Nostr Web Client

I like Matrix / element and use it in cases where others would use discord - spaces with several channels (rooms), but a bit censorship resistant and end to end encrypted.

For years I encounter two types of bugs:

- unable to decrypt message. Appears more or less randomly, to some users, proposed solution to run another session (like on desktop) usually does not help.

- read messages constantly marked as unread, even clicking on them does not mark it read, I have to press "mark as read". Also what is unread (which thread for example) is not very clear.

I don't want to blame the developers, I don't know how hard it is to fix, but it's a pity, because many people just switch to discord or even worse to Telegram because these types of bugs make it really hard to use.

So I wonder why is that? Is it not a priority? Is the development stalled? Are there better multiplatform matrix clients that support spaces?

Before you suggest signal / simplex / Threema / session - I'm specifically looking for support of spaces, meaning groups of many related channels that support end to end encryption.

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Discussion

calle 2y ago

e2e with large groups is pretty much impossible, isn't it?

jimbocoin 🃏 2y ago

I think it also doesn’t make much sense. The larger the group, the more likely information will leak anyway, even with perfect encryption. Clients have to decrypt eventually. An attacker (or malicious user) can just leak the decrypted content. This is especially true if anyone can join.

E2E is more important the fewer the participants. Maybe it’s OK to not have decentralized, large group, end-to-end encrypted chats? Maybe it’s OK for large-group chats to be brokered by trusted coordinators?

Juraj 2y ago

Of course, but it depends on the structure. If you have more decentralized organization (like a more open project that has external contributors, or a student organization), you still want encryption for board members, but more open access than a silo.

I am totally against centralized third party entities such as Telegram or Discord having access to conversation. It is not binary and I don't want to feed surveillance. For example you can setup matrix in such a way that new entrants to the room does not have keys to older messages. Yes, people can always screenshot and leak. But that is way different than a huge entity surveilling and possibly correlating all activity on the service.

For me, signal is good enough for example, I've run several companies and projects just on signal groups. But grouping element/discord/mattermost/slack style is also useful.

jimbocoin 🃏 2y ago

I think there are two different meanings of centralized that have different implications.

On the one hand, you have massive centralized clearing houses like Telegram/Discord. On the other hand, you have a central coordinator for a specific activity.

In the olden days of the LAN party, the host’s hub was a centralized coordinator. Compared to say, Blizzard running massive WoW servers.

A centralized coordinator (in the small, ephemeral sense, like Matrix) solves for the N^2 link growth of true E2E peer-to-peer.

Agreed that massive, centralized service providers are undesirable for secure, private communications.

Juraj 2y ago

My main beef with discord is censorship. You have a community of a thousand people, someone posts a politically incorrect meme, someone else reports it and the whole community is deleted. I know an organization that has this experience three times already.

With these centralized entities you have no control over what you build - building communities is an effort.

Shawn 2y ago

I’ve had the same experience. While I appreciate the work invested, Matrix/Element feels broken and neglected.

Honza 2y ago

I'm looking for a solution too. I need a replacement for Slack to have our team on. It needs to have channels and ideally encryption.

What about Nextcloud Talk? That seems like a good option.

Juraj 2y ago

If you have only one space, could be good. As you have external users or more spaces, it becomes complicated. But still doable.

For this use case also look at Mattermost, it's pretty good.