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Or, better, Mastodon or Matrix, which don't rely on a single, easy-to-target server.
by fsflover 5mo ago
Or, better, Mastodon or Matrix, which don't rely on a single, easy-to-target server.
- dreamcompiler 5mo agoThis works for friends and family members who are computer geeks. Signal for everybody else.
- fsflover 5mo agoI don't see what's missing in Matrix. Yes, the verification may be somewhat cumbersome, but I helped to deal with it, and it just works now.
- john01dav 5mo agoEverything about matrix is cumbersome and glitchy. I have last tried to use it a few years ago and it seemed that Riot/Element had the only decent clients, and those were all Electron on desktop and also seemingly for profit. Signal has the electron problem, as well as many others (like the backup UI being abhorrent), but at least the core functionality works without fuss.
- fsflover 5mo ago> and also seemingly for profit They are not for profit, developed by the matrix.org foundation.
- hgoel 5mo agoA friend and I have been running a private Matrix server for almost a decade now, it's very lacking in comparison to what the average chat user (especially discord) is used to. No custom emojis, no self-chat, embeds are inconsistent (e.g. encrypted rooms), multi-image uploads aren't a thing in many clients, adding text when sending an attachment isn't a thing, just to name things we've run into over the years. Most of these have been brought up to the devs many years ago, only to spend forever in spec hell and never actually make it into a release. We're just tolerating these, because we explicitly moved off discord to have control over our data, but being tech savvy we can handle this. It's nowhere near good enough that I could use it with less savvy people.
- komali2 5mo ago> Yes, the verification may be somewhat cumbersome It's a hard blocker. I was running an engineering co-op off it and the onboarding difficulties was what finally led us to switch to discord. All members are good engineers, but the client apps just had too many rough edges. I really want the project to succeed so I'll keep checking in on it every year.
- charcircuit 5mo agoMastodon and Matrix do rely on a single easy to target server.
- fsflover 5mo agoWhat are you talking about? Which server? They are federated systems with many independent servers.
- charcircuit 5mo agoAnd if the federated server you are on goes down. You lose everything. If the federated server you are on steals your information or censors you there is nothing you can do.
- fsflover 5mo agoYou have to choose a server that you trust. In centralized systems, you have no choice at all. If you can't find a trusted server, you can set up your own, ask a friend to do it for you, or pay someone to do this job. You are not bound to an artificial monopoly.
- charcircuit 5mo agoTrusting a server doesn't prevent it from being easily targetable.
- fsflover 5mo agoYes, it does. It's much harder to target thousands of servers instead of a single huge one.
- charcircuit 5mo agoAnd Big Tech are the one who host your account on thousands of servers versus federation where it lives on one. If that one server host gets sued or ddosed you will be unable to lose your account. Meanwhile Big Tech can withstand DDOS attacks and lawsuits.