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Comment by rahuldottech | Hacker News Reader

> I cannot fathom the proliferation of phone-only messaging apps.

Matrix/riot is the solution. Works wonderfully across platforms. https://riot.im/

I understand why people like Matrix and wish that project the best of luck, but it is not comparable to Signal as privacy technology. The last time Matrix was discussed here, just a few weeks ago, the network couldn't even require support for E2E encryption, apparently because too many of its clients didn't have it working.

How long have people been watching and discussing Matrix on HN? It feels like a long time. It's 2020 now. It has never been possible to send an unencrypted message on Signal.

People should use Matrix if they like Matrix. But they should not be suggesting to random strangers that Matrix is as safe as Signal.

> It has never been possible to send an unencrypted message on Signal.

Irrelevant nitpick, but hold down on the send button and select "Insecure SMS"

There is no button I seem to be able to long-press on iOS Signal that gives me that option. Can you be more specific?

They're talking about the Android app. In Android the application which sends messages can be replaced, and so Signal offers to replace it, as a result it needs to be able to send old-fashioned SMS messages when the correspondent doesn't seem to have Signal.

Your iPhone doesn't let anybody do that, just like it doesn't let Mozilla provide a different web browser and so on. This has upsides and downsides for security which I'm sure you've already thought about, for me it's a good reason not to own an iPhone, but the rationale for the opposite decision is sound.

On Android, in the mode where Signal is replacing your SMS messaging app.

Presumably (I don't have one) iPhones lack this feature as Signal can't replace Apple's messaging app inside the Walled Garden.

I don't know about iPhones, but the option still appears in Signal for Android even if you don't use it as the default SMS app.

A nitpick on that solution (that no longer applies to me, because I no longer use an Android device):

It isn't persistent. Signal always defaults to secure messaging, which caused me regular headaches when I used it. More than a few people I knew installed Signal, used it briefly (or not at all), and went back to sms. Signal would always default to sending securely, and I'd always send these people a message that they'd never see, because they were no longer using Signal.

After some time I'd realize they didn't get it and would have to resend as an insecure sms. Missed more than a few time-critical communications because of that.

I really, really wish they'd made it a per-contact default I could have set.

That's been fixed a few months ago. The setting now sticks until you manually change it back or your contact replies with a Signal message.

> The last time Matrix was discussed here, just a few weeks ago, the network couldn't even require support for E2E encryption, apparently because too many of its clients didn't have it working.

Ironically, we turned on E2EE by default on the develop branches of Riot (the main client) 12 days ago at FOSDEM: https://fosdem.org/2020/schedule/event/matrix/. It will go live across the whole network in the next release, complete with cross-signing for key verification.

And in the last two weeks, two more independent E2E-capable client implementations popped up - one in Dart (https://gitlab.com/famedly/famedlysdk/) and one in Rust (https://github.com/poljar/nio-rust). Video of the Dart/Flutter one in action is pretty cool https://youtu.be/nm36pt2rHcI :)

So yes, we're not as monomaniacal about privacy at any cost as Signal, but we're catching up.

So what percentage of Matrix users will now be using E2EE chats? Is it both groups and one-on-one chats or will there exist disparity between the two? Does the app prompt enabling E2EE in rooms where it's not enabled?

The more important question is "at what point will it be impossible to use Matrix in an non-E2EE mode".

I have tried to get my family & friends on Matrix. Setup a small server on Amazon instance and created the full system, "How to" guide on installing the app, etc.

I do not appear to have the persuasive skills, clout, or sheer dominance over my family members that some of the more Matrix-successful fellow geeks here do :-D

Well, My family (parents, siblings, cousins, etc) members keep asking me to join them on various chat solutions (mainly Watsapp). I won't, and I've explained them why. I've also mentioned that specific alternatives might soon be mature enough to be easily usable by them. I've hesitated onboarding them on Signal, but we do not need to be that paranoid, and Signal can prove difficult in the way it handles media and free space on the device. Moreover, I will likely get a Linux-based phone (I have my pinephone braveheart next to me) soon as my daily driver, and I bet that Signal doesn't have a nice compatible client.

I'm eying Matrix, together with Fluffychat. I guess that when reactions will be there (for feature parity between clients, I don't want to miss some important information someone sent as a reaction like "I arrive at 8 tomorrow, can you pick me up at the train station" -> thumbs up) plus a few nitpicks, I'll be able to consider it ready.

What happens next? I am not sure. I would like to onboard them on a different homeserver, but I might tinker a bit too much with my personal server for this, plus it would be unavailable when moving around, etc. So I guess I should set up a cloud-hosted homeserver, but I am afraid of the costs, especially if they start joining busy rooms.

The best answer would be to use decentralized identities[1] on my HS for now, and migrate them over to a backup one in case of an outage, but we're not there yet. That's the main reason I keep an eye on p2p Matrix work with Dendrite (then, because it's more generally awesome).

[1]: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/issues/915

+1 Matrix has made the best architectural trade-offs to achieve various goals.

There's a Flutter-based app in the works for the specific purpose of messaging for families: https://github.com/nileshtrivedi/family

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