I use the apps my friends use but it gets tiring to keep up with so many.
Yeah, there was a nice period when Pidgin could easily handle all the chats. Then providers siloed their apps 🫤
That was the time when all the apps were standard XMPP. It didn’t have proper encryption back then. WhatsApp is still XMPP nowadays, but excluding federation and non-standard implementation on Meta servers and so on
You can bridge to all of the apps in the image from Matrix
Or Slidge
I actually tried pidgin maybe 6 months ago just for kicks if it could handle whatsapp, signal and telegram, and whaddaya know, it could. It was ugly as hell, but it could be done.
For whatsapp, my experience with Pidgin was terrible. Stickers had to be downloaded as photos, group chats would only show up once someone sent a message, contacts would only show as the full international phone number, all existing chats were horizontal tabs, like a browser.
Yup indeed, it wasn’t a pleasant experience. Self-hosting Matrix with all its bridges is kinda nice tho (although a bit lacking).
Just never interact with anyone. Christ, it’s not that hard people! (This comment doesn’t count.)
We’re all bots. You still haven’t interacted with a person.
Everyone on lemmy is a bot except for you.
Speak for yourself. I’m not a bot, I’m a cat walking across an unmonitored keyboard.
i really fucking hate discord.
Why does EVERYTHING have to be proprietary. Fucking capitalism.
Its pretty amazing for voice communication in gaming.
As a messenging app? Meh
i get much better call quality in telegram
dude discord has been one of the worst experiences for voip in gaming IME. I started using mumble SOLELY because discord was actually just disappointing. Though tbf maybe if i paid out the ass for nitro it’s better? I ain’t paying for that though.
Though yeah, for messaging, it’s dogshit, It’s a mess.
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this is honestly the only good thing about discord, the krisp noise reduction is actually kind of good. It only took them like 3 years to implement it on the linux client. And we’ve only had system wide noise filtering since the dawn of time.
Although since we’re on the topic, discord manages input/output in the single most inconceivably stupid manner possible.
On Linux I use an app called NoiseTorch that creates a virtual mic to cut out background noise in any application
i messed with noisetorch for a bit, it seemed interesting, and worked pretty well. Nothing beats push to talk though tbh.
I don’t get why people like it either. It’s a mess of chats.
Gamers using it for gaming. In game Voice communication is trash
And that’s fine, but why do gamers use it over any other VoIP option? And why the infinity chat channels over infinity servers?
Content creator branding, and “community”
Because it’s the standard for gaming. I use it and would drop it in a heartbeat if it wasn’t standard for every mmo out there.
Don’t like it - don’t use it. It’s a free (capitalist) country.
that’s the cool thing, i dont, but you know who does? You, and you know how i would need to contact you? Through discord! Uh oh!
I don’t use discord
damn didn’t know you weren’t all of my other friends.
I think they wanted to be, they were advertising themselves!
Friends don’t make friends install chat apps (besides Signal)
Not sure why you were downvoted. I’ve successfully made most of my friends, and my mom for that matter, talk to me on Signal.
The comment implies Signal is peak chat when it’s flawed & other than maybe onboarding, isn’t superior to alternatives—with the phone number being a pro for onboarding is a con for privacy. It still requires you have an Android or iOS primary device (fueling that duopoly). They don’t want you installing it from a safer space like F-Droid. They still by default send notification metadata to Google & Apple (websocket support exists but drains a fair amount of battery & they refuse to support UnifiedPush). They still ship/use Apple emoji on Android & Linux. It’s still a centralized system you can’t self-host. They still have that missing part of the source code (where I would assume the feds planted something). It still isn’t a good space large chats. And the Electron desktop apps are far too bloated.
And the Electron desktop apps are far too bloated.
No argument. Electron is categorically silly in its own right, lol.
They don’t want you installing it from a safer space like F-Droid.
F-Droid is by no means safe; use Droidify.
They still by default send notification metadata to Google & Apple (websocket support exists but drains a fair amount of battery & they refuse to support UnifiedPush).
Easy: use the FOSS version of Molly instead of the default Signal app.
Hi, could you touch on why F-Droid is less safe? Is it because they package (I think that’s the term?) stuff themselves?
Certainly.
To answer your question: yeah, pretty much.
I got all of this information, originally, through this guy’s channel (Side Of Burritos on YouTube):
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzpVI4zaso0
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAbgeJau3eE
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFz57zNR_M0
It’s also worth mentioning that part three of that series ended up directly inspiring another project called Obtanium, which he then did a video on here:
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=IzpVI4zaso0
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=lAbgeJau3eE
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=FFz57zNR_M0
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=JiN37bn0OE8
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Signal is the best, but no way I’m going to be able to get my wife, my friends, my parents and in-laws to use it.
Have you considered emotional blackmail?
No, I haven’t reached that point yet.
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Can’t even get your wife on it? Damn…
I have 3/7 and I hate it. I wish signal never removed the ability to function as sms
Even if it did, it didn’t support rcs
That’s because Google is gatekeeping the android API for RCS
Wait, I thought Google wanted Apple to start supporting RCS. So that everyone can talk to each other.
So Google is just…trying to strong arm apple to give up their proprietary protocol for their own?
That’s so fucked up.
RCS is an open standard. However, on Android you can only use it with Google chat. So android stops any other apps from using it. Nothing to stop you making your own phone from scratch and adopting it.
It’s incredibly stupid, I know.
Samsung messages app also supports RCS, depending on your carrier, though? It’s super fucking buggy and frequently switches back to sms so I still switched to Google messages, but it does technically have it.
They only have it because they reached a deal with Google.
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Yeah, it’s mad.
4/7 here. I’m fine with it. Though sms should be included.
Wait, do you guys have friends?
Spoken like a real android user. All my iPhone friends (and especially family) refuse to download any other app, they just complain that I physically can’t download iChat.
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As an iPhone user, iChat is mid. I think it’s only in the Us that it is widely used.
Embrace the beauty of Signal now
Kind of ironic considering that with Matrix…
- Forward secrecy is kinda hosed
- they store metadata permanently on their servers by design
- A ton of stuff that would otherwise be invisible and signal is visible in your Matrix homeserver, including permanent history of all group membership
- Your data does not belong to you, and that’s how the server is built to treat it, e.g.
- GDPR deletion is nonexistent (it won’t delete your username or your messages, making it less effective than on Discord, let alone Signal)
… Etc.
Ironically, older federated messaging systems like XMPP might be better by coincidence. Message archiving was an optional addition and some servers, such as the popular Riseup one, do not implement it.
Yeah, fair. It can’t delete your messages to the extent a centralized system, and that’s an indication of the lack of centralized control? It’s a different threat model I think many find satisfying (though perhaps not most).
All those points are about how one server communicates with itself. Federation doesn’t factor into it
huh, yeah that’s fair i did not actually notice that :/
A chat app for every friend and a launcher for every game. We live in a utopia.
Yeah yeah we got it you have multiple friends quit bragging about it now
Matrix and bridges
Only if you tell your contacts about it, and explain to them what a bridge does
Why?
Take Signal to Matrix for example. They use different encryption protocols, which means a message sent from one end has to be decrypted, and then re-encrypted with the protocol of the recipient before they can actually receive it.
So basically, your encryption is not very e2e anymore, and the fact that someone can set this up, effectively giving encryption keys to a third party without their contacts being able to do anything about it is pretty fucked.
Oh, and different TOS between different services also come into play.
So if you do this, at least tell your contacts about it, so they can make an informed decision about whether or not that’s okay for them.
Just self host the bridges. I mean if you trust your phone more than your server, this won’t help.
Do whatever you want, but again, make sure your contacts can make an informed decision about it.
I bet none of my contacts made an informed decision about which chat app they are using. I don’t think that this really bothers one of them. Most of them do not know, what the difference between Insta-pms and Whatsapp even is, as far as security and privacy are concerned. And from my point of view I don’t know it detailed enough too. Making an informed decision about a closed source software and as a non technical person is not as easy as you may think. At least from my point of view.
You’re hitting the nail directly on the head.
Not knowing what’s going on being a bad thing is precisely my whole point
If I own the bridge, nobody but me is accessing the message.
Yup, this is what I do.
XMPP & Gateways
I miss pidgin for the cross platform chat
Anyone remember trillian?
Libpurple had constant breakage due to proprietary apps having no incentive to keep their protocols stable. A lot of it worked easier then since no one was using e2ee either. Newer gateways exist in the space but it’s a real shame since for a brief time the earlier 2010s, most chat applications were using the same protocol—until they realized it’s harder to capture profits when the garden walls are lowered.
i miss when using the internet gave you ptsd because of the actual things that you saw, rather than the software that you were using.
I’ve only recently threatened to take my own life due to spam. Never thought that’d be my 13th reason.
gotta love the internet, only the best, for the worst, and the worst for the best.
Try Matrix bridges or Beeper
I miss pidgin so much. I tried to use it the other day with Discord and it was terrible. So God-awful.
Remember E-Mail, everyone?
A lot of people around me are genuinely confused when your email is not
firstname.lastname@gmail.com, as they mostly just use it for confirming logins. That’s how bad the situation is.I recently started using a
+in my email address to make use-specific aliases, so I can more easily filter content from them or see if they’re leaking my email.I signed up for a rewards program in person the other day and the strange look I got:
Do you have an account with us?
Idk
I can look up your email
Ok, it’s foo@bar.com
I don’t see it, would you like to make an account?
Yes, but instead of that email, make it foo+yourcompany@bar.com
Uhhhhh… Ok…
Like “you don’t have an account but you have an email specifically for our business? Sus AF”
Having an untraditional gTLD like
.xyzmakes many confused as well, especially those not in IT.Damn I’m over here with like 4 emails
Personal / gaming, the professional one with my name, my collage one, and the new one I made to make it harder to dox me
Never heard of her.
she’s nice. You should check her out
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Random hot take, I’m at least grateful that my wife and I use an app that none of our friends use. Removes the “oh shit did I send that to the wrong person” panic.
Which app?
I have a friend that will only chat with me on Instagram. I have his number, but he will never respond to text. He only engages in insta, it’s mildly infuriating.
…Have they ever explained why?
We need a new Trillian or Adium. Fucking anti-interop gatekeepers.
Omg trillian immediately reminds me of ICQ and MSN Messenger
