4 ms·

It 100% isn't about popularity, it's about usability. I tried to get my friends on Tox, but ultimately had to get them on Telegram because it was the only app

It 100% isn't about popularity, it's about usability. I tried to get my friends on Tox, but ultimately had to get them on Telegram because it was the only app that was truly 100% cross-platform.

aet 12y ago
Text messaging is cross platform
- jszymborski 12y ago
  It doesn't have any desktop platforms, which was a critical criteria, and it doesn't support group chat in the way we needed it.
e12e 12y ago
Yeah, because xmpp doesn't exist.
- darklajid 12y ago
  You got my upvote and I stated elsewhere in this thread that I'm currently upgrading my xmpp server (to the unreleased 0.10 version of prosody). But let's be honest: xmpp is still not there. To have something comparable to what these clients offer you need a good number of extensions, notably (ymmv) - Message carbons (i.e. a message reaches all online devices) - Stream management (because without it, people are going to consider xmpp broken. "It loses my messages") - MAM (for shared archives between clients/devices, the reason for me upgrading to an unstable server now) Given that one of these isn't even (widely) available so far, I'd say xmpp is in a bad position. I love the idea. But it's hard to imagine that it can gain traction right now, given that the 'only' thing it has to offer against all the other systems is federation. I care about that. But .. most don't.
  - e12e 12y ago
    You know, I've always been planning to set up my own xmpp server, so I haven't looked to hard at the public offerings. Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be any good list over public service providers -- one that includes things like does the server support server side archiving etc. I was hopeful when I saw that duckduckgo[ddg], fastmail[fm] and mailbox.org[m] had public chat services. But of the three, none support standard archiving [XEP-0136] and only fastmail supports a custom form of archiving (via special emails to your fastmail-account). The latter at least gives you an option to archive chats (for eg: search) -- but it appears there's a market for a good, public and full-featured xmpp/chat service. Most of the other public servers appear to a) be free-only -- not a business -- and b) focused on privacy. I find it a bit surprising that noone has tried launching a free+paid option -- say reserving some features for paying users (and charge maybe 1 USD/month?). Actually, I think duckduckgo.com would be happy to "host" a services free tier -- have a trial account mode, and point user that just want a free chat service to ddg. Ddg gets more registered users, more users of their services, and those that are willing to pay for some features (eg: server side archiving, server side notes... others?) can pay a small amount for the service. Only draw back would be no seamless transition from one to the other (change of username/domain). On the plus side, all my trial accounts can talk to each other without problem (via server side federation) -- it just works. [ddg] https://duck.co/blog/using-pidgin-with-xmpp-jabber https://duck.co/blog/using-pidgin-with-xmpp-jabber [fm] https://www.fastmail.com/help/clients/chat.html https://www.fastmail.com/help/clients/chat.html [m] https://mailbox.org/en/mailbox-org-launched-secure-instant-messaging-service/ https://mailbox.org/en/mailbox-org-launched-secure-instant-m... [l] https://list.jabber.at/ https://list.jabber.at/ [edit: And while mailbox.org has an interesting offering, like some kind of deal with yubikey -- they seem to have neglected their xmpp setup somewhat -- there are some issues with ssl certs. Pidigin can't seem to figure out that xmpp at fastmail is chat.messagingengine.com, nor that mailbox uses xmpp.mailbox.org. Both give additional certificate errors if not adjusted. I suppose fastmail hasn't set up srv-records/dns aliases for their vanity domains (I registered mm.st -- as it was the shortest). It'd be better if one could just type in <user>@mm.st and have everything work. The bug might be in Pidgin, but fm really needs to test things. Of the three, ddg was by far the easiest to get started with -- register right in the im client (which also generates an account that works for ddg); and go.]
    - 12y ago
- jszymborski 12y ago
  I've tried that as well... but (1) it's not a good platform for mobile and (2) it's not easy to set up for non-technical people.
  - e12e 12y ago
    I'm quite happy with chatsecure[1] on Android. It apparently even supports registering a new account (eg: via duckduckgo) -- but I only use it with chat.facebook.com for now. Used it a bit with google as well, but I don't have anyone I talk to there (or rather: I've not used, so no-one knows I'm still available via that channel...). Not sure what you mean by "not a good platform". Compared to what? [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.guardianproject.otr.app.im&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.guardianp...

It 100% isn't about popularity, it's about usability. I tried to get my friends on Tox, but ultimately had to get them on Telegram because it was the only app that was truly 100% cross-platform.

aet 12y ago

Text messaging is cross platform

jszymborski 12y ago
It doesn't have any desktop platforms, which was a critical criteria, and it doesn't support group chat in the way we needed it.

e12e 12y ago

Yeah, because xmpp doesn't exist.

darklajid 12y ago
You got my upvote and I stated elsewhere in this thread that I'm currently upgrading my xmpp server (to the unreleased 0.10 version of prosody). But let's be honest: xmpp is still not there. To have something comparable to what these clients offer you need a good number of extensions, notably (ymmv) - Message carbons (i.e. a message reaches all online devices) - Stream management (because without it, people are going to consider xmpp broken. "It loses my messages") - MAM (for shared archives between clients/devices, the reason for me upgrading to an unstable server now) Given that one of these isn't even (widely) available so far, I'd say xmpp is in a bad position. I love the idea. But it's hard to imagine that it can gain traction right now, given that the 'only' thing it has to offer against all the other systems is federation. I care about that. But .. most don't.
- e12e 12y ago
  You know, I've always been planning to set up my own xmpp server, so I haven't looked to hard at the public offerings. Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be any good list over public service providers -- one that includes things like does the server support server side archiving etc. I was hopeful when I saw that duckduckgo[ddg], fastmail[fm] and mailbox.org[m] had public chat services. But of the three, none support standard archiving [XEP-0136] and only fastmail supports a custom form of archiving (via special emails to your fastmail-account). The latter at least gives you an option to archive chats (for eg: search) -- but it appears there's a market for a good, public and full-featured xmpp/chat service. Most of the other public servers appear to a) be free-only -- not a business -- and b) focused on privacy. I find it a bit surprising that noone has tried launching a free+paid option -- say reserving some features for paying users (and charge maybe 1 USD/month?). Actually, I think duckduckgo.com would be happy to "host" a services free tier -- have a trial account mode, and point user that just want a free chat service to ddg. Ddg gets more registered users, more users of their services, and those that are willing to pay for some features (eg: server side archiving, server side notes... others?) can pay a small amount for the service. Only draw back would be no seamless transition from one to the other (change of username/domain). On the plus side, all my trial accounts can talk to each other without problem (via server side federation) -- it just works. [ddg] https://duck.co/blog/using-pidgin-with-xmpp-jabber https://duck.co/blog/using-pidgin-with-xmpp-jabber [fm] https://www.fastmail.com/help/clients/chat.html https://www.fastmail.com/help/clients/chat.html [m] https://mailbox.org/en/mailbox-org-launched-secure-instant-messaging-service/ https://mailbox.org/en/mailbox-org-launched-secure-instant-m... [l] https://list.jabber.at/ https://list.jabber.at/ [edit: And while mailbox.org has an interesting offering, like some kind of deal with yubikey -- they seem to have neglected their xmpp setup somewhat -- there are some issues with ssl certs. Pidigin can't seem to figure out that xmpp at fastmail is chat.messagingengine.com, nor that mailbox uses xmpp.mailbox.org. Both give additional certificate errors if not adjusted. I suppose fastmail hasn't set up srv-records/dns aliases for their vanity domains (I registered mm.st -- as it was the shortest). It'd be better if one could just type in <user>@mm.st and have everything work. The bug might be in Pidgin, but fm really needs to test things. Of the three, ddg was by far the easiest to get started with -- register right in the im client (which also generates an account that works for ddg); and go.]
  - 12y ago
jszymborski 12y ago
I've tried that as well... but (1) it's not a good platform for mobile and (2) it's not easy to set up for non-technical people.
- e12e 12y ago
  I'm quite happy with chatsecure[1] on Android. It apparently even supports registering a new account (eg: via duckduckgo) -- but I only use it with chat.facebook.com for now. Used it a bit with google as well, but I don't have anyone I talk to there (or rather: I've not used, so no-one knows I'm still available via that channel...). Not sure what you mean by "not a good platform". Compared to what? [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.guardianproject.otr.app.im&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.guardianp...