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Comment by cheph | Hacker News Reader

For the life of me I can't see why people use this over Matrix. But if it was because you want an AppImage for the client, then here: https://appimage.github.io/element/

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Because in contrast to Matrix it looks much more accessible to the average user. Not all of my friends are in IT and want to/are able to use matrix.

Signal is also nonprofit, fully opensource and minimizes metadata to a minimal amount (e.g. [0]), so it might not be as good as Matrix, but it's certainly not as bad as Whatsapp.

[0] https://signal.org/blog/sealed-sender/

I find Matrix to be super abrasive to use. Weird popups asking me about encryption, missing messages, and a confusing UI. I'm a nerd, and I find it baffling. Feels like it needs a UI stripdown. Something like Telegram is way more intuitive to use, but obviously not fully free on the backend.

Fluffychat is a Matrix client with a much simpler UI. I've been testing it for a few days. It's still not to the level of Telegram, but it looks promising.

The problem is that having multiple clients for a given platform is confusing for non-technical users. Most users will give up after they have failed with the first client they found, especially if alternatives like WhatsApp etc. are easier to use.

That's the first time I see this client mentioned. Maybe in a few years, the dust will have settled and there'll be a prominent Matrix client that's the obvious choice for most users. I don't think it'll reach widespread use before that.

FluffyChat is promising but is missing some pretty key features such as sending files and calling. I can't wait until we have some really easy to use and fairly complete clients because I agree that Element is a bit much. Even as a power user I wish it was a bit less noisy.

Because I can install Signal on my Grandma's phone and it "just works". Sharing pictures, phone calls, etc, all work the same way she's used to.

Matrix is just not there yet. Hopefully soon, but not now.

I've spent the past half hour reading up on Matrix again. What about the metadata issue? Seems like Signal goes to great lengths to ensure that the only data they have about a user is their phone number and the most recent day they connected to the network.

Meanwhile, Matrix servers just ... log everything by default? https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/issues/4565

The setup for Signal is basically just two steps: Open Google Play / App Store, click Install, open app and confirm SMS code (automatically handled on iOS and probably also Android). You search for other users with your existing phone contact list. How easy is the Matrix setup?

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