Over the past few years I have gone through a bunch of different apps and protocols to find the best one for “securely” communicating with my family and friends.
I ended up with the amazing XMPP protocol and my family/friends frequently use its clients to contact me.
Monal for IOS and Cheogram/Conversations/Quicksy for Android. The android app I install depends on if I can get F-Droid on their phone or not.
It’s been great with OMEMO encryption and the clients/apps available for XMPP. But sometimes I have issues introducing people to it.
Jabber (friendly name for xmpp) sounds silly to say. The clients all have weird names. And after trying the Signal mobile app it feels more focused than what anyone in the XMPP community has whipped up.
But the capabilities of XMPP makes it better.
Signal Cons (immediete)
- Centralized
- Single app
- Phone numbers
XMPP/Jabber Cons
- Picking server
- Apps are sort of less friendly
What really scares me about Signal is the centralization. Any nerd can easily host an XMPP server these days. But Signal from what I’ve heard really wants us to use their server.
If XMPP gets more attention I’m sure we can get people supporting projects and creating better apps.
I keep seeing people recommended Signal instead.
This is a bit of a tired ramble. What I wanna know is why anyone is preferring Signal over XMPP apps. I assume it might be not knowing about it. Tell me what you use to message people.
I use XMPP, and the original idea was for it to be a family chat and a way to securely ask for things on Jellyfin.
No one uses it.
No one cares. They know it’s a hassle to ask for media. They know they can only ask me in person if they don’t use it. They just won’t bother installing a client. Can’t be bothered.
Oh well, I can’t be asked, then. So we sit in this perpetual state of tug of war. I can’t be contacted, it’s complained about, the situation is explained again, they complain again, and still never resolve the situation.
Going on three years now.
I’ve been slimming down the services that I don’t personally feel the need to use. And Jellyfin is right around the chopping block. Started Jellyfin to replace costly streaming services. Only one person is using Netflix and that’s the only reason my parents are paying for it still.