I've heard, obliquely, of Matrix, but just assumed it's yet another messaging protocol. Would appear that's not the case though? Where would one get started? Why would I even want to use this vs the multitude of others? Is there an NZ Matrix server? Does it even matter? Why did the last season of GoT go so badly off the rails (oh wait, we know the answer to that one)...

TIA!

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[–] Rossphorus@lemm.ee 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Matrix is an open source protocol for federated chatrooms, kind of like if someone mixed Lemmy with Discord and Signal. You make an account with a Matrix 'homeserver' (can be your own self-hosted server) just like Lemmy, so you'll have a username like user@homeserver.com. Once you do you can join any number of Spaces, akin to Discord servers. Unlike Discord, these servers will be hosted on the homeserver which means they can be self-hosted, and often come with strong safety guarantees like end-to-end encryption or the double ratchet algorithm as seen in Signal (depending on how the homeserver is configured). Matrix is really just a protocol, so there are a bunch of chat clients that implement it, the first-party client is called Element, but there are many to choose from.

I would argue the main reason to use Matrix over Slack or Discord is much the same reason you'd use Signal over Whatsapp - data privacy. Because you can self-host the homeserver any spaces you make can be hosted on your local machine. For those who are privacy advocates that's a very good reason to use Matrix over most other solutions. If you're a company or a concerned individual that routinely deals with data that really shouldn't be on the 'cloud' (e.g. trade secrets, materials under NDA, personal information, etc.) then Matrix seems like a better fit than say Slack, provided you self-host. Discord has been under fire for their privacy policy for end users, so you might consider Matrix as a replacement for Discord too.

[–] ryonia@beehaw.org 5 points 5 months ago

No, you are right, Matrix is a protocol. Some of its major points are:

It's decentralized (There are homeservers, but federation is built into the protocol. Think of this like email servers. There are many different servers out there, and they can talk to each other. Or not, depending of the configurations the server admins set.)
It's a interoperable protocol, allowing users to communicate across different service providers and platforms. This is why Beeper used it as it's core.
- Bridges allows taking posts from one service and posting it to another, and vice versa. For example, users from Discord, IRC, Telegram, etc can all talk between each other with little effort from whatever platform they choose. They don't need to be using a matrix server themselves, just someone who has set up a bridge with one in their spaces.
- Puppeting allows users using a matrix homeserver & a bridge that supports puppeting to log in with their other service's account. For example, if you were to do this with Discord , you'd then be able to have all over your messages, including dms, bridge to your "matrix" account. You'd also be able respond via your account directly. That is, if you send a message to Discord from your matrix homeserver, it'll get posted via your Discord account and not the Discord bot used for the normal bridging stuff. NOTE: Puppeting is against Dscord's TOS, but is use in this example as most know what it is.
End-to-end encryption is built heavily into the protocol. Not every space has to have it, but it's a core feature and enabled by default for DM's.
It's an open source protocol

Personally, I feel there's still a few cons:

Is is not polished.
The new user onboarding needs work
Some QOL things are missing. Thought this is more an issue with Element, the default reference client. They have a very shrill default notification sound and no way to easily change it. There's an open issue with a fair few users who understandable want to be able to change it easily.
The spec is evolving still, and there's some things that haven't been figured out yet.

In saying that, I do still use Matrix and run a server myself. I think it's good, but needs some work still.

As to a NZ homeserver or space, I'm currently unaware of any sorry. And GoT felt like it was going of the rails before the last season >.<

Matrix does have some good documentation though, you'll find a lot of info on their site here: https://matrix.org

[–] Xcf456 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

On a related note, this is the first I'm hearing of beeper.

Is the main draw just being able to combine messaging across different apps into one, or are there other benefits too?

[–] Dave 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Their selling point is many chat networks in one.

I use Beeper because it's the only app I know of that let's me chat to everyone on Facebook without needing to have a Facebook app installed on my phone.

Facebook doesn't even let you use the website to chat from mobile, the bastards.

(Worth mentioning Beeper can't do Facebook calls, but will give you a message when someone tries to call)

[–] Xcf456 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Oh damn that's a shame, I use Facebook calls quite a lot. Sounds like for me it could be one app to rule them all just resulting in yet another app on top the others lol.

[–] Dave 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I am not aware of another way to take Facebook calls without having Facebook messenger installed.

The other thing with Beeper is you are generally required to have the other app installed as well. Not for Facebook, but often you are required to have the other app on your phone to make it work. They are putting all the chats in one place, not removing the need for the other apps.

The old Beeper Android app supports SMS, so I can see the texts come through on my laptop. But the new one only supports RCS, and requires you to install Google Messages to get this set up, so I'm still using the old app that is no longer updated. The new app is recent, but I just can't bring myself to install Google Messages on my almost-Google-free phone.

[–] Xcf456 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Right I see, could be useful if you're constantly switching between conversations on multiple platforms I guess. Which come to think of it I am. I only have the Instagram app because typing goes nuts when I try to message on their web interface.

Way back when I was running Ubuntu (like over a decade ago) there were a chat application that would combine Facebook chat, MSN (lol) and a bunch of others and it was very handy to have it right there on the desktop.

[–] Dave 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Oh, was that Pidgin? I had forgotten about that! Having just looked it up, it seems it's desktop only but it does support Facebook via plugin.

It sounds like it would be great to have on Android but I can't find an Android app for it.

[–] Xcf456 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yes I think so, that rings a bell. Something like that would be cool, I downloaded beeper earlier to give it a go and it immediately wants an email and privacy policy and I assume collects data on what clients you use and so on.

Something like pigdin that's just a front end that doesn't phone home anywhere or collect your data and you just log in through it would be awesome.

[–] Dave 1 points 5 months ago

Beeper does allow self-hosting, though I think you have to use a matrix client, last I checked you can't use their apps to connect to your own server but you can access your Facebook chat or whatever through a matrix client by running the bridges they provide.

Pidgin for Android would be amazing. I found references to an app from 2010 but the links all go nowhere so I guess that didn't survive the test of time.

[–] Dave 2 points 5 months ago

I'll try to add on to what others have said. Matrix is a protocol. Element is the client made by the people behind Matrix but you can use any Matrix client. Matrix is the protocol behind Beeper but they don't put much effort into integrating with Matrix, so for example (last I checked) you can't log in to a Matrix account on Beeper.

However, your Beeper account is a Matrix account so you can join Matrix rooms with it. It's a little janky, but basically you go to the menu in Beeper and find the option to join a Matrix room, then follow the instructions. From memory you might only be able to do this from the desktop application, not on mobile, but the room shows on mobile once you connected on desktop.

Lemmy.NZ has a Matrix chat, see: https://lemmy.nz/post/169187

There is an NZ homeserver: https://mtrx.nz

This is run by fediservices.NZ, the same folks who provide a server for us to run Lemmy.NZ on. But you aren't able to connect a matrix account like this into Beeper, you'll need to use a different app like Element.

Hope this helps!