tell me how this is better than simply changing all my usernames to “CorsicanGuppy is only on Jabber now, so reach out there” and shutting them all down.
(Actually I liked when pidgin worked, as I could receive on walled platforms and respond on open platforms)
But still, continuing to use closed platforms allows them to perpetuate. Sendmail killed bitnet, and we need to only continue that trend.
Meh, there is always some kind of feature it’s missing that I want from the official app or one of it’s competitors. I tried it for a while but ultimately went back to my regular apps.
I remember trying to setup matrix bridges using these exact repositories a while ago!
So if this company does the dirty job behind like server management and brings it nicely packaged as product, I’m fine with this. I’m tired of having to install more than 2-3 apps (lots of families abroad) just to communicate.
Been using their bridges for over 2 years, super happy that I no longer need WhatsApp installed on my phone.
If you’re like me and live in a country where a shitty chat application is required to be able to function in society, software like this is a breath of fresh air. The bridges are also super stable and incredibly well written.
Note: to be clear, I don’t use beeper itself, but use their open source bridges (what beeper is using internally) on my own self hosted Matrix server.
The one thing that sucks about bridging and is never likely to be solved is voice calls through bridges. Theres really no good way to implement it as you would essentially need to have the bridge call you through matrix after you get a WhatsApp call.
As a person who’s been using said bridges as his primary form of contact for years, it’s very difficult to tell people: “Hey, I’m not actually reachable on Whatsapp/Signal/Telegram, please just call me instead”.
As a result, I have a backup “net phone” in one of my cupboards with each of those apps installed. If I’m dealing with a particularly stubborn person I have to use it as a fall back.
So, while I love these bridges, your comment is completely valid and anyone thinking of using them should be aware of that.
TLDR, my Matrix chats are filled with:
Person A (WA): Incoming call
Me: I don’t have whatsapp, needs to be a normal call :(
Yeah this is especially difficult if you’re dealing with people overseas who have generally bad cellular voice service. I’ve had to relaunch whatsapp in another profile on my phone just to answer their calls.
Well universal chat (like universal e-mail) is either going to be a common open protocol (does not seem very likely given Apple and all the other players) or is going to be something like this on the client side. Although its a lot of work, it does seem more possible. The only pity is it can’t solve connecting to services that I don’t use like Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp.
The EU is forcing the big chat companies to open their gates. They have until April of next year to comply, so we might see a common protocol for chat pretty soon
That is really going to be interesting, yes! It is seriously needed despite what Apple will say. And if implemented correctly it can still be E2EE but with our own client apps.
They need to be interoperable. For example if you’re on Signal but want to chat with your parents who are on FB Messenger, then you would be able to chat to them via Signal.
You can envision each chat apps as different instances and these communicate to eachother with a common protocol, just like ActivityPub in Lemmy.
It’s not all bad, you’re right. It’s just that this
To use Beeper, you must give the app permission to send and receive messages through other chat networks using your account credentials. By definition, this may be less secure than using other chat apps alone, especially encrypted chat apps like Signal.
Makes me lose interest. I understand the motivation behind it, yes they encrypt e2e but it’s still sacrificing security (or maybe I should say increasing risk)
The bridges need to decrypt your messages before encrypting them again to send them to you. This is done in memory, so it’s not impossible for your messages to be read by beeper, but quite difficult.
That said, self hosting will always be a safer option. It’s just not for everyone
Super easy. Especially since this is all under their control. So they could simply write those messages elsewhere if they wanted to. I’m not saying they do, but it’s technically possible and a walk in the park.
I would generally trust such a company to do it right. But that doesn’t save you when law enforcement and such get involved.
There’s reasons people moved away from multi-network apps like Trillian and Gaim/Pidgin… They were always playing catch-up with the official clients, and frequently broke when there were server-side changes. Protocols for proprietary messaging apps were (and still are) undocumented. I’m not convinced they’ve actually solved any of these issues.
On the behalf of your mentioned problem. I don’t know if it still holds as the eu’s digital market act now forces “gatekeeper” messaging apps to open their api.
Huh, in my opinion people simply moved away, because the underlying messenger were used less and less. Once everyone ran around with smartphones using WhatsApp, fewer and fewer people cared about MSN, ICQ, etc.
Not “everyone” uses Whatsapp though - I deleted mine after the Cambridge Analytica scandal and I know of a few others who also did so. As far as I know Whatsapp has still never changed their T&C to pass metadata upstream to Facebook.
No, not regionally, as Whatsapp is probably used most. It is more individuals who decided not to use Facebook related products. Luckily, about 90% of my contacts are on Telegram. It’s a bit sad that a proprietary product that leaks metadata could be so widely used. If there was going to be a single “one product” I’d rather prefer that to be an open standard protocol. Those protocols exist, but are not in broad use. But the W3C standard for social networking, really needs to also cover chat messengers.
Talk to anyone in latin america, you must use whatsapp. There’s no avoiding it. Some have tried Telegram a while ago, but most have reverted back to their usual whatsapp or facebook messenger. It’s crazy.
I can vouch for this in a small town of like 5k people in zacatecas, Mexico. Everyone including government and businesses uses WhatsApp. You see the logo with phone numbers all over the place.
I am in a different part of the world, and what you are saying is also true here for the older generation, while the younger one has no escape from Telegram.
Once everyone ran around with smartphones using WhatsApp, fewer and fewer people cared about MSN, ICQ, etc.
People moved around, but often still use several apps even today. You might have a “main” app you use with friends (this used to be MSN Messenger for me back in the day; now it’s Facebook Messenger), but there may be other people you chat to that use other apps. Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, Wechat, Viber, Signal, Telegram, Slack, Discord, Skype, Kik… I feel like there’s actually more major apps today than there used to be.
I think they mostly died when GChat turned off XMPP support and became a walled garden.
If Beeper does become a successful business though, there’ll be a full time development team “playing catch-up” with money behind them. It’s interesting if you read this that they’re rolling out features ahead of the message providers in some cases!
They’re also leveraging some existing infrastructure. Beeper is built on Matrix which does a lot of the heavy lifting for them.
I think one difference is that the rate of change in chat apps has slowed down dramatically. When was the last time one of the major apps added a new feature you can’t live without anymore? So it might be easier now to keep up.
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