12 ms·

Matrix 2.0 Is Here

337 points by ptman 2y ago

MarvinYork 2y ago
[flagged]
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
  One is a JavaScript thing, one is a chat protocol. I don't know how you would compare them?
  - toastercat 2y ago
    OK fine, how does it compare to RetroArch?
    - freedomben 2y ago
      Very favorably. It's like a hybrid between Postgres and Fedora
sroerick 2y ago
Does Matrix still sync all metadata with all connected federated instances?
- panick21_ 2y ago
  Its room based. Each room is synced between all servers used by participating members. But if you have a room with only people from 1 server, that metadata stays on that server.
  - johnisgood 2y ago
    Is it possible to configure this so that the metadata remains on the server by restricting access to only those users who are not members of any other servers?
    - Arcuru 2y ago
      I don't think there's a setting for "only allow people from X server", but you can make the room private and only invite people from that particular server.
    - alwayslikethis 2y ago
      You can disallow users from joining based on their homeserver or only allow local (on your homeserver) users, so the answer is yes.
    - Ugzuzg 2y ago
      While creating a room, you can choose to "Block anyone not part of your server from ever joining this room".
      - johnisgood 2y ago
        This does not mean that people on many other servers or rooms are not allowed though, which I presume is what the metadata sync is about.
    - ranger_danger 2y ago
      It's not about being a member of a room on another server, but the homeserver of the account itself, of all the members of the room, must be local to that same server as the one that created the room in the first place.
gnabgib 2y ago
Previously (42 points) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41987113 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41987113
- ptman 2y ago
  Yes, I reposted since that didn't seem to catch typical amount of attention.
robcohen 2y ago
Congratulations to the Matrix team. I look forward to trying out everything this release offers and seeing how I can implement in the organizations I work with.
lousken 2y ago
i hope after the transition is done, there will be a focus on multiplatform e2e search, attachment tab improvements (it's fine for < 10 attachments in a chat, but not a 1000), optimized notification system so friends stop bug me with it, and of course custom emojis
stackskipton 2y ago
Is it possible with Matrix to run your own server but let Matrix.org handle authentication? I always thought for many that's probably best of both worlds.
- alwayslikethis 2y ago
  What benefits does this have? You'll still have to have a server running and you lose control of your account, if I'm understanding what you mean (letting matrix.org handle accounts).
  - stackskipton 2y ago
    User friction. My problem is this: I'm in a bunch of Discord Server/Guilds but watching Discord Inc., it's clear that they are ZIRP powered and it might come crashing down in massive fireball. However, if users have 5 separate logins, they are not going to convert over. I realize the implications of "What happens if you get Matrix.org account banned?" but that's next week problem.
    - yrcyk 2y ago
      It’s federated anyway, similar to email. One account can take you anywhere, so if you make your own "guild" the users could just directly participate from matrix.org (or any other home(server))
tucnak 2y ago
I'm a big fan of Matrix, but I'm embarrassed to recommend it to my friends until Element X supports audio calls... It's been months since the leading-edge release, and I don't know what to think: there's Element Call, however it's neither supported by Element X nor real alternative to legacy peer-to-peer audio calls.
- Arcuru 2y ago
  Element X doesn't even support Threads or Spaces still, the two things that are absolutely required to organize discussions.
- Arathorn 2y ago
  Element X natively integrates Element Call for voip/video calls - this is one of the core things of this week's release. If you hit the video call button, it'll start off with video muted, and it should behave like a voice call (although there are a few bugs in the integration still, hence it being marked beta - especially on iOS, where CallKit + WebRTC stopped working in iOS 18. We're trying to work with Apple on it.)
  - error_404_302 2y ago
    Unfortunately, that is not the case yet on Element X android (0.7.2 from google playstore). Microphone starts off as muted which is an inconvenience.
- aniviacat 2y ago
  What do you mean by audio calls? I haven't used Element X yet, but judging from the store screenshots you can turn off the camera in video calls.
  - tucnak 2y ago
    I don't want to turn off the camera in the video calls; I wish to have normal audio-only calls like in any other app like Whatsapp where there's a "Phone" button that starts a call.
- 2y ago
johnisgood 2y ago
> Could it be the glorious return of P2P Matrix (if it was funded)? I forgot how it works right now, but I certainly would hope so in case of private messages (incl. P2P encrypted audio and video calls).
- Arathorn 2y ago
  P2P Matrix is a dialect of Matrix where the server runs inside the client itself - see arewep2pyet.com for details. In other words, there are no servers (other than optional store-and-forward relays). It's insanely cool - you can see a demo at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUPJ9zFV5IE&t=2192s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUPJ9zFV5IE&t=2192s. It's also unfunded and on hiatus until someone provides some $ so we can work on it again. Right now, normal Matrix is a client-server model: you can't send messages from a client without it talking to a server (and then to another server, and then to another client). MatrixRTC VoIP and Video calls in Matrix 2.0 also go via server (for now), in order to support multiple participants and firewall traversal. Obviously, both messages and calls are end-to-end-encrypted (other than in public chatrooms), which makes it less important that they go via a server today.
  - johnisgood 2y ago
    Thank you for your answer. > It's also unfunded and on hiatus until someone provides some $ so we can work on it again What are the available ways for someone to provide funding?
    - Arathorn 2y ago
      https://matrix.org/membership/ https://matrix.org/membership/ is how best to support - or buy stuff from organisations who support the Foundation. P2P Matrix requires a 3-4 person team to progress constructively (rather than limping along on a shoestring), which means $$$K/y over and above the current funding targets: https://matrix.org/blog/2024/01/2024-roadmap-and-fundraiser/ https://matrix.org/blog/2024/01/2024-roadmap-and-fundraiser/
      - 2y ago
bhauer 2y ago
Previously, it seemed the sliding sync required a Postgres-backed Synapse installation. Does the Matrix 2.0 version of Synapse provide a seamless upgrade path for those using the default Sqlite installation?
- Arathorn 2y ago
  Yes. the sliding sync proxy shim is gone; Synapse now uses its native database for sliding sync, same as the old sync API - so it works with both postgres & sqlite.
- _flux 2y ago
  By the way, Sqlite should only to be used when testing, not when actually deploying a system that interacts with other systems. https://element-hq.github.io/synapse/latest/setup/installation.html#using-postgresql https://element-hq.github.io/synapse/latest/setup/installati... says as much.
alwayslikethis 2y ago
If you want to host a homeserver but feel overwhelmed about the amount of services you'll have to host (especially if you want to have bridges to other services), check out matrix-docker-ansible-deploy [1]. It's pretty much a set and forget experience with reproducible deployment, and the documentation walks through any decision you need to make. 1. https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy
- Arathorn 2y ago
  Ironically i just spent all weekend writing a new "quick start" guide for Matrix 2.0 deployments using docker-compose (so you literally just set some env variables, `docker compose up` and that's it; no ansible involved). I just shifted to the debugging phase, but once it's ready, it might be even easier than matrix-docker-ansible-deploy as a super-fast way to get started :)
  - alwayslikethis 2y ago
    I'd say the primary benefit of ansible is it makes you document everything. It's easy to simply set and forget with tools like docker compose, but then when you need to change something again, you have to recall what you did originally and fix that.
    - Arathorn 2y ago
      yup, although i'm hoping that a self-contained docker-compose repo that you don't need to edit will help with that (rather than it being a homespun docker-compose setup, which i agree can rapidly become unmanageable). ansible just feels a bit slow & cumbersome for simpler setups, so i'm using envsubst for basic templating to see how it feels. It's perhaps telling that something like Rocket.Chat just has `docker-compose up` too: https://docs.rocket.chat/v1/docs/deploy-with-docker-docker-compose https://docs.rocket.chat/v1/docs/deploy-with-docker-docker-c... and it's annoying that Matrix doesn't have something that simple (especially given Matrix 2.0 has more moving parts serverside: auth + voip server).
01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
Does this change anything for notifications? I've had to pause using Matrix (self-hosted Synapse plus Schidichat for Android after Element had the same issues) to talk to my friends because we routinely get shit like: - Message is sent to the server but nobody else's phone gets notified about it for minutes / hours - Message just can't be sent to the server even though the sending phone has Internet and a desktop web client on the same account works great
- Arathorn 2y ago
  If the problems were caused by issues in the old Element Android (or Schildichat) app then yes - the Element X rewrite will likely fix it. It supports UnifiedPush, so if you're self-hosting a push gateway it should nicely integrate (as does Schildichat Next). If the problem was in your push infrastructure, then the new app won't fix anything - however, UnifiedPush should be reliable these days (especially if you host your own instance; some of the shared ones are overloaded and/or deliberately throttle Matrix push). FCM obviously should be reliable too.
- wkat4242 2y ago
  I have the opposite problem with Element Desktop. I hear messages coming in on my phone but it takes up to 10 seconds before they appear on the web client. Really annoying.
_peeley 2y ago
Very exciting! I'm particularly pleased to see the invisible encryption stuff mentioned. One of the biggest pain points I had when setting up a self-hosted Matrix instance and getting all my devices signed in was the crypto stuff. At least in the client I use, Element, I was bombarded with tons of popups with vague "Upgrade your encryption!" prompts upon logging in the first time. The copywriting on the "Security & Privacy" page was less than helpful in illuminating what I was actually "upgrading" or setting up, since specific technical terms (e.g. recovery key/security phrase/security key) were all used more or less interchangeably. If that kind of confusion can be reduced or swept under the rug for end-users, it'd be a huge improvement on user experience.
- Arathorn 2y ago
  Yup. One of the biggest learnings of E2EE in Matrix is that the complexity is 95% user experience. However, in Element X, we've been determined to get it right - although there is still some temporary UX in there while full-blown Invisible Crypto is still rolling out (as it requires a breaking change to stop encrypting/decrypting with unsigned devices - the equivalent to a browser refusing to talk TLS to self-signed certs). If you haven't seen MSC4161 (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/andybalaam/crypto-terminology/proposals/4161-crypto-terminology.md https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/and...) i highly recommend it as evidence of how we've made a serious effort to fix the terminology and copy - not just for Element X but across all Matrix clients.
  - zorgmonkey 2y ago
    Standardized terminology is an awesome step. I'd love to see some of standardized file format for setting up the right keys on different devices. In the past I'd had annoying issues getting all the messages to decrypt on multiple devices, especially if I wasn't using the same client every device. Honestly though I suspect I was doing something wrong.
    - Arathorn 2y ago
      there's already a standardised export format for message keys (although EX doesn't let you load/save it yet, mainly because online backup already solves most use cases): https://spec.matrix.org/v1.12/client-server-api/#key-export-format https://spec.matrix.org/v1.12/client-server-api/#key-export-.... If you enable backup on your clients then EX at least will merge the missing keys to/from the backup. Meanwhile, the original problem of missing keys were probably unfortunately just due to bugs - although as per https://matrix.org/blog/2024/10/29/matrix-2.0-is-here/#4-invisible-encryption https://matrix.org/blog/2024/10/29/matrix-2.0-is-here/#4-inv... we've done a huge amount of work to improve this now, and they should be really unusual now (at least when due to bugs, rather than permissions or data loss or similar). Separately, talking of standardised key formats: one of the team did a skunkworks hack last Friday to experiment with a standardized file-format for user public keys - a kind of basic key transparency ledger for Matrix, to help with bulk-verification within orgs.
dimal 2y ago
Off topic but I love the YouTube player interface. Instead of loading it by default (and adding invasive Google tracking to the page), you get the option to opt in. Very nice.
- birb07 2y ago
  hosting such videos on YouTube alternatives (even federated once) would be even better. I.e Blender has a peertube instance video.blender.org
- wut42 2y ago
  Not really. this can be avoided entirely by embedding with youtube-nocookie.com instead of this weird dance and youtube.com. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/171780?hl=en#zippy=%2Cmake-an-embedded-video-play-automatically%2Cturn-on-privacy-enhanced-mode https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/171780?hl=en#zippy...
  - dimal 2y ago
    I tried navigating to youtube-nocookie.com and got an http cert error, so that doesn't seem like an option. The support page you linked to talks about "Privacy Enhanced Mode". The language there does not sound like it really protects privacy. > The Privacy Enhanced Mode of the YouTube embedded player prevents the use of views of embedded YouTube content from influencing the viewer’s browsing experience on YouTube. So they're not promising not to track users. They're saying they won't use their tracking to personalize anything.
evbogue 2y ago
Related: Matrix 2.0: The Future of Matrix --> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37599510 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37599510
superkuh 2y ago
>Native Matrix Encrypted Multiparty VoIP/Video (aka MatrixRTC, MSC4143) Excellent. This is basically my only use for Matrix because encrypted video chats, 1-to-1, and now many-to-many (YES!) are the only thing Matrix does better than IRC. I started using Matrix video chat to talk to family during the early pandemic and sort of got used to it.
udev4096 2y ago
I wrote an easy to follow guide for hosting matrix a while back: https://hcrypt.net/synapse.html https://hcrypt.net/synapse.html
fluorinerocket 2y ago
Disappointed this ain't about linear algebra
_aavaa_ 2y ago
Their main, and default client, still doesn't support multiple accounts. It's been years
- vaylian 2y ago
  They are very much aware of that missing feature, but there are currently other things that have higher priority.
  - _aavaa_ 2y ago
    I never assumed they weren't. We disagree about how high a priority it should be.
    - asah 2y ago
      Workaround for now: just install multiple client apps. Annoying of course, but it'll let you get work done... plus, fluffycats !
- brokenmachine 2y ago
  I agree. This is a giant, glaring, gaping hole in matrix.
bhaney 2y ago
> now focusing on making Matrix fast, usable and mainstream-ready with Matrix 2.0 Feels like all of those things should have been the focus of 1.0, no?
- Arathorn 2y ago
  nah, 1.0 was getting it out of beta and making it work at all. 2.0 has been all about making it work fast and mainstream-ready. https://wiki.c2.com/?MakeItWorkMakeItRightMakeItFast https://wiki.c2.com/?MakeItWorkMakeItRightMakeItFast
IanCal 2y ago
Does synapse support this at the moment? I can't quite tell from the writing here if/how you can run things that support this - my guess was no because it mentions improvements to the js SDK are required and there's no warning on the synapse repo. Or is that just that these features are opt-in?
- Arathorn 2y ago
  Synapse now has native support for sliding sync (the new "instant sync" Matrix 2.0 API, implemented in Element X and other rust-sdk clients like iamb - Element Web has it in labs). The other bits of Matrix 2.0 require new moving parts: matrix-authentication-service to support next-gen auth (although this will eventually get optionally embedded inside Synapse), and livekit for VoIP. Finally, invisible crypto is purely spec & client-side improvements. As per https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42034324 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42034324 i'm currently frantically writing a compose.yml to show how they plug together, while kicking myself for not having arranged one sooner...
  - IanCal 2y ago
    That's fantastic thanks - the sliding sync part addresses an issue a client I've got would be facing at some point. I'll have to check out the details of that.
pkulak 2y ago
I’m maintaining a Matrix TUI and I haven’t updated it in forever because I keep saying I’m going to wait for the next stable Rust SDK… but I just keep waiting. Anyone know if that is planned, because without a stable release, packaging is a bit of a pain.
- Arathorn 2y ago
  hm - i think it's just because they've been frantically building and haven't time to release. looks like 0.7.1 was the most recent release in Jan; will give them a prod. sorry.
  - pkulak 2y ago
    Ah yes, that makes sense. Thanks!
andrewaylett 2y ago
I've had Element X installed for a while -- couldn't use it for a while after EMS shut down their small instances and I started self-hosting, but it works with my self-hosted Synapse now. The only problem is that it's got too many paper cuts. I can live without Spaces, even though I use them on Desktop. But notification channels are a harder sell, and missing avatars on notifications is just annoying. Neither are exactly core features, but notifications are the most common way I interact with Element on mobile and for me, the improvements (and there are many) aren't worth the downsides.
- Arathorn 2y ago
  > But notification channels are a harder sell, and missing avatars on notifications is just annoying. huh. on Element X iOS, the notif support is genuinely great - you get avatars and groupings and reliable notifs on e2ee msgs. the only thing is missing is quick-reply (which has been blocked behind full multi-process support in matrix-rust-sdk, hopefully coming soon). I'd assumed that Element X Android would be the same; if not, it's an omission and will get fixed.
  - tredre3 2y ago
    > I'd assumed that Element X Android would be the same; if not, it's an omission and will get fixed. Aren't you Element's CTO? I feel like you shouldn't need to make assumptions into how the app works, you should just know (even if you're not personally daily driving it). If not you, is anyone in charge of ensuring that the project's vision and goals are met?
    - Arathorn 2y ago
      yup, i'm the CTO, and I don't have notifs enabled on Android and so hadn't checked - I daily-drive iOS. The folks "in charge of ensuring the project's vision and goals are met" are the ones running the Element X team - sorry that I haven't memorised the full feature parity matrix :) Sounds like https://github.com/element-hq/element-x-android/issues/1547 https://github.com/element-hq/element-x-android/issues/1547 is the bug for you to upvote & subscribe to.
t0bia_s 2y ago
Does it help with laggy Element?
- jeltz 2y ago
  Yes, it will help with some of those issues.
  - t0bia_s 2y ago
    Honestly laggines of Element on Android forced me to use Signal more frequently.
jeltz 2y ago
Are there any plan for improving the desktop version of Element? E.g. by porting Element X to the desktop. Or should I look for other Matrix clients? I feel the Element team with their limited resources sadly cannot keep Element Desktop in the shape it needs to be to be a great client.
- shmerl 2y ago
  Browser version works well?
  - jeltz 2y ago
    No idea, I do not use it. I generally do not like using browser versions of e.g. IM clients.
- daedric7 2y ago
  Eventually attentions will turn to Element Web/Desktop. For now the magic is happening in the background, SDKs etc.
- Arathorn 2y ago
  Yup. On macOS you can use the iOS build of EX already today (i daily drive it, and it’s very usable). Meanwhile, I built an unreleased prototype of a possible EX Desktop which uses Tauri + matrix-rust-sdk (codenamed aurora) - weirdly enough it feels almost identical to Element X iOS, which makes sense given all the heavy lifting in EX is matrix-rust-sdk. Separately to the aurora experiment, the Element Web/Desktop codebase itself is starting to move to a MVVM model to support swapping out the underlying SDK (e.g. for a WASMified matrix-rust-sdk) and avoid an Element X Mobile style rewrite. That said, making matrix-rust-sdk work on WASM is not trivial (especially if you want to avoid maintaining two different FFI layers for wasm-bindgen and uniffi). Another track is that matrix-js-sdk is also sprouting Simplified Sliding Sync support - I even demoed it in the Matrix 2.0 talk: https://youtu.be/ZiRYdqkzjDU?t=617 https://youtu.be/ZiRYdqkzjDU?t=617. And it already has Next Gen Auth and Element Call support. So there's also a chance that "Element X Web/Desktop" just ends up being an evolution of the current codebase - I guess this is the default path right now. Finally, there are other clients built on matrix-rust-sdk - e.g. GNOME Fractal is shaping up to be an excellent fully native GTK4 Rust desktop client, and given it shares the same engine as Element X, is suspiciously similar in terms of capabilities and perf (although I can't remember if they've enabled sliding sync yet). https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/fractal https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/fractal
elric 2y ago
Is Synapse still the only Matrix server implementation that is not in beta? The matrix.org site seems to suggest as much, but I don't know how up to date that is.
- Arathorn 2y ago
  yes, unfortunately. Dendrite almost got out of beta, but (very frustratingly) we didn’t have the $ to keep developing Synapse and Dendrite fulltime - so we consolidated on Synapse, given it was already mature and deployed everywhere, and are focused on rewriting the hot paths of Synapse in rust and generally improving Synapse’s perf and scalability rather than maintaining both go and python servers. Meanwhile Dendrite is getting maintained best effort by the former team as time allows. Finally, the other main area of server dev right now is Conduit (conduit.rs) - a pure rust impl targeting small selfhosted servers. Conduit itself has slowed down recently but there are two very active forks: Conduwuit and Grapevine. All three are beta however.
  - _lvbh 2y ago
    It's unfortunate that dendrite is on life support. I've been using it for a long time to contact family in countries with high censorship. I want to migrate to conduit or a fork of it but can't find any docs on how to do that. Would rather not spin up a server from scratch as breaking existing accounts would mean a complete loss of contact with some people that would need assistance to even sign up. Of course, I'm not switching just for the sake of it. I've had a ton of bugs with dendrite suddenly taking up gigabytes of memory when federating (turned the feature off) and somewhat random crashes
    - Arathorn 2y ago
      yup. it's gutting that nobody has put $ behind the bar to support it. the entirety of Reddit chat is/was built on Dendrite, but they (and many others) chose not to put money behind it, unfortunately.
xyst 2y ago
> Next Generation Auth (aka Native OIDC, MSC3861) Huge for me. I run my own IdP, mailserver and it’s one less self hosted service that I need to manage credentials for
- wut42 2y ago
  oidc was already possible before and was very easy to setup. this change seems to be more about the internals of matrix auth.
raggi 2y ago
Have the new security and encryption features received review?
- Arathorn 2y ago
  they haven’t had formal independent review yet, but we will get them audited. there are relatively few changes in practice though other than fixing bugs, removing confusing UX and adding the beginnings of TOFU. Off the top of my head it’s only TOFU which would need new review.
zaik 2y ago
Is it already possible to join rooms without revealing your global address like in XMPP?
- Arathorn 2y ago
  that's pseudo IDs; MSC4014 (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/kegan/pseudo-ids/proposals/4014-pseudonymous-identities.md https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/keg...). it got implemented in Dendrite, but hasn't made it into Synapse (or the spec) yet.
cotti 2y ago
I've been looking forward for almost a decade now for Matrix (and the client ecosystem) to mature enough that it isn't so hard to get people less tech-savvy to give it a honest spin. Here's hoping this is a milestone as good as it sounds. I'm particularly curious about the improvements in encrypted conferences, which is... A pretty darn hard to do. Even more so with Matrix's "constrains".
eternityforest 2y ago
Does it have serverless P2P like Jami yet? If not, it seems like it's not ready yet. Without true P2P every individual user still has single points of failure. It's less disruptive if one server bans you, since people have been known to be banned for absolutely nothing, so there's some value, but not enough that I'd actively pursue switching, unlike with Jami and similar, unless I planned on doing things that make bans more likely. They're making really good progress though in general!
SahAssar 2y ago
I've been on-and-off hosting for a while and I avoided synapse because it seemed to rely on a lot of different services and python packaging is hell. Seems like dendrite is dying (which I did not know until now), conduit and siblings are very much beta and not close to being stable. If I read this correctly there is just one server worth actually using (synapse) and two client libraries (matrix-rust-sdk and matrix-js-sdk, both maintained by the same org/people). At the same time most of the bridges to other protocols (which was one huge selling point of matrix) are either broken, outdated, alpha (and by that I mean really, really alpha) or beta (usually in a stagnant state or alpha-ish). One of the goals (perhaps the primary?) of matrix was to build a protocol that is supported by multiple servers, clients and bridges but that does not seem to have been realized. I just listened to the keynote on matrix 2.0 and... I used to be a huge proponent of matrix, but I really feel like the potential has not been lived up to.
- Arathorn 2y ago
  There are loads of SDKs which work well - as well as matrix-rust-sdk and matrix-js-sdk there's also excellent fully-featured indie libraries for Dart, Kotlin, C++, Go, Python (and many other others which don't have full parity). You're right that Dendrite is currently stalled, but it's not a reflection on the protocol, but just the reality that writing and maintaining two servers simultaneously is expensive. Meanwhile most of the good stuff in Dendrite has already made it back into Synapse. Bridge development has also stalled for the same reason (exacerbated with hostility from those being bridged) - but then 3rd party bridges like heisenbridge are doing fine. On the other hand, conduit/conduwuit/grapevine look to be bubbling away at an impressive rate (entirely independently of Element), even if they're currently beta. So, I don't think the potential has been lost - instead, the core team has ended up focusing our energy on a smaller set of projects while making sure we get a small set of things really excellent rather than being spread too thin, which is a major improvement over the past, imo. Meanwhile the broader community is busy hacking away too.
  - SahAssar 2y ago
    > Meanwhile most of the good stuff in Dendrite has already made it back into Synapse But that still means there is only one actual trusted server implementation, right? I thought the point of dendrite was to be able to prove that MSCs were implementable independently before they became part of the spec. It seems like the actual spec is just whatever MSC synapse has implemented. > Bridge development has also stalled for the same reason (exacerbated with hostility from those being bridged) Some open protocols like XMPP (which would seem like a natural fit) do not have stable bridges. Other open protocols like email are quite limited in that they require you to act as a full service provider (actual email server instead of a bridge between an email account and matrix). Others like SMS have no stable implementation. Those are just the ones that cannot be hostile to bridging. Many of the bridges to proprietary services listed on the site have not had any activity for 2+ years (which in itself is not bad but if they interface with a moving target or changing protocol it probably is). Is the "One chat protocol to bridge them all" goal abandoned? > the core team has ended up focusing our energy on a smaller set of projects while making sure we get a small set of things really excellent I'd love to see that. I'd especially love to see it stabilize and simplify enough that we have a multitude of servers, clients and bridges that are stable and useful. I'm just not seeing it right now. Thank you for taking the time to reply
solarkraft 2y ago
Previously discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41987113 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41987113 Glad it‘s getting more attention now. It’s quite a step towards Matrix experiences being just as good as traditional proprietary ones (though hopefully by far not the last one).
jordemort 2y ago
I used to host a homeserver for myself up until very recently, but during their most recent conference, some folks decided to conduct a harassment campaign where they repeatedly posted CSAM in the Synapse Admins channel. Synapse didn't really offer me any built-in tools to preempt that sort of behavior - you can't even block domains. I found a third party moderation bot but it didn't look quick or easy to set up. Being exposed personally to that sort of thing was bad enough but making sure it wasn't persisted in backups and my S3 buckets was way more trouble than it was worth, so I shut the service down and nuked the whole thing. I was mostly hanging out in public channels and using bridges; I only had one small group of IRL friends that I talked to on it and they practically leapt at the opportunity when I suggested moving the group chat to a different platform. I see that "Trust & Safety" is on their list of things to tackle next, so perhaps I'll check it out when they announce Matrix 3.0.
- jcul 2y ago
  That's terrible. I used to host a home server many years ago, though it was mainly serving as a matrix bridge. Because of that I still idle in the synapse admins channel, though I have it muted and haven't opened it for years. It makes me worry that csam from the muted channel could be sitting on my hard drive somewhere.
  - Arathorn 2y ago
    Content only gets stored on your local server if a local user downloads it by viewing it before the message or the original content gets deleted. Separately, you can block abusive servers manually if needed (e.g. https://element-hq.github.io/synapse/latest/usage/configuration/config_documentation.html#prevent_media_downloads_from https://element-hq.github.io/synapse/latest/usage/configurat...). For instance, this is better than email, where if someone sends you email with abusive attachments, it'll end up hitting your mail spool and likely your imap server whatever. That said, agreed that moderation and anti-abuse tooling is fragmented currently, and we're working away on improving it. Recently a lot of time got taken on authenticated media (to make it much harder to distribute abusive content): https://matrix.org/blog/2024/06/26/sunsetting-unauthenticated-media https://matrix.org/blog/2024/06/26/sunsetting-unauthenticate... but the top priority for The Matrix.org Foundation is to improve the anti-abuse situation (by securing funding for more folks to work on it).
Jnr 2y ago
I just opened Element X, tried to decline some spammy invite - "sorry, unknown error occured". Tried opening backup section in settings - "sorry, unknown error occured". I don't think it is ready for prime time.
- Arathorn 2y ago
  what server is this on? (as these sound like serverside issues). please can you submit debug logs so we can take a look? needless to say, this shouldn't be happening.
  - Jnr 2y ago
    I join from the official matrix.org server. It also federates to Gnome server and maybe some others, but they never synced properly so I never used it.
- maelito 2y ago
  Had the same experience. The invite came from a server that was possibly down because of spam reports. I guessed the error came from that.
maelito 2y ago
Now that I use matrix.org extensively for friends and work, I see invitations to slack, discord and mattermost communities as a strange thing. Why would someone use a walled-garden instead of a protocol ? It's a very similar feeling for Bluesky.
- throwaway47632 2y ago
  [dead]
  - apitman 2y ago
    It's a walled garden in the way that matter most, which is that if the things inside the wall get back, you can't take your account/social graph and go outside the garden.
    - throwaway47632 2y ago
      It's generally difficult to make people move away from well-established platforms. Would Matrix be a walled garden if it was the leading communications platform? Exporting all your account data is very easy with Discord, and you can even export entire servers with bots. Doesn't seem like they make it particularly difficult to move away from their platform.
  - Imustaskforhelp 2y ago
    today I learned about .sex as in .com etc. What a strange place we live in , who needs .sex ? brothels ?
    - IshKebab 2y ago
      Porn sites obviously.
- pixelpoet 2y ago
  Could you please recommend a guide for how to set up something like a Slack/Discord replacement with Matrix? Do I understand correctly that this will be self-hosted? I find it very difficult to get good solid information on actually using Matrix in the ways I use Discord.
adham-omran 2y ago
A little too late for my team, we switched two weeks ago from Element to Zulip and the difference in communication is night and day. Features such as mentions, notifications and threads (topics in Zulip) are vastly more stable and consistent.
AiAi 2y ago
Updated to the new version of Synapse to try Element X, but went back to the regular app due to the lack of features, particularly the image resolution prompt when sending media.
- Arathorn 2y ago
  That's ended up becoming a global setting, which merged a few days ago (https://github.com/element-hq/element-x-ios/pull/3467 https://github.com/element-hq/element-x-ios/pull/3467) so hasn't been released yet. We're catching up on features as rapidly as possible - meanwhile i'm surprised that the advantages of the new app donn't completely blow away the old one.
jimmydoe 2y ago
I'm concerned about the performance for small hosts, which I tried and gave up. it seems both Dendrite (go) and Conduit (rust) are STILL not in a state for prime time.
- Arathorn 2y ago
  how are you measuring perf? sync should be instant with sliding sync no matter how small the server is. are you talking about time to join big rooms? or resources used for participating in big rooms?
7bit 2y ago
Still no concepts about P2P file transfers. Disappointing. The RFCs exist and just need to be discussed. People to implement that stuff are there and ready to go.
geraldhell0 2y ago
[dead]
k_bx 2y ago
What's the upgrade process and the state of implementations for self-hosted services? The current service is beyond terrible, big hopes for Matrix 2.0.
beaugunderson 2y ago
I can't really take anything related to Matrix seriously until they comprehensively address their transparency issues, one example that's been ongoing for 5 years is here: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571
stevenicr 2y ago
Glad to see important updates, and while I hoped for new info on moderating, at least it was mentioned that it's in the top to-dos list.. We had moderation for a busy multi-room system 20 years ago in RealChat anyone dubbed an admin in the system could ban a person and their ip address (and or a cidr range encompassing it) in any room with a simple right click. I'd like the same ability and I'd add a couple of check-boxes 1 to make it so all of their posted media is removed from server or removed being seen by non-admin users pending further checking. 2 hide all their messages in the room and checkbox to hide them from all rooms from any previous minutes / hours / days (and another option to delete from DB not just hide after X minutes / hours / days) Would be great to get the server to pull the owner ip's cidr block and hostname and force all users from that parent ip block to a 'this isp has been blocked for an unknown amount of time page', you can put an email into this form which will send the super admin your ip addy and a brief message you can add As it stands right now you have to ban on a per room basis and it, or is it still via some command line thing that you have to add separately via ssh and then config and all that?

Matrix 2.0 Is Here

337 points by ptman 2y ago

MarvinYork 2y ago

[flagged]

yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
One is a JavaScript thing, one is a chat protocol. I don't know how you would compare them?
- toastercat 2y ago
  OK fine, how does it compare to RetroArch?
  - freedomben 2y ago
    Very favorably. It's like a hybrid between Postgres and Fedora

sroerick 2y ago

Does Matrix still sync all metadata with all connected federated instances?

panick21_ 2y ago
Its room based. Each room is synced between all servers used by participating members. But if you have a room with only people from 1 server, that metadata stays on that server.
- johnisgood 2y ago
  Is it possible to configure this so that the metadata remains on the server by restricting access to only those users who are not members of any other servers?
  - Arcuru 2y ago
    I don't think there's a setting for "only allow people from X server", but you can make the room private and only invite people from that particular server.
  - alwayslikethis 2y ago
    You can disallow users from joining based on their homeserver or only allow local (on your homeserver) users, so the answer is yes.
  - Ugzuzg 2y ago
    While creating a room, you can choose to "Block anyone not part of your server from ever joining this room".
    - johnisgood 2y ago
      This does not mean that people on many other servers or rooms are not allowed though, which I presume is what the metadata sync is about.
  - ranger_danger 2y ago
    It's not about being a member of a room on another server, but the homeserver of the account itself, of all the members of the room, must be local to that same server as the one that created the room in the first place.

gnabgib 2y ago

Previously (42 points) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41987113 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41987113

ptman 2y ago
Yes, I reposted since that didn't seem to catch typical amount of attention.

robcohen 2y ago

Congratulations to the Matrix team. I look forward to trying out everything this release offers and seeing how I can implement in the organizations I work with.

lousken 2y ago

i hope after the transition is done, there will be a focus on multiplatform e2e search, attachment tab improvements (it's fine for < 10 attachments in a chat, but not a 1000), optimized notification system so friends stop bug me with it, and of course custom emojis

stackskipton 2y ago

Is it possible with Matrix to run your own server but let Matrix.org handle authentication? I always thought for many that's probably best of both worlds.

alwayslikethis 2y ago
What benefits does this have? You'll still have to have a server running and you lose control of your account, if I'm understanding what you mean (letting matrix.org handle accounts).
- stackskipton 2y ago
  User friction. My problem is this: I'm in a bunch of Discord Server/Guilds but watching Discord Inc., it's clear that they are ZIRP powered and it might come crashing down in massive fireball. However, if users have 5 separate logins, they are not going to convert over. I realize the implications of "What happens if you get Matrix.org account banned?" but that's next week problem.
  - yrcyk 2y ago
    It’s federated anyway, similar to email. One account can take you anywhere, so if you make your own "guild" the users could just directly participate from matrix.org (or any other home(server))

tucnak 2y ago

I'm a big fan of Matrix, but I'm embarrassed to recommend it to my friends until Element X supports audio calls... It's been months since the leading-edge release, and I don't know what to think: there's Element Call, however it's neither supported by Element X nor real alternative to legacy peer-to-peer audio calls.

Arcuru 2y ago
Element X doesn't even support Threads or Spaces still, the two things that are absolutely required to organize discussions.
Arathorn 2y ago
Element X natively integrates Element Call for voip/video calls - this is one of the core things of this week's release. If you hit the video call button, it'll start off with video muted, and it should behave like a voice call (although there are a few bugs in the integration still, hence it being marked beta - especially on iOS, where CallKit + WebRTC stopped working in iOS 18. We're trying to work with Apple on it.)
- error_404_302 2y ago
  Unfortunately, that is not the case yet on Element X android (0.7.2 from google playstore). Microphone starts off as muted which is an inconvenience.
aniviacat 2y ago
What do you mean by audio calls? I haven't used Element X yet, but judging from the store screenshots you can turn off the camera in video calls.
- tucnak 2y ago
  I don't want to turn off the camera in the video calls; I wish to have normal audio-only calls like in any other app like Whatsapp where there's a "Phone" button that starts a call.
2y ago

johnisgood 2y ago

> Could it be the glorious return of P2P Matrix (if it was funded)? I forgot how it works right now, but I certainly would hope so in case of private messages (incl. P2P encrypted audio and video calls).

Arathorn 2y ago
P2P Matrix is a dialect of Matrix where the server runs inside the client itself - see arewep2pyet.com for details. In other words, there are no servers (other than optional store-and-forward relays). It's insanely cool - you can see a demo at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUPJ9zFV5IE&t=2192s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUPJ9zFV5IE&t=2192s. It's also unfunded and on hiatus until someone provides some $ so we can work on it again. Right now, normal Matrix is a client-server model: you can't send messages from a client without it talking to a server (and then to another server, and then to another client). MatrixRTC VoIP and Video calls in Matrix 2.0 also go via server (for now), in order to support multiple participants and firewall traversal. Obviously, both messages and calls are end-to-end-encrypted (other than in public chatrooms), which makes it less important that they go via a server today.
- johnisgood 2y ago
  Thank you for your answer. > It's also unfunded and on hiatus until someone provides some $ so we can work on it again What are the available ways for someone to provide funding?
  - Arathorn 2y ago
    https://matrix.org/membership/ https://matrix.org/membership/ is how best to support - or buy stuff from organisations who support the Foundation. P2P Matrix requires a 3-4 person team to progress constructively (rather than limping along on a shoestring), which means $$$K/y over and above the current funding targets: https://matrix.org/blog/2024/01/2024-roadmap-and-fundraiser/ https://matrix.org/blog/2024/01/2024-roadmap-and-fundraiser/
    - 2y ago

bhauer 2y ago

Previously, it seemed the sliding sync required a Postgres-backed Synapse installation. Does the Matrix 2.0 version of Synapse provide a seamless upgrade path for those using the default Sqlite installation?

Arathorn 2y ago
Yes. the sliding sync proxy shim is gone; Synapse now uses its native database for sliding sync, same as the old sync API - so it works with both postgres & sqlite.
_flux 2y ago
By the way, Sqlite should only to be used when testing, not when actually deploying a system that interacts with other systems. https://element-hq.github.io/synapse/latest/setup/installation.html#using-postgresql https://element-hq.github.io/synapse/latest/setup/installati... says as much.

alwayslikethis 2y ago

If you want to host a homeserver but feel overwhelmed about the amount of services you'll have to host (especially if you want to have bridges to other services), check out matrix-docker-ansible-deploy [1]. It's pretty much a set and forget experience with reproducible deployment, and the documentation walks through any decision you need to make. 1. https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy

Arathorn 2y ago
Ironically i just spent all weekend writing a new "quick start" guide for Matrix 2.0 deployments using docker-compose (so you literally just set some env variables, `docker compose up` and that's it; no ansible involved). I just shifted to the debugging phase, but once it's ready, it might be even easier than matrix-docker-ansible-deploy as a super-fast way to get started :)
- alwayslikethis 2y ago
  I'd say the primary benefit of ansible is it makes you document everything. It's easy to simply set and forget with tools like docker compose, but then when you need to change something again, you have to recall what you did originally and fix that.
  - Arathorn 2y ago
    yup, although i'm hoping that a self-contained docker-compose repo that you don't need to edit will help with that (rather than it being a homespun docker-compose setup, which i agree can rapidly become unmanageable). ansible just feels a bit slow & cumbersome for simpler setups, so i'm using envsubst for basic templating to see how it feels. It's perhaps telling that something like Rocket.Chat just has `docker-compose up` too: https://docs.rocket.chat/v1/docs/deploy-with-docker-docker-compose https://docs.rocket.chat/v1/docs/deploy-with-docker-docker-c... and it's annoying that Matrix doesn't have something that simple (especially given Matrix 2.0 has more moving parts serverside: auth + voip server).

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago

Does this change anything for notifications? I've had to pause using Matrix (self-hosted Synapse plus Schidichat for Android after Element had the same issues) to talk to my friends because we routinely get shit like: - Message is sent to the server but nobody else's phone gets notified about it for minutes / hours - Message just can't be sent to the server even though the sending phone has Internet and a desktop web client on the same account works great

Arathorn 2y ago
If the problems were caused by issues in the old Element Android (or Schildichat) app then yes - the Element X rewrite will likely fix it. It supports UnifiedPush, so if you're self-hosting a push gateway it should nicely integrate (as does Schildichat Next). If the problem was in your push infrastructure, then the new app won't fix anything - however, UnifiedPush should be reliable these days (especially if you host your own instance; some of the shared ones are overloaded and/or deliberately throttle Matrix push). FCM obviously should be reliable too.
wkat4242 2y ago
I have the opposite problem with Element Desktop. I hear messages coming in on my phone but it takes up to 10 seconds before they appear on the web client. Really annoying.

_peeley 2y ago

Very exciting! I'm particularly pleased to see the invisible encryption stuff mentioned. One of the biggest pain points I had when setting up a self-hosted Matrix instance and getting all my devices signed in was the crypto stuff. At least in the client I use, Element, I was bombarded with tons of popups with vague "Upgrade your encryption!" prompts upon logging in the first time. The copywriting on the "Security & Privacy" page was less than helpful in illuminating what I was actually "upgrading" or setting up, since specific technical terms (e.g. recovery key/security phrase/security key) were all used more or less interchangeably. If that kind of confusion can be reduced or swept under the rug for end-users, it'd be a huge improvement on user experience.

Arathorn 2y ago
Yup. One of the biggest learnings of E2EE in Matrix is that the complexity is 95% user experience. However, in Element X, we've been determined to get it right - although there is still some temporary UX in there while full-blown Invisible Crypto is still rolling out (as it requires a breaking change to stop encrypting/decrypting with unsigned devices - the equivalent to a browser refusing to talk TLS to self-signed certs). If you haven't seen MSC4161 (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/andybalaam/crypto-terminology/proposals/4161-crypto-terminology.md https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/and...) i highly recommend it as evidence of how we've made a serious effort to fix the terminology and copy - not just for Element X but across all Matrix clients.
- zorgmonkey 2y ago
  Standardized terminology is an awesome step. I'd love to see some of standardized file format for setting up the right keys on different devices. In the past I'd had annoying issues getting all the messages to decrypt on multiple devices, especially if I wasn't using the same client every device. Honestly though I suspect I was doing something wrong.
  - Arathorn 2y ago
    there's already a standardised export format for message keys (although EX doesn't let you load/save it yet, mainly because online backup already solves most use cases): https://spec.matrix.org/v1.12/client-server-api/#key-export-format https://spec.matrix.org/v1.12/client-server-api/#key-export-.... If you enable backup on your clients then EX at least will merge the missing keys to/from the backup. Meanwhile, the original problem of missing keys were probably unfortunately just due to bugs - although as per https://matrix.org/blog/2024/10/29/matrix-2.0-is-here/#4-invisible-encryption https://matrix.org/blog/2024/10/29/matrix-2.0-is-here/#4-inv... we've done a huge amount of work to improve this now, and they should be really unusual now (at least when due to bugs, rather than permissions or data loss or similar). Separately, talking of standardised key formats: one of the team did a skunkworks hack last Friday to experiment with a standardized file-format for user public keys - a kind of basic key transparency ledger for Matrix, to help with bulk-verification within orgs.

dimal 2y ago

Off topic but I love the YouTube player interface. Instead of loading it by default (and adding invasive Google tracking to the page), you get the option to opt in. Very nice.

birb07 2y ago
hosting such videos on YouTube alternatives (even federated once) would be even better. I.e Blender has a peertube instance video.blender.org
wut42 2y ago
Not really. this can be avoided entirely by embedding with youtube-nocookie.com instead of this weird dance and youtube.com. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/171780?hl=en#zippy=%2Cmake-an-embedded-video-play-automatically%2Cturn-on-privacy-enhanced-mode https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/171780?hl=en#zippy...
- dimal 2y ago
  I tried navigating to youtube-nocookie.com and got an http cert error, so that doesn't seem like an option. The support page you linked to talks about "Privacy Enhanced Mode". The language there does not sound like it really protects privacy. > The Privacy Enhanced Mode of the YouTube embedded player prevents the use of views of embedded YouTube content from influencing the viewer’s browsing experience on YouTube. So they're not promising not to track users. They're saying they won't use their tracking to personalize anything.

evbogue 2y ago

Related: Matrix 2.0: The Future of Matrix --> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37599510 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37599510

superkuh 2y ago

>Native Matrix Encrypted Multiparty VoIP/Video (aka MatrixRTC, MSC4143) Excellent. This is basically my only use for Matrix because encrypted video chats, 1-to-1, and now many-to-many (YES!) are the only thing Matrix does better than IRC. I started using Matrix video chat to talk to family during the early pandemic and sort of got used to it.

udev4096 2y ago

I wrote an easy to follow guide for hosting matrix a while back: https://hcrypt.net/synapse.html https://hcrypt.net/synapse.html

fluorinerocket 2y ago

Disappointed this ain't about linear algebra

_aavaa_ 2y ago

Their main, and default client, still doesn't support multiple accounts. It's been years

vaylian 2y ago
They are very much aware of that missing feature, but there are currently other things that have higher priority.
- _aavaa_ 2y ago
  I never assumed they weren't. We disagree about how high a priority it should be.
  - asah 2y ago
    Workaround for now: just install multiple client apps. Annoying of course, but it'll let you get work done... plus, fluffycats !
brokenmachine 2y ago
I agree. This is a giant, glaring, gaping hole in matrix.

bhaney 2y ago

> now focusing on making Matrix fast, usable and mainstream-ready with Matrix 2.0 Feels like all of those things should have been the focus of 1.0, no?

Arathorn 2y ago
nah, 1.0 was getting it out of beta and making it work at all. 2.0 has been all about making it work fast and mainstream-ready. https://wiki.c2.com/?MakeItWorkMakeItRightMakeItFast https://wiki.c2.com/?MakeItWorkMakeItRightMakeItFast

IanCal 2y ago

Does synapse support this at the moment? I can't quite tell from the writing here if/how you can run things that support this - my guess was no because it mentions improvements to the js SDK are required and there's no warning on the synapse repo. Or is that just that these features are opt-in?

Arathorn 2y ago
Synapse now has native support for sliding sync (the new "instant sync" Matrix 2.0 API, implemented in Element X and other rust-sdk clients like iamb - Element Web has it in labs). The other bits of Matrix 2.0 require new moving parts: matrix-authentication-service to support next-gen auth (although this will eventually get optionally embedded inside Synapse), and livekit for VoIP. Finally, invisible crypto is purely spec & client-side improvements. As per https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42034324 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42034324 i'm currently frantically writing a compose.yml to show how they plug together, while kicking myself for not having arranged one sooner...
- IanCal 2y ago
  That's fantastic thanks - the sliding sync part addresses an issue a client I've got would be facing at some point. I'll have to check out the details of that.

pkulak 2y ago

I’m maintaining a Matrix TUI and I haven’t updated it in forever because I keep saying I’m going to wait for the next stable Rust SDK… but I just keep waiting. Anyone know if that is planned, because without a stable release, packaging is a bit of a pain.

Arathorn 2y ago
hm - i think it's just because they've been frantically building and haven't time to release. looks like 0.7.1 was the most recent release in Jan; will give them a prod. sorry.
- pkulak 2y ago
  Ah yes, that makes sense. Thanks!

andrewaylett 2y ago

I've had Element X installed for a while -- couldn't use it for a while after EMS shut down their small instances and I started self-hosting, but it works with my self-hosted Synapse now. The only problem is that it's got too many paper cuts. I can live without Spaces, even though I use them on Desktop. But notification channels are a harder sell, and missing avatars on notifications is just annoying. Neither are exactly core features, but notifications are the most common way I interact with Element on mobile and for me, the improvements (and there are many) aren't worth the downsides.

Arathorn 2y ago
> But notification channels are a harder sell, and missing avatars on notifications is just annoying. huh. on Element X iOS, the notif support is genuinely great - you get avatars and groupings and reliable notifs on e2ee msgs. the only thing is missing is quick-reply (which has been blocked behind full multi-process support in matrix-rust-sdk, hopefully coming soon). I'd assumed that Element X Android would be the same; if not, it's an omission and will get fixed.
- tredre3 2y ago
  > I'd assumed that Element X Android would be the same; if not, it's an omission and will get fixed. Aren't you Element's CTO? I feel like you shouldn't need to make assumptions into how the app works, you should just know (even if you're not personally daily driving it). If not you, is anyone in charge of ensuring that the project's vision and goals are met?
  - Arathorn 2y ago
    yup, i'm the CTO, and I don't have notifs enabled on Android and so hadn't checked - I daily-drive iOS. The folks "in charge of ensuring the project's vision and goals are met" are the ones running the Element X team - sorry that I haven't memorised the full feature parity matrix :) Sounds like https://github.com/element-hq/element-x-android/issues/1547 https://github.com/element-hq/element-x-android/issues/1547 is the bug for you to upvote & subscribe to.

t0bia_s 2y ago

Does it help with laggy Element?

jeltz 2y ago
Yes, it will help with some of those issues.
- t0bia_s 2y ago
  Honestly laggines of Element on Android forced me to use Signal more frequently.

jeltz 2y ago

Are there any plan for improving the desktop version of Element? E.g. by porting Element X to the desktop. Or should I look for other Matrix clients? I feel the Element team with their limited resources sadly cannot keep Element Desktop in the shape it needs to be to be a great client.

shmerl 2y ago
Browser version works well?
- jeltz 2y ago
  No idea, I do not use it. I generally do not like using browser versions of e.g. IM clients.
daedric7 2y ago
Eventually attentions will turn to Element Web/Desktop. For now the magic is happening in the background, SDKs etc.
Arathorn 2y ago
Yup. On macOS you can use the iOS build of EX already today (i daily drive it, and it’s very usable). Meanwhile, I built an unreleased prototype of a possible EX Desktop which uses Tauri + matrix-rust-sdk (codenamed aurora) - weirdly enough it feels almost identical to Element X iOS, which makes sense given all the heavy lifting in EX is matrix-rust-sdk. Separately to the aurora experiment, the Element Web/Desktop codebase itself is starting to move to a MVVM model to support swapping out the underlying SDK (e.g. for a WASMified matrix-rust-sdk) and avoid an Element X Mobile style rewrite. That said, making matrix-rust-sdk work on WASM is not trivial (especially if you want to avoid maintaining two different FFI layers for wasm-bindgen and uniffi). Another track is that matrix-js-sdk is also sprouting Simplified Sliding Sync support - I even demoed it in the Matrix 2.0 talk: https://youtu.be/ZiRYdqkzjDU?t=617 https://youtu.be/ZiRYdqkzjDU?t=617. And it already has Next Gen Auth and Element Call support. So there's also a chance that "Element X Web/Desktop" just ends up being an evolution of the current codebase - I guess this is the default path right now. Finally, there are other clients built on matrix-rust-sdk - e.g. GNOME Fractal is shaping up to be an excellent fully native GTK4 Rust desktop client, and given it shares the same engine as Element X, is suspiciously similar in terms of capabilities and perf (although I can't remember if they've enabled sliding sync yet). https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/fractal https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/fractal

elric 2y ago

Is Synapse still the only Matrix server implementation that is not in beta? The matrix.org site seems to suggest as much, but I don't know how up to date that is.

Arathorn 2y ago
yes, unfortunately. Dendrite almost got out of beta, but (very frustratingly) we didn’t have the $ to keep developing Synapse and Dendrite fulltime - so we consolidated on Synapse, given it was already mature and deployed everywhere, and are focused on rewriting the hot paths of Synapse in rust and generally improving Synapse’s perf and scalability rather than maintaining both go and python servers. Meanwhile Dendrite is getting maintained best effort by the former team as time allows. Finally, the other main area of server dev right now is Conduit (conduit.rs) - a pure rust impl targeting small selfhosted servers. Conduit itself has slowed down recently but there are two very active forks: Conduwuit and Grapevine. All three are beta however.
- _lvbh 2y ago
  It's unfortunate that dendrite is on life support. I've been using it for a long time to contact family in countries with high censorship. I want to migrate to conduit or a fork of it but can't find any docs on how to do that. Would rather not spin up a server from scratch as breaking existing accounts would mean a complete loss of contact with some people that would need assistance to even sign up. Of course, I'm not switching just for the sake of it. I've had a ton of bugs with dendrite suddenly taking up gigabytes of memory when federating (turned the feature off) and somewhat random crashes
  - Arathorn 2y ago
    yup. it's gutting that nobody has put $ behind the bar to support it. the entirety of Reddit chat is/was built on Dendrite, but they (and many others) chose not to put money behind it, unfortunately.

xyst 2y ago

> Next Generation Auth (aka Native OIDC, MSC3861) Huge for me. I run my own IdP, mailserver and it’s one less self hosted service that I need to manage credentials for

wut42 2y ago
oidc was already possible before and was very easy to setup. this change seems to be more about the internals of matrix auth.

raggi 2y ago

Have the new security and encryption features received review?

Arathorn 2y ago
they haven’t had formal independent review yet, but we will get them audited. there are relatively few changes in practice though other than fixing bugs, removing confusing UX and adding the beginnings of TOFU. Off the top of my head it’s only TOFU which would need new review.

zaik 2y ago

Is it already possible to join rooms without revealing your global address like in XMPP?

Arathorn 2y ago
that's pseudo IDs; MSC4014 (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/kegan/pseudo-ids/proposals/4014-pseudonymous-identities.md https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/blob/keg...). it got implemented in Dendrite, but hasn't made it into Synapse (or the spec) yet.

cotti 2y ago

I've been looking forward for almost a decade now for Matrix (and the client ecosystem) to mature enough that it isn't so hard to get people less tech-savvy to give it a honest spin. Here's hoping this is a milestone as good as it sounds. I'm particularly curious about the improvements in encrypted conferences, which is... A pretty darn hard to do. Even more so with Matrix's "constrains".

eternityforest 2y ago

Does it have serverless P2P like Jami yet? If not, it seems like it's not ready yet. Without true P2P every individual user still has single points of failure. It's less disruptive if one server bans you, since people have been known to be banned for absolutely nothing, so there's some value, but not enough that I'd actively pursue switching, unlike with Jami and similar, unless I planned on doing things that make bans more likely. They're making really good progress though in general!

SahAssar 2y ago

I've been on-and-off hosting for a while and I avoided synapse because it seemed to rely on a lot of different services and python packaging is hell. Seems like dendrite is dying (which I did not know until now), conduit and siblings are very much beta and not close to being stable. If I read this correctly there is just one server worth actually using (synapse) and two client libraries (matrix-rust-sdk and matrix-js-sdk, both maintained by the same org/people). At the same time most of the bridges to other protocols (which was one huge selling point of matrix) are either broken, outdated, alpha (and by that I mean really, really alpha) or beta (usually in a stagnant state or alpha-ish). One of the goals (perhaps the primary?) of matrix was to build a protocol that is supported by multiple servers, clients and bridges but that does not seem to have been realized. I just listened to the keynote on matrix 2.0 and... I used to be a huge proponent of matrix, but I really feel like the potential has not been lived up to.

Arathorn 2y ago
There are loads of SDKs which work well - as well as matrix-rust-sdk and matrix-js-sdk there's also excellent fully-featured indie libraries for Dart, Kotlin, C++, Go, Python (and many other others which don't have full parity). You're right that Dendrite is currently stalled, but it's not a reflection on the protocol, but just the reality that writing and maintaining two servers simultaneously is expensive. Meanwhile most of the good stuff in Dendrite has already made it back into Synapse. Bridge development has also stalled for the same reason (exacerbated with hostility from those being bridged) - but then 3rd party bridges like heisenbridge are doing fine. On the other hand, conduit/conduwuit/grapevine look to be bubbling away at an impressive rate (entirely independently of Element), even if they're currently beta. So, I don't think the potential has been lost - instead, the core team has ended up focusing our energy on a smaller set of projects while making sure we get a small set of things really excellent rather than being spread too thin, which is a major improvement over the past, imo. Meanwhile the broader community is busy hacking away too.
- SahAssar 2y ago
  > Meanwhile most of the good stuff in Dendrite has already made it back into Synapse But that still means there is only one actual trusted server implementation, right? I thought the point of dendrite was to be able to prove that MSCs were implementable independently before they became part of the spec. It seems like the actual spec is just whatever MSC synapse has implemented. > Bridge development has also stalled for the same reason (exacerbated with hostility from those being bridged) Some open protocols like XMPP (which would seem like a natural fit) do not have stable bridges. Other open protocols like email are quite limited in that they require you to act as a full service provider (actual email server instead of a bridge between an email account and matrix). Others like SMS have no stable implementation. Those are just the ones that cannot be hostile to bridging. Many of the bridges to proprietary services listed on the site have not had any activity for 2+ years (which in itself is not bad but if they interface with a moving target or changing protocol it probably is). Is the "One chat protocol to bridge them all" goal abandoned? > the core team has ended up focusing our energy on a smaller set of projects while making sure we get a small set of things really excellent I'd love to see that. I'd especially love to see it stabilize and simplify enough that we have a multitude of servers, clients and bridges that are stable and useful. I'm just not seeing it right now. Thank you for taking the time to reply

solarkraft 2y ago

Previously discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41987113 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41987113 Glad it‘s getting more attention now. It’s quite a step towards Matrix experiences being just as good as traditional proprietary ones (though hopefully by far not the last one).

jordemort 2y ago

I used to host a homeserver for myself up until very recently, but during their most recent conference, some folks decided to conduct a harassment campaign where they repeatedly posted CSAM in the Synapse Admins channel. Synapse didn't really offer me any built-in tools to preempt that sort of behavior - you can't even block domains. I found a third party moderation bot but it didn't look quick or easy to set up. Being exposed personally to that sort of thing was bad enough but making sure it wasn't persisted in backups and my S3 buckets was way more trouble than it was worth, so I shut the service down and nuked the whole thing. I was mostly hanging out in public channels and using bridges; I only had one small group of IRL friends that I talked to on it and they practically leapt at the opportunity when I suggested moving the group chat to a different platform. I see that "Trust & Safety" is on their list of things to tackle next, so perhaps I'll check it out when they announce Matrix 3.0.

jcul 2y ago
That's terrible. I used to host a home server many years ago, though it was mainly serving as a matrix bridge. Because of that I still idle in the synapse admins channel, though I have it muted and haven't opened it for years. It makes me worry that csam from the muted channel could be sitting on my hard drive somewhere.
- Arathorn 2y ago
  Content only gets stored on your local server if a local user downloads it by viewing it before the message or the original content gets deleted. Separately, you can block abusive servers manually if needed (e.g. https://element-hq.github.io/synapse/latest/usage/configuration/config_documentation.html#prevent_media_downloads_from https://element-hq.github.io/synapse/latest/usage/configurat...). For instance, this is better than email, where if someone sends you email with abusive attachments, it'll end up hitting your mail spool and likely your imap server whatever. That said, agreed that moderation and anti-abuse tooling is fragmented currently, and we're working away on improving it. Recently a lot of time got taken on authenticated media (to make it much harder to distribute abusive content): https://matrix.org/blog/2024/06/26/sunsetting-unauthenticated-media https://matrix.org/blog/2024/06/26/sunsetting-unauthenticate... but the top priority for The Matrix.org Foundation is to improve the anti-abuse situation (by securing funding for more folks to work on it).

Jnr 2y ago

I just opened Element X, tried to decline some spammy invite - "sorry, unknown error occured". Tried opening backup section in settings - "sorry, unknown error occured". I don't think it is ready for prime time.

Arathorn 2y ago
what server is this on? (as these sound like serverside issues). please can you submit debug logs so we can take a look? needless to say, this shouldn't be happening.
- Jnr 2y ago
  I join from the official matrix.org server. It also federates to Gnome server and maybe some others, but they never synced properly so I never used it.
maelito 2y ago
Had the same experience. The invite came from a server that was possibly down because of spam reports. I guessed the error came from that.

maelito 2y ago

Now that I use matrix.org extensively for friends and work, I see invitations to slack, discord and mattermost communities as a strange thing. Why would someone use a walled-garden instead of a protocol ? It's a very similar feeling for Bluesky.

throwaway47632 2y ago
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- apitman 2y ago
  It's a walled garden in the way that matter most, which is that if the things inside the wall get back, you can't take your account/social graph and go outside the garden.
  - throwaway47632 2y ago
    It's generally difficult to make people move away from well-established platforms. Would Matrix be a walled garden if it was the leading communications platform? Exporting all your account data is very easy with Discord, and you can even export entire servers with bots. Doesn't seem like they make it particularly difficult to move away from their platform.
- Imustaskforhelp 2y ago
  today I learned about .sex as in .com etc. What a strange place we live in , who needs .sex ? brothels ?
  - IshKebab 2y ago
    Porn sites obviously.
pixelpoet 2y ago
Could you please recommend a guide for how to set up something like a Slack/Discord replacement with Matrix? Do I understand correctly that this will be self-hosted? I find it very difficult to get good solid information on actually using Matrix in the ways I use Discord.

adham-omran 2y ago

A little too late for my team, we switched two weeks ago from Element to Zulip and the difference in communication is night and day. Features such as mentions, notifications and threads (topics in Zulip) are vastly more stable and consistent.

AiAi 2y ago

Updated to the new version of Synapse to try Element X, but went back to the regular app due to the lack of features, particularly the image resolution prompt when sending media.

Arathorn 2y ago
That's ended up becoming a global setting, which merged a few days ago (https://github.com/element-hq/element-x-ios/pull/3467 https://github.com/element-hq/element-x-ios/pull/3467) so hasn't been released yet. We're catching up on features as rapidly as possible - meanwhile i'm surprised that the advantages of the new app donn't completely blow away the old one.

jimmydoe 2y ago

I'm concerned about the performance for small hosts, which I tried and gave up. it seems both Dendrite (go) and Conduit (rust) are STILL not in a state for prime time.

Arathorn 2y ago
how are you measuring perf? sync should be instant with sliding sync no matter how small the server is. are you talking about time to join big rooms? or resources used for participating in big rooms?

7bit 2y ago

Still no concepts about P2P file transfers. Disappointing. The RFCs exist and just need to be discussed. People to implement that stuff are there and ready to go.

geraldhell0 2y ago

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k_bx 2y ago

What's the upgrade process and the state of implementations for self-hosted services? The current service is beyond terrible, big hopes for Matrix 2.0.

beaugunderson 2y ago

I can't really take anything related to Matrix seriously until they comprehensively address their transparency issues, one example that's been ongoing for 5 years is here: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec/issues/571

stevenicr 2y ago

Glad to see important updates, and while I hoped for new info on moderating, at least it was mentioned that it's in the top to-dos list.. We had moderation for a busy multi-room system 20 years ago in RealChat anyone dubbed an admin in the system could ban a person and their ip address (and or a cidr range encompassing it) in any room with a simple right click. I'd like the same ability and I'd add a couple of check-boxes 1 to make it so all of their posted media is removed from server or removed being seen by non-admin users pending further checking. 2 hide all their messages in the room and checkbox to hide them from all rooms from any previous minutes / hours / days (and another option to delete from DB not just hide after X minutes / hours / days) Would be great to get the server to pull the owner ip's cidr block and hostname and force all users from that parent ip block to a 'this isp has been blocked for an unknown amount of time page', you can put an email into this form which will send the super admin your ip addy and a brief message you can add As it stands right now you have to ban on a per room basis and it, or is it still via some command line thing that you have to add separately via ssh and then config and all that?