20GB dummy file on that server.
  - ptman 3y ago
    Running out of disk space (or inodes!) is probably how everyone running a server learns about monitoring and alerts

wkat4242 3y ago

There's no web version of element X though? It's what I use most of the time. I'll try the Android app anyway, I've been having a really annoying bug with the normal one anyway that hasn't been fixed for a year. So perhaps X doesn't have it.

Arathorn 3y ago
Element X works pretty well on macOS as a desktop client if you have an Apple Silicon Mac. Otherwise, the big Element Web rework is yet to happen. On Android, I can almost guarantee your bug will be fixed: Element X Android doesn’t share any code with Element Android at all, as far as I know (given the former is mainly written in Rust, and the latter is all Kotlin)
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Ah ok no I don't have a Mac, I use FreeBSD :) And thanks I'll try that out!! I really hope it fixes that sync bug. Thanks for all your work on it. It's a great platform.
- Macha 3y ago
  This is the second time you've rewritten the Android app with Riot -> RiotX/Element -> ElementX. Just wondering why you throw it away rather than improve it, and if you're at risk of replacing one set of bugs with another?
  - mycall 3y ago
    Probably from too many mistakes and/or new maintainer and/or better ways to do it. Same as it ever was.
    - Arathorn 3y ago
      The reason for Riot->RiotX (aka Element) on Android was to both move to a modern Android UI idiom, move to Kotlin, and have a well defined storage interface and switch to Rx patterns, whereas the original app had been built somewhat organically. And yes, the maintainer had changed. The reason for Element -> Element X is in order to share precisely the same Rust SDK between iOS and Android (and maybe other platforms in future), so all the heavylifting happens in one single audited codebase, rather than doubling up all the development between iOS and Android, doubling the bug count, etc. It’s also a good opportunity to simplify the data flows, which are surprisingly subtle and performant in a messaging app; I’m not sure how much Rx remains. In this instance, the maintaining team remained the same.

monlockandkey 3y ago

Does anyone know how to integrate chats into a web app using Matrix. Rather than writing a messaging web app from scratch, can I hook into matrix?

ezst 3y ago
That's a use-case where XMPP shines, historically. There are embeddable/lightweight clients doing that job well without all the matrix fuss.
tcfhgj 3y ago
You could use the matrix-js-sdk or matrix-rust-sdk if you want to deal with wasm
Arathorn 3y ago
https://github.com/vector-im/hydrogen-web/blob/master/doc/SDK.md https://github.com/vector-im/hydrogen-web/blob/master/doc/SD... is the best option currently.

iptq 3y ago

exciting to hear! I only wish i had more time to contribute. Has there been any movement on migrating away from long polling (#475)? I didn't see anything about it in the announcements or comments despite such a big milestone

Arathorn 3y ago
Low Bandwidth Matrix is the answer to that, and it’s currently on hold unless it gets funded: https://matrix.org/blog/2021/06/10/low-bandwidth-matrix-an-implementation-guide/ https://matrix.org/blog/2021/06/10/low-bandwidth-matrix-an-i... It might also get changed as part of Sliding Sync refinement.
- xvilka 3y ago
  Hopefully it will be the default once implemented. Everyone will benefit from compact protocol in the long run. Should have been done from the very beginning.
- snvzz 3y ago
  Is there going to be a way to have very simple clients, perhaps with a helper in the server side? It'd be nice to bring matrix to microcontrollers and "retro" computer platforms.
  - Arathorn 3y ago
    the API already is super simple, and low bandwidth could already work on retro machines (I had 6809 in mind when experimenting with it). The problem is e2ee, but we have the Pantalaimon e2ee proxy to convert unencrypted Matrix traffic into E2EE traffic for precisely this sort of thing :)
    - snvzz 3y ago
      That's promising :) I had 68000, 8086/88 and 6502 in mind.

benatkin 3y ago

Looks like there's an open protocol and an open source client implementation for video calls. https://github.com/vector-im/element-call https://github.com/vector-im/element-call This is great! Jitsi has never clicked for me. I tried it a few times, and read about it, and was never excited about it. I just tried Element Call, albeit an empty room, and the UI feels right.

deleted 3y ago
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dmix 3y ago

Does anyone use Matrix/Element for a serious workplace, instead of something like Slack?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
reducible 3y ago
I work at a 25 person startup and we've been using Element as our main chat platform for the past 6 months (paid hosting), however we're now in the process of migrating away. I really wanted to like it because it supports good encryption and is open source, but unfortunately it's just too buggy. The main pain points are: - Stuck notifications [1] - Being unable to decrypt messages (from certain users sending from certain devices; some people can read them, others can't) - No proper notifications for old threads - Various GUI instability bugs: chats that are suddenly empty, text suddenly randomly overlaid on other text, randomly missing scroll bars, etc. 1: https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/24392 https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/24392
sfink 3y ago
We use Matrix (mostly via Element) at Mozilla alongside Slack. It's mainly public stuff on Matrix, and the usage pattern varies between teams: some teams are mainly Slack and barely pay attention to Matrix rooms, other teams (like mine) kick and scream if they're forced to use Slack for anything but internal corporate purposes. New hires in such teams tend to assume Slack initially and gradually notice that they get very slow responses on Slack, and then switch mainly over to Matrix to talk to the rest of us. It's been good to us. Note that our primary comparison point is IRC, not Slack, mainly because of our project roots of openness and widely distributed contributors. So it's a serious workplace, but an atypical one. Encryption has periodically caused problems. Leaving the company and maintaining access to your communication seems to be a bit painful. Search is not great. Threads are tolerable. Inviting outside people in works well. Abuse is vastly more manageable than it was on IRC. Performance is mostly good. Both Element Web and Element on Android are very usable. Notifications are a little wonky, but I don't rely on them much so I can't really gauge whether they're good enough if you do.

turbobooster 3y ago

[dead]

Ilikeruby 3y ago

I see Decentrilised and I see secure and I see a scam

LWIRVoltage 3y ago

Being a user of E2EE video chat tools and calling apps, - I've been following this, especially more closely ever since Jitsi disabled anonymous video calling on thier main instance /Jitsi Meet (Yes, there is a the Jitsi Meet Community Instances that are still with the original full functionality that people can access- If they search for Jitsi alternative community instances on a search engine, which isn't something most will be aware of for your average user...) Having been a user of the Jitsi Meet Electron App even on Linux and Windows(along with the web accessible variant)- and having followed closely the efforts by Firefox on RTCRtpScriptTransform (formerly webrtc insertable streams) mainly to support Jitsi E2EE calls- has been interesting to watch. Though now with the new Google/Meta/Microsoft account requirement/non anonymous aspect, all of that minus the community instances web interface sites are of use to me now. If i follow fully, Element Call in a way replaces Jitsi Meet's original capability- though E2EE encryption doesn't have to be "Turned On " in a Chromium based browser - and Element Call isn't yet something that can be launched from a desktop app on Windows or Linux in a similar user-friendly way (I see the Vector IM client is a thing) - The main difference being for using Element/Element X, one new from the Jitsi Meet ecosystem /usecases i've mentioned, will have to make an account- and for your average user who cannot easily learn about and deploy a server and how to host that on their own- but is looking for privacy- it is trickier to judge and will be more steps , to achieve anonymity from a privacy perspective. I see the P2P effort is another step towards this as well I'll likely try to use Element Call and point those I know who use tools like this towards it due to Jitsi's recent changes - as Element Call's web interface is user-friendly enough, and that is the main challenge. What Element is outside of that- and how it integrates into everything and how to use it in the same way in it's other forms- will be interesting to introduce, as those are developed further.

astroderf 3y ago

Can this perennial scam get off the front page already. ffs.

yobid20 3y ago

As someone who works for a company thats developed their own end to end conferencing stack (utilizing webrtc stack on the client side and all custom conference servers and sfu on the backend), what would be the benefits of adding Matrix support and how exactly would that be done (at a high level)? What would the benefits to users be? Trying to understand what all the hype is about here, and whether or not this would be a venture to pursue and what the business justification would be.

Arathorn 3y ago
Using Matrix would mean: * You get best practice audited (in the near future) end-to-end encryption * You get decentralisation if your users want to host the stack themselves * You get bridges to other systems (although not many FOSS voip bridges for Matrix exist today, admittedly) * Similarly, you get an open standard API on which you and others can write bots/apps and other extensions to add new functionality, and benefit from the wider ecosystem * You get some preexisting clients like Element Call to build on.
- yobid20 3y ago
  Well, we dont want e2ee because then we cant decode audio and transcribe, or record meetings. All of which are high demand user requirements. We dont want decentralisation either for the same reason. We dont interop with other video conference systems other than asterisk for dial in/out. And the ones that we might consider doing that for dont support matrix either. We want a fully integrated system for our users so i dont see external clients being a thing. An open standard api is a plus but in my experience there's always something they fall short on requiring something custom. This is why i find it difficult to see where matrix could improve anything for us. Trying to find some benefit but I really don't think there is one other than maybe marketing and saying we play nice with open source or open standards.

czard 3y ago

Honestly what's the point given XMPP? Tried setting up Matrix, was a pain, went for ejabberd and it was a breeze. Gajim and c0nnecteasy work perfectly. Can't help but feel like if half the efforts of building Matrix went into XEPs or something we would have a rock solid IM alternative and clients by now. And tbf, can Matrix do group video calls? That's the only really useful feature missing from XMPP now, for which there's actually a XEP that recently went into a Deferred state, for a lack of participation/experiment. So, what's the point?

zaik 3y ago
Dino the XMPP client can do group video calls.
Arathorn 3y ago
the original post has a full section about Matrix’s support for E2EE group video calls, which you can play with at https://call.element.io https://call.element.io. This, and much more, is the point.