this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
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Privacy

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Hi,

Trying to move group chat from telegram to a more private option, but the key feature is its web interface which is so convenient...

I've checked SimpleX, Session, Briar & Element-Matrix, but the first 3 do not have a web version and the latest only has a free version for self-hosting and I haven't looked into self-hosting yet.

I'd completely understand if what I'm looking for doesn't exist for free, but if anyone has a suggestion here, I'm interested!

Cheers

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 2 months ago

Element/matrix does indeed have a web version. You can use https://app.element.io, or you can self host the web client.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I think Element does what you're looking for. Get yourself a fediverse account, log in and watch it go. Difficulty, as ever, is getting your contacts to switch.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Matrix isn’t ActivityPub ∴ not a part of the fediverse

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It is federated, just with other Matrix protocol servers. Just like how email is federated.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Being federated isn’t the same as living in the same Fediverse. You can upvote a Lemmy post from Mastodon since they both use ActivityPub but you can’t do that with a Matrix account. There are a couple of different ActivityPub-like generalized protocols out there, but none of them are near the size of ActivityPub & Lemmy is ActivityPub so for all intents & purposes for this conversation the Fediverse here (& most places) is ActivityPub. Matrix is on an entirely different federated network & they aren’t related.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I think I need to read up on the fediverse a bit more. Technically it looks like anything in the fediverse at the moment is ActivityPub, even though it supports 3 more protocols. At this point, only Hubzilla uses something other than ActivityPub, even though it also makes use of AP. I was confused because Matrix is also an open protocol and also federated. I had figured everything federated could talk to each other underneath... That'd be the dream, right?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I mean we already had the universal protocol last decade in an extensible markup language, but the next generation decided we needed to rewrite everything in a JSON schema that isn’t as easy to extend as XMPP. It’s federated/decentralized, has many chat clients, some social media + community managing platforms (Movim & Libervia), used for video conferencing (Jitsi & Zoom), negotiation matchmaking for games (most of them), displaying friend roster status updates (Nintendo, & many other systems). This would have (& can still be) the dream instead of needing to reinvent everything.

Worth reading: https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I do agree that generally when we refer to the fediverse, we mean ActivityPub federation. I also just wanted to point out that ActivityPub is not synonymous with fediverse.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Hmm okay. I've logged into Element with my lemmy.world account though

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

OAuth or SSO is not the same as communicating over the same protocol. You can also log in with Google, Facebook, Apple, GitLab, Microsoft GitHub, & others on different platforms as SSO options… clearly these are not the Fediverse.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

Just because those two got mentioned: Element/Matrix and Jitsi are not E2EE out of the box. You need to set it up.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Element is default E2EE for 1-to-1 direct messaging. Rooms require setting up encryption.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

But even for those you have to set up your security phrase.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

ik matrix is e2ee in private messaging only but i think its setup automatically

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Thank you for mentioning it, I've set up encryption end currently testing matrix with element as client, we'll see how it works out

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

matrix has a web interface and there's many different options for clients. https://matrix.org/ecosystem/clients/

there's also signal but idk if that will suit your needs

there is revolt that is like discord but it is open source. downside is it is not e2ee

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Movim v0.28 released within the last 24 hours. It has a web UI (that is optimized for both large & small viewports), E2EE via OMEMO, OTR, or PGP (but users can choose native clients if they wish). With the NLNet funding they are extending to full video conferencing + compatibility with the Dino native GTK client. Subjectively, it looks pretty sharp for a web client. You can also use it to share ‘posts’ for announcements & public feed aggregation—something a group chat should never be used for (announcements & other long-term messages get lost in the black hole search can’t find & unreleated posts all around it with messy-to-follow threads since this sort of content isn’t supposed to be chat).

It’s not quite as easy as services.movim.enable = true for NixOS but the NixOS module isn’t far off once an XMPP server has been selected with optimized defaults beyond standard setup—& the option I would personally recommend for self-hosting as declarative config is easier to work with in the long run, but there are non-Nix options. Being PHP, it’s fairly performant as well as not being built on some space-wasting, RAM-sucking ‘eventual consistency’ model that will cost you out the ass (which is Matrix, by design). The front-end, being mostly vanilla JS, is not using some heavy, bloaty framework. This will meet all your needs & not require expensive hardware host even on an old laptop at home or part of a multi-purpose server (does not need dedicated hardware).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Interesting option, I'll look into it!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

SimpleX

The first messenger without user IDs, Other apps have user IDs: Signal, Matrix, Session, Briar, Jami, Cwtch, etc. SimpleX does not, not even random numbers. This radically improves your privacy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Jitsi is built atop XMPP so you have a general purpose chat server already on the system.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Is their chat e2ee tho? I know the video and audio can be

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

You can use its underlying ejabberd, Prosody, or other server for chat. Most modern clients offer OMEMO, OTR, PGP for client-side encryption (end-to-end implies the servers don’t/can’t do anything here)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Doesn't it now require signing in with fb, google or some crap like that?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

No. And there's loads of different providers because you can self-host.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Signal, tho I'm not sure it has a web interface, I use their flatpak on Linux, they have apps for other OSes too (and obviously for your phones)