• camelwize@piefed.social
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    2 days ago

    I’ve made Stoat and Matrix accounts.

    Matrix because it seems like the most logical choice - largest platform that’s federated/decentralised and has end-to-end encryption.

    Stoat because realistically being more similar to Discord I know more users are going to go there. So I thought I’d hedge my bets. Just hope it also gets end-to-end encryption, the lack of that on Discord was always one of my gripes with the platform.

    • nfreak@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      The one I’ve been seeing crop up a lot these past couple days is Fluxer, which is literally almost a 1:1 discord clone, even more than Stoat. Though E2EE isn’t currently on the solo dev’s roadmap, which is a shame.

      Matrix seems like the best bet in terms of privacy and security, but I swear every single client is hot garbage for some reason or another. I can’t imagine non-tech-savvy users will ever be willing to stick to it.

      Realistically I think Stoat or Fluxer is going to win out here. I’m setting up all 3 for now, and I plan to ditch discord completely at the end of this month.

      • Bahnd Rollard@lemmy.world
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        22 hours ago

        For Matrix on android, I use Shildichat. Works great, very boiler plate UI and it keeps things simple. I will admit Element for everything else is fine… Enough.

      • camelwize@piefed.social
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        2 days ago

        Oh yeah I was looking at Fluxer too, though haven’t made an account yet.

        In the “What’s coming next” section on the website it mentions opt-in E2EE. So maybe it is actually on the roadmap? Unless the listed features aren’t actually on the roadmap or I’m misunderstanding.

        I hope it is anyway, I accepted no E2EE with Discord just because every single person I knew was using it, but I’m crossing my fingers to not have to make that compromise again if possible.

        I’ll probably give Fluxer a try as well then and give all three a go and see which one sticks, hell maybe I’ll end up on more than one.

        • nfreak@lemmy.ml
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          2 days ago

          Ah maybe the article I was reading was a bit dated, good to know it might be on the horizon. Honestly I almost worry the dev’s gonna get slapped with a cease and desist because it’s almost literally a discord clone in every single way.

          It did rub me the wrong way at first to see paywalled features already, but reading it more closely it seems to be mostly to offset server costs, and a self-hosted server seems to have all the paid upgrades available by default, so that seems fair enough.

          After playing with all 3 a bit, I have a feeling Fluxer might be the one that sticks, mostly due to the ease of use and familiarity.

          • camelwize@piefed.social
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            2 days ago

            Out of curiosity, does Fluxer have any sort of directory/server list that you’re aware of? I’ve always been very reliant on Disboard to find servers with Discord, and both Stoat and Matrix seem to have similar sites but I couldn’t find one for Fluxer. Wonder if I’m just searching poorly or if one hasn’t been made yet.

            Aside from wanting to use it to find servers I was curious to get a gauge on how many people are actually using it too.

      • artyom@piefed.social
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        2 days ago

        literally almost a 1:1 discord clone

        If you read the blog, it’s because the dev studied the Discord code very closely and did their best to mimic it.

        Though E2EE isn’t currently on the solo dev’s roadmap

        It is on the roadmap. It says it right on the project homepage.

    • Midnight Wolf@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I have decided on Haven, since self-hosting is a requirement (I don’t trust anyone but me), it’s UI is similar, and it can do text, voice, and video. I found it a few months ago when the discord data breach broke, but waited because it doesn’t have a docker image. It does have a Dockerfile and compose file now because of my suggestion and work of a couple different contributors, but no image yet.

      Well a week into this and I have been giving issue reports, feature suggestions, and feedback to the dev, and I think it’s the best combo of ‘in control of my data’ with ‘ease of setup’ and genuine, working, features. And the dev seems really excited to see users, and the back and forth on Github is something I don’t expect - just the excitement, the welcoming of ‘can we do this’ and ‘could this be changed to make that easier’.

      It’s almost discord, as a web app, controlled by you, and made by just the one dev and a couple contributors. And the differences are easy to understand.

    • Mika@piefed.ca
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      2 days ago

      Stoat is locked into google services on Android, hard pass from me.

    • CafeFrog@lemmy.cafe
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      2 days ago

      Matrix because it seems like the most logical choice - largest platform that’s federated/decentralised and has end-to-end encryption.

      Personally I’ve had consistent problems with messages not un-encrypting in Matrix, requiring frequent re-sending of messages. I’m also not a fan of how much Metadata is shared across the Matrix network even with encryption, nor am I fan of the history of the group (Amdocs) who developed and funded it, or the willingness of the Matrix/Element team to sell their services to law enforcement (They had purchased a booth at a police convention).

      Movim has all of the same features as Matrix without those downsides, if you’d like to give that a try instead.

      • RelativityRanger@lemmy.ca
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        17 hours ago

        @Dremor@lemmy.world @JonsJava@lemmy.world @PerfectDark@lemmy.world
        A strawman is when someone misrepresents the other person’s claim in a weaker or distorted way and then attacks that distorted version. I did not, instead I used reductio ad absurdum reasoning. This person claims that matrix is controlled by Israeli intelligence which is blatant disinformation. What about disinformation now?
        https://lemmy.ca/comment/21700498

        • Dremor@lemmy.world
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          16 hours ago

          Your argument cannot be considered as an "reductio ad absurdum”, as it didn’t show any absurdity in your opponent arguments. Your argument could be considered as either an “argumentum ad lapidem” (dismissing a claim as absurd without demonstrating proof for its absurdity), but more realistically it is indeed a strawman, as you try exaggerate you opponent argument in order to weaken it (avoid because Israeli != avoid because of possible link to Israeli intelligence ties).

          Still, you are right to doubt some of your opponent proofs. I too have my doubt on that claim, but don’t have the time right now to fact check it.
          Feel free to link your own research here, if you find more reliable sources.

          • RelativityRanger@lemmy.ca
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            15 hours ago

            Understand what makes you happy. I’m not going to waste my time knowing that you’re not going to do anything at all. Here’s a quote from the comment I linked:

            Matrix foundation heavily courting law enforcement and getting funded by Israel.

            Where do you see that it’s just a possibility? That’s ridiculous. Again, it’s not a strawman.

            Even the first video linked here “Metadata is shared” asserts that “There’s a bunch of sensitivity to it because they are tightly linked to Israeli intelligence” at 15:00. That is the very definition of disinformation.

      • nothrone@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 day ago

        You seem to be knowledgeable about XMPP… How does XMPP’s E2EE compare to matrix’?

        I tried XMPP and Matrix a few days ago. The XMPP experience is SO MUCH BETTER. HOLLY FUCK.

        Matrix is so laggy and clunky and slow and annoying. XMPP was just perfect. And the “Conversations” client, for XMPP, is so fucking fast. It is missing a few things, such as swipe to quote/reply to a given message, but damn, is it fast.

        • CafeFrog@lemmy.cafe
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          19 hours ago

          Matrix is so laggy and clunky and slow and annoying. XMPP was just perfect. And the “Conversations” client, for XMPP, is so fucking fast.

          I’ve noticed that as well, XMPP has never been laggy in my experience, it’s very snappy. Matrix is hit or miss, sometimes fine, sometimes a bit slow, especially in larger rooms.

          How does XMPP’s E2EE compare to matrix’?

          As far as I know, XMPP’s OMEMO encryption is modeled off of Signal’s encryption, but modified to function without a centralized server. It’s generally regarded as a very solid, strong encryption, even better than openPGP.

          Matrix’s encryption uses Megolm or olm, which I believe is also regarded well as far as the encryption itself. The issue is that Matrix’s inherent design means it’s spreading copies of the metadata of those messages (though the contents of the message itself is encrypted) far and wide to many servers unnessesarily. Seeing as a lot can still be gleaned from metadata (when a message was sent, to who it was sent to), it’s a concerning model considering how big the main Matrix server is, which means that it usually always receives a copy of all metadata activity on the protocol, unless a self-hosted server completely kills federation (which defeats the point of it).

          A good comment from an older reddit thread summed it up well:

          matrix.org is unique because it hosts so many user accounts. As a result, it becomes a metadata honeypot for the entire matrix network. It’s kind of a design flaw in my eyes. Matrix is great. But it would be even better if it didn’t have this issue.

          Xmpp is federated, but you have the option of not sharing chat metadata with other servers on the network. Matrix doesn’t give that option. matrix.org is effectively a central server due to the fact that a majority of accounts are hosted there, AND all metadata associated with those accounts, which includes metadata from other servers they communicate with, accumulates on matrix.org. I would suspect a very high percentage of matrix metadata, ends up on a single server. Xmpp just does not have this problem.

      • melroy@kbin.melroy.org
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        2 days ago

        willingness of the Matrix/Element team to sell their services to law enforcement.

        They are selling the messing service… of course not the messages… I don’t know whether that is a problem or not. I don’t really think so.

        • CafeFrog@lemmy.cafe
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          2 days ago

          It’s a downside in my opinion, considering the police in most countries assist in maintaining the control of corporations and authoritarian governments. To offer services to them knowing this is a negative ethical marker for a company.

          • mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works
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            20 hours ago

            Does it matter? The US government recommends Signal for government and service members.

            As long as a project is open source (i.e. publicly auditable) and the maintainers aren’t using the project as a platform for spreading things like fascism or white replacement theory it’s not a big problem

            • CafeFrog@lemmy.cafe
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              18 hours ago

              Personally I think it matters in this case due to the odd way that Matrix is designed to share metadata with all federated servers, which means the one run by Matrix/Element basically has access virtually all metadata on the network, which considering their background, is concerning for me. I wrote more about that aspect here: https://lemmy.cafe/post/31672929/15961430