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.
@hambibleibt the biggest problem with #Tox from a #UX POV is the fragmentation across OS platforms. Apps for some OS have group chat, while others don't. Anyone could develop an app compatible with the protocol set #Jami uses, but the dev team has an app for each major OS, and features roll out across all of them at the same time. Jami also seems to progress steadily, while Tox dev seems to have been in hibernation for some time.
@rek2 you left out #Jami, which has a much more consistent #UX across platforms than #Tox (eg none of the Tox mobile apps I've tried support group chat). You also left out #BigBlueButton, which I keep hearing is much less of a resource hog on the server-side than #JitsiMeet, and I can confirm JM is a massive resource hog on the client-side. I haven't used #Discord but I've heard #Riot (#Matrix client) is a pretty good substitute?
I'm also pretty sceptical of the decision to make #Signal the default SMS app. I'm aware that of the #FreeCode chat apps that support both text and voice/ video, all are either walled gardens (eg Signal, #Wire, #Keybase) or painfully bleeding edge (eg #Riot, #Jami, #Tox, #Delta.chat). But I've discussed the reasons for my mistrust of the Signal and the cult-of-personality around it's founder at length.
My own family dumped #Ring (old name for #Jami) after an update forced us to re-request our contacts. But there were other issues as well.
The biggest for us was that there is not any store-and-forward, so your contacts have to be connected at the same time for you to send text posts. Germany is probably all in one time zone, but we were spread across four time zones, which made it impractical. They've added a little dot that shows when a contact is online, but we didn't have that when we tried it, so you'd send a message and wait to see whether it ever found its destination.
Another big issue was not having an iOS client, so Apple-using family members were excluded.
Even when both sides were connected, transmitting messages was slow enough that we never did try media calls.
I also tried to get them to try #Tox, but if you have multiple devices, they each wind up with a different ToxID. I'm told there's a way to get around this, but am I going to travel halfway across the US to individually set up each device for each family member?
@ilpianista I've found #Jami pretty good for voice chat with 2-3 people. But prettty frustrating for text chat; lots of unpredictable message delay and no group chat (#Tox apps are currently better for P2P text chat in my experience). If and when Jami passes text messages reliably, has group chat, and can do offline delivery (anonymous relaying?), it will be about perfect. It's already head and shoulders above Tox in consistency of the app across OS platforms. @Jami
@mmin I think there is a variation of #ZookoTriangle here. Out-of-the-box, Riot is decentralized and user-friendly, but not encrypted. Turn on encryption, it's still decentralized, but not user-friendly. Same is true of #Jami, #Tox clients, and every other decentralized chat app I've tested that has encryption out-of-the-box, #UX hell. All the user-friendly systems I've seen that have encryption turned on out-of-the-box are centralized ones like Signal and Wire. @lnxw48a1
TL;DR Wire group chat works well with 3 users. We also tried to test #Tox, but ran into trouble when it turned out the Android client one of us was using doesn't support group chat.
@LPS if only the #PinePhone had been released 6 months ago and had a Briar client, the movement could be distributing them en masse with Briar preinstalled, plus #Jami for P2P voice calls. Jami has clients for all major OS, but no group text chat (yet). I've found message delivery on Jami too unreliable for text chat, even when both users are online at the same. #Tox is another option but the #UX is inconsistent between clients, and I don't know if the crypto has been audited yet. @doctorow
@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
Here's a report on our third #VOICE testing session on Satuday, where we intended to test group voice chat on #Tox, but ended up having more success with #Wire: https://write.as/yt03jv11742w2.md
Our next session is scheduled for Sunday 2 November, starting at 12:00 UTC. We currently coordinate testing at: #voicechat:matrix.org
Yet another reason not to use #Zoom's proprietary video conferencing service. They care more about their public image than their users' security, and lie about trying to silence security researchers doing responsible disclosure with hush money: https://proprivacy.com/privacy-news/dark-side-of-bug-bountys
There are a number of hosted or self-hostable alternatives, including #JitsiMeet, as well as #P2P conferencing apps like #Jami, and protocols like #Tox.
@vascorsd I've been aware of #Tox for a while but haven't tried it, mainly due to governance woes casting doubt on its sustainability, while at the same time Ring (now Jami) joined the #GNU Project and seemed like it had a more secure future. Which platform(s) have you used #Tox clients on? The #Android app #TRIFA says it's "still in heavy development". @tootbrute
@bob #Tox was one of four things (Tox, #Ring, #Matrix, #Wire) I tried to get family members to try out a couple of years back. None of them ever did, so I cannot say whether Tox is useful (being that I have never actually used it).