this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2025
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I'm a fan of self-hosted Matrix server. You can get a dozen of bridges for those stubborn people that refuse to leave messenger/whatsapp/telegram (at a loss of encryption, and they still get your convos, but at least you don't have their spyware on your mobile and you can have everything in one app), while also being decentralized.
Self-hosting a server is actually really, really easy. It took me like half an hour, because there is an amazing Matrix Ansible Deploy script, that has a pretty easy to follow documentation, and is also one of those super-rare projects that just works. Even if I forgot to update my server for several months, I could literally "just update", and the script is clever enough to figure out what changed, tell me what I need to update in the config files (which are still only like four rows of stuff I needed to setup), and it is a really smooth experience. Even when you want to set up some bridges, for most it's literally just adding "_bridge_enabled: true" to the ansible yml config file. I've already set up Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord and Messenger this way, and it was effortless.
unable to decrypt message
I've used matrix for the better part of a decade, and I get that reference.
That said, while the matrix crew have worked hard on the decryption issues, I'd much rather feel that particular pain on a federated network where I can change servers than be stuck with Signal if/when the single server's policies turn evil.
What do you do when you get that message.
Ive lost contact with friends because of that message. They just can't read anything I send them anymore.
I verify my sessions. its a hassle, but it's getting rarer and easier.
My contacts said they did verify their sessions. I never understand why this happens or how to fix it
Matrix is a new-ish decentralized, private, E2EE encryption protocol. It's pretty neat. It still has some issues (at least that I experience. Mainly the Android app is constantly being super slow to receive messages), but it's super promising.
They also have some goals to improve email infrastructure by integrating the matrix protocol, but not sure if that will go anywhere. I remember reading this off hand remark on their blog. Can't find the source.
As the original comment said, there's the concept ifa "bridge" which allows you to bridge other services to a matrix chat. So you could have a discord channel and matrix room bridged, as an example. A ready to go option with bridges is Beeper. But you can also setup your own stuff, as they said.
Yes they would. Thats why Beeper is working on changing to a bridge setup that works client-side and not server-side. Remember, that Discord is not encrypted and authorities can just get your data from discord directly. Do not use discord in any sort of private context whatsoever. I don't believe Discord itself isn't actively using my messaging data anyways
Theoretically no, all of your messages stored on Beeper servers are encrypted. But they will get all your metadata.
But I wouldn't worry about that anyway since Discord not only has access to all of your messages but sells them to companies to process for AI. So that'd be the far easier and faster route for them.
If I'm honest, it's not convenient either. I stopped using it years ago because I kept getting logged out of my accounts and flagged for "automated activity". Plus they straight up lie about supporting SMS and RCS. The only "support" they have is connecting it to your Google account.
It works simillarly to an IRC. You have a server, that server can have channels, I think it can even do voice. But, unlike IRC, you can also use your server to talk to people on other servers, similar to how Fediverse works - if I have a server hosted on myserver.com, and someone else has a public room on server otherserver.com, I can either join the [email protected] or message [email protected], all from my account on myserver.com.
And bridges are basically just bots that run on your own server, and by scraping websites/using API of the service your bridging they create a private room i.e [email protected], with subrooms per chat, and the bot then sends every message it recieves signed into your messenger account to the room, and vice versa - anything you send there will it forward to the real messenger, basically allowing you to chat with people on messenger through your matrix server. Which solves the problem of "Each of my friend is using different messaging service, can I have them all in one app? (The app being Matrix client)".