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At the risk of hijacking the thread, for a somewhat equivalent on the Jabber/XMPP side of things, there is https://search.jabber.network https://search.jabber.n

by ezst 2y ago

At the risk of hijacking the thread, for a somewhat equivalent on the Jabber/XMPP side of things, there is https://search.jabber.network https://search.jabber.network https://providers.xmpp.net/ https://providers.xmpp.net/ to help find a provider https://xmpp.org/software/ https://xmpp.org/software/ to help find clients/servers

kmstout 2y ago
For BBSes, MUDs, etc.: - https://www.telnetbbsguide.com/ https://www.telnetbbsguide.com/ - https://www.ipingthereforeiam.com/ https://www.ipingthereforeiam.com/ Plenty of boards run Multi-Relay Chat (MRC), which is IRC-ish.
lxgr 2y ago
For XMPP, the problem is unfortunately not just discoverability – actually joining the discussion is becoming more and more of an ordeal. Many once-popular servers have stopped accepting new registrations (e.g. jabber.ccc.de), were involved in some nation state espionage activities [1], or simply seem to no longer be around. For modern clients, it's not looking much better. There's always a promising new one around for a while, only to not live up to the expectations and become the "still current best but unmaintained" option of the future. As much as I like XMPP, I can't help but notice that its future looks somewhat grim. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37955264 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37955264
- zaik 2y ago
  > once-popular servers have stopped accepting new registrations That's why providers.xmpp.net gives a good overview on where to sign up. The clients I know of also allow you to create an XMPP address directly from the app. The whole ordeal is to choose an username and a password then. > involved in some nation state espionage activities This is really more of a TLS thing than an XMPP thing, since the attacker was able to intercept traffic with a valid TLS certificate. Of course the second line of defense is E2EE here, but arguably, since the XMPP community was directly affected, they learned (monitoring certificate logs, channel binding , DANE, https://certwatch.xmpp.net/ https://certwatch.xmpp.net/ ) a lot about defending even against this level of attacker from this incident. > still current best but unmaintained [client] I wonder which one you are talking about. My recommendations are Conversations, Gajim and Monal. They're all modern clients, actively maintained and have been around for a while now.
  - lxgr 2y ago
    > My recommendations are Conversations, Gajim and Monal. Conversations is indeed almost perfect on Android (I really wish it could use optionally use XEP-0357), but I mainly use iOS. Monal looks nice, but I'm just generally wary of these single-engineer passion projects – ChatSecure looked nice before as well, and Monal could see the same fate any day. > That's why providers.xmpp.net gives a good overview on where to sign up. [...] The whole ordeal is to choose an username and a password then. The problem isn't finding one that lets you register, it's finding one that will reliably still be around in a few years. If XMPP were to offer a lightweight, DNS-based "identity handle", this wouldn't be as much of a problem (as clients could back up your contact list and keys etc.), but as it is, if a server ever disappears, your lose everything. That said, I do trust the people running conversations.im, and it even seems to be free at this point! (Down from EUR 10/year, which is nothing if you value XMPP, but an almost insurmountable hassle when trying to onboard any friends/family.)

by ezst 2y ago

kmstout 2y ago

For BBSes, MUDs, etc.: - https://www.telnetbbsguide.com/ https://www.telnetbbsguide.com/ - https://www.ipingthereforeiam.com/ https://www.ipingthereforeiam.com/ Plenty of boards run Multi-Relay Chat (MRC), which is IRC-ish.

lxgr 2y ago

For XMPP, the problem is unfortunately not just discoverability – actually joining the discussion is becoming more and more of an ordeal. Many once-popular servers have stopped accepting new registrations (e.g. jabber.ccc.de), were involved in some nation state espionage activities [1], or simply seem to no longer be around. For modern clients, it's not looking much better. There's always a promising new one around for a while, only to not live up to the expectations and become the "still current best but unmaintained" option of the future. As much as I like XMPP, I can't help but notice that its future looks somewhat grim. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37955264 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37955264

zaik 2y ago
> once-popular servers have stopped accepting new registrations That's why providers.xmpp.net gives a good overview on where to sign up. The clients I know of also allow you to create an XMPP address directly from the app. The whole ordeal is to choose an username and a password then. > involved in some nation state espionage activities This is really more of a TLS thing than an XMPP thing, since the attacker was able to intercept traffic with a valid TLS certificate. Of course the second line of defense is E2EE here, but arguably, since the XMPP community was directly affected, they learned (monitoring certificate logs, channel binding , DANE, https://certwatch.xmpp.net/ https://certwatch.xmpp.net/ ) a lot about defending even against this level of attacker from this incident. > still current best but unmaintained [client] I wonder which one you are talking about. My recommendations are Conversations, Gajim and Monal. They're all modern clients, actively maintained and have been around for a while now.
- lxgr 2y ago
  > My recommendations are Conversations, Gajim and Monal. Conversations is indeed almost perfect on Android (I really wish it could use optionally use XEP-0357), but I mainly use iOS. Monal looks nice, but I'm just generally wary of these single-engineer passion projects – ChatSecure looked nice before as well, and Monal could see the same fate any day. > That's why providers.xmpp.net gives a good overview on where to sign up. [...] The whole ordeal is to choose an username and a password then. The problem isn't finding one that lets you register, it's finding one that will reliably still be around in a few years. If XMPP were to offer a lightweight, DNS-based "identity handle", this wouldn't be as much of a problem (as clients could back up your contact list and keys etc.), but as it is, if a server ever disappears, your lose everything. That said, I do trust the people running conversations.im, and it even seems to be free at this point! (Down from EUR 10/year, which is nothing if you value XMPP, but an almost insurmountable hassle when trying to onboard any friends/family.)