Wire, Threema, or Signal? What am I going to recommend to friends and family on WhatsApp? I leaning towards Wire right now even though I used Threema in the past.
@silkevicious @kensanata why not matrix/riot.im . very easy also for non-techies and works great even on multi device.
@kensanata Signal is phone-number tied, Threema is not free software, not even open source. Wire is free software, and is not phone-number tied.
@kensanata There's also Matrix, which I have high hopes for (partly due to Librem5), but it's not quite there yet.
@algernon Yeah, I have Riot installed and the user interface is … very technically minded? So, I’m not very enthusiastic about it.
@kensanata If group chats are important in the social circle to which you want to introduce one of those apps, I would't choose Signal, because group management there is still bad.
If you choose Threema, make sure you create any groups, because you're a responsible admin and will have data backups of your ID and chats.
@Nuntius Yeah, it’s mostly group stuff I need. I guess that all points toward Wire, for the moment.
@kensanata
Not Threema, anyways: they talk a big security and privacy game but they're closed source, which is incompatible with privacy.
I tried Wire years ago and had issues with calls when I was behind a NAT connection, but I hear people raving about it these days so surely it's fixed? Signal I've used with my family with little issue: less feature-rich but the features work. When things break on non-Google/Facebook/Apple stuff, people are more critical and quit faster..
@cathal Yeah, the closed source part is irritating. But then again they also have a business model I understand, so there’s at least that going for them.
I never tried Threema. But I like Wire better than Signal, though Signal probably looks more familiar to WhatsAss users. ;)
@wion Yeah. My mom picked Threema after giving Signal a try and moved the family chat from WhatsAss to Threema.
Maybe I should try it. My mom seems to struggle with Signal (tech in general). Treats chat apps like email; writes long unbroken passages the length of blog articles.
oh, Switzerland too. I don't know why, but I like that.
@wion I live in Switzerland and I still don’t understand why everybody else likes that fact. Good PR, I guess. 😀
I meant Threema, not you. ;)
Switz just seems like a beautiful country to me, with the Alps and lakes and all. And it's close, just over the boarder. I'm right by Basel.
@wion Ah. Recently I was surprised to learn that both Threema and Wire are in Switzerland.
@wion But that’s how many use IM these days. IM have replaced email for personal messages everywhere I look and my wife gets messages pages and pages long. https://alexschroeder.ch/wiki/2017-03-18_Email_is_the_New_Snail_Mail
My mom needs a tablet. I think the phone is part of the problem for her; too small. Though she still writes a lot. lol
But the other problem is she needs someone to set it all up, etc, and I'm on the other side of the globe. My siblings are not much help in that respect.
@wion Yeah, I’ll have to install Threema or a Wire for the other half of the family, too.
@kensanata They all share the same nasty property: Centralized infrastructure.
What about this https://about.riot.im ?
@balu Mainly I’m not holy with the Riot UI at the moment.
If you want a simple messenger with good voice and video calls, Ring is pretty good: https://ring.cx/
It's open source, decentralised and has apps for android and iphone (though make sure you load the right app, there's a totally different app also called Ring that is for a home security system).
Ring also has clients for Mac, Win and Linux.
Of the three you mentioned I'd lean towards Signal, but a lot of people recommend Wire too.
@switchingsocial Ring still sounds very interesting! I'll take a look tomorrow. Thanks for that link.
@switchingsocial I was very curious about Ring (and Retroshare too) a while ago. But had concerns about the need to allow upnp in the router.
I could be wrong but I don't think you have to do that any more?
@switchingsocial I just had a look at the FAQ and it still mentions upnp.
I also reinstalled clients on desktop and phones but couldn't establish a connection.
Maybe other things are wrong, I'm not a tech expert.
Tox was easier, but not the best video quality and a bit heavy on the phone.
@kensanata @balu for me it was too damn slow.
@nipos My only issue is the Riot UI which is not something I can recommend without reservations.
@nipos This sounds good! Based on another recommendation I just started setting up #prosody, an XMPP server, and now I'm wondering whether the default Jabber implementations don't allow users to create group chats like all the other services. That's an important feature, for me. I guess I'll see in a minute.
@nipos Hm, so I abandoned self-hosting. It just didn't work out. I guess looking at an external XMPP server would still work.
I managed to move a small group onto matrix/riot with little or no friction. It's been working well for us, and the group is largely comprised of non-technical users on a combination of mobile and laptops.
@RussSharek One concern I have with Riot is that some of these people are teenagers in my RPG group and when I use Riot I'm confronted with a huge list of public rooms and I'd like to avoid that.
A valid concern.
I've noticed none of my users have discovered the public rooms. They really see it as just another chat app.
Which is ideal for my purposes.
Perhaps you could set up a private server for your use? I almost went to the trouble.
@RussSharek Yeah. But then I think XMPP might be the way to go? I'm still dreaming of them just using IRC, haha. I already have an IRC server running! It would be great! But you need to be online to chat and that's not what a messenger does. This makes me sad. Soon I'll be pondering messengers, drinking whiskey and watching sad Wong Kar Wai movies at the rate this is going. 😂
It's a dark path for sure.
Xmpp with some extensions might do what you want.
Have you looked at rocketchat or zulipchat? I almost went that direction
@RussSharek @kensanata Oh yes, if you're doing this specifically for an organisation, RocketChat works well. We self-host it in our student union, and there it's heavily used amongst volunteers to organise events, etc.
However, if it's just for some general purpose, for various people, you want to be looking at something else. Because with RC, you can only talk to people on the same server :(
(okay there might be some bridges, but that's extra work)
@Nuntius @RussSharek Well, it's three RPG campaigns with their chatrooms, possibly more, but also my stepmom, my dad, coworkers from the office that I want to reach privately, all sorts of things. Right now I'm looking at the #prosody config and wondering whether I need a separate subdomain to chatrooms and I find that definitely annoying. I guess rocketchat is out, then. Never heard of zulipchat.
@RussSharek @kensanata Sure, it even has 1:1 chats and OTR support. But I mean, RocketChat servers don't federate, which makes them only useful within organizations/groups.
I thought rocketchat could federate.
That said, private chat wasn't usecase mentioned
I had #Wire installed and decided to try and create a second account. But I think I'm too stupid or they change their website depending on browser because I can't find a way to create an account on their website and in the app I cannot because the phone number is "in use" and when I try to remove it from my existing account I cannot (and I think there's a message telling me more somewhere hidden behind the number keyboard on iOS which I can't read).
@aendi Thanks! That gives me a white page so I'm guessing this is something about my browser. I'll investigate.
@kensanata In Chrome for example, you have to enable Desktop Website on your phone
@aendi Hm, sadly this appears not to work on iPad where I have a Chrome installed. I'll see whether I can fake some user agents. 😔
@kensanata Hm, okay... Strange
@aendi Hah, and on the tablet I get a message telling me to download the latest Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera or Microsoft Edge.
@kensanata https://app.wire.com/auth/ - on your computer
I'm giving up on XMPP, Prosody and ChatSecure because I couldn't get it to work. The sad details are at the end of this blog post, if you're interested: https://alexschroeder.ch/wiki/2018-06-07_No_More_WhatsApp
There's also the part where I discover that I can't use the iPad or my Laptop to register a second Wire account without a phone number because this Purism laptop comes with PureBrowser which is an older Firefox. So I think I'm going to suggest Signal to friends and family.
@kensanata Why self-host xmpp? You and your family members and friends can also get accounts on public servers. I mean, what's the difference w.r.t. the centralized systems? You won't be self-hosting them either. But by using XMPP you still have the chance to connect to federated users, and maybe one day self-host if there's an easier/better server in the future.
@megfault Yeah, that's true. I just feel weird telling a bunch of teenagers go and sign up at jabber.de. But perhaps that's a good answer after all. I'll look at it again when I have more time.
@kensanata signal is the easiest for non tech folks. Wire is my fav
@kensanata what about xmpp?