In theory, I agree, but in practice, I have used #Ring, the earlier version of #Jami. The experience was so poor that I can no longer get my in-person contacts to try anything that is not #Facebook / #Instagram / #Zoom. And that's without ever trying the #videochat functionality ... we only used text chats and it was still a really poor experience.
I've heard it got better, but of course, none of my in-person contacts will try it again. This also affects apps like #Briar and #Session.
#Briar removed from #Google’s Play Store, expected to return soon.
This is a bad time for such situations; people in certain European countries should be using such #peer-to-peer technologies for their communications, to reduce the chance of interception.
But I don't object to others choosing such end-to-end encrypted messengers over messaging apps such as (for example) #Facebook_Messenger.
I personally use #Wire, #XMPP, #Matrix, and #WickrMe. (I tried #Jami, but it wasn't very usable yet; none of my contacts were willing to try #Tox or #Briar.) I've even considered getting a Google account again so I can use whatever their latest incarnation of messaging is (just because almost everyone I know has a Google account).
It does bother me that Signal and Telegram and most other messaging services are centralized and non-federated.
It seems we haven't learned from the 1990s & early 2000s when some friends had AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), some had MSN Messenger, some had Yahoo Messenger, some had ICQ, and a few had various other walled garden messengers (such as Excite's messenger). If I wanted to talk with all my friends, I needed to have accounts on every possible service. I should be able to communicate with my friends from whatever service I choose to use to whatever services they choose to use and not have to create accounts on every possible service.
But that's a matter of educating our friends and family, not of dogmatically refusing to communicate with them on any service they might use.
@ajeremias My understanding is that Hubzilla is more like a federated CMS (eg Wordpress or Drupal) than a social media tool. SSB, unlike the fediverse apps, is totally distributed (P2P). Like #Briar or #Jami. @liaizon
@rysiek Any word of an iOS client or GUI desktop clients for #Briar? I think it's awesome but it's a rare group of people who know each other in meatspace who all use Android. Plus the battery drain is very offputting for always-on mobile use, but Briar can only pick up new messages when its online at the same time as the sender.
@lnxw48a1 > #Tox or #Briar (easy; no contacts will test either, so I have no experiences with them).
I have Briar installed and I'm keen to test. Not sure how to do that without meeting in person to scan each other's QR codes though. The #VOICE group is looking for people for a test of Tox voice conferencing, maybe this Sunday? See: #voicechat:matrix.org @deejoe@dielan
@abby have you looked at the forums available using #Briar? The big downside is that it's only available for #Android, but it's totally #P2P and #E2EE encrypted. Briar is mainly a text chat client, but it can do forums and blogs via the same P2P network.
@imacrea#Jabber with #OMEMO is production-ready AFAIK, but it relies on the servers and clients at both ends supporting OMEMO (it's an optional extra) and implementing it correctly. At this point I would probably use #Briar (if you're both on Android) or #Jami, no servers, less attack surface. If you need something noob-friendly, #Wire (I don't trust or use #Signal for various reasons but some people say it's noob-friendly and their #E2EE tech is widely used). @bortzmeyer
Finally got around to testing #Syncthing for #Android. Seems to work pretty well. The only thing that's a bit annoying is that it doesn't have a built-in scanner for reading the #QRcode when you want to connect a new device (like #Briar does), and can't link with the default QRcode scanner on the device. Instead it insists on installing #BarcodeScanner, which #FDroid says has a "known security vulnerability" and a "weak security signature" (at least the 8 month old version it offers me does).
#ShowerThought corporate #DataFarms that promote themselves as #SocialMedia are #P2P (Peer-to-Peer) from a user perspective, but not from a technical perspective. Users can connect and communicate directly, but not without the #DataFarm as an intermediary in the background. #BitTorrent is #P2P from a technical perspective, but not from a user perspective. There's never direct one-to-one contact between any two users). messaging apps like #Jami and #Briar are #P2P in both ways.
@dazinism so #Briar is quite different from #Jami, which AFAICT can only do realtime chat, no delayed delivery of messages. I'm curious now to try Briar and also Serval. I still don't have a new enough version of #Android to run #Manyverse (SSB client for mobile) @k3b@tootbrute
@kaikatsu there are people under heavy surveillance and net-blocking in many countries who desperately need a communication system even more radical than a mesh network, something that doesn't depend on internet at all. Something like #Serval, #Scuttlebutt, #Briar etc
@paulfree14 hmm. The Firewall does a pretty good job of censoring all the sites that talk about or private VPNs or encrypted communication. I'm not aware of anything specific that's available on these topics from mainland China without a VPN. GH is available here, as is GitLab, so maybe one could search them for some #AwesomeLists, or try tools like #Lantern? Tools that use protocols like #SSB, #Serval, or #Briar that don't need the net to share data between devices could also be useful.