Today is The First Day Of My Life On XMPP

Barry Solow

Tue, 19 Oct 2021 23:41:11 +0200

...but you can probably tell that, can't you?

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Beni Grind ~HB9HNT

Wed, 20 Oct 2021 06:00:53 +0200

XMPP was designed as a decentralized alternative in the days of AIM, ICQ and the like. So originally it was used in desktop applications that showed your online status and allowed you to write messages to other people from your contact list who were online.

Of course the protocol got several additions since then.

kris

Wed, 20 Oct 2021 11:09:22 +0200

xmpp is like whatsapp

Tanja

Wed, 20 Oct 2021 13:56:15 +0200

XMPP didn't age too well, in my opinion. I still have accounts that I use on occasion, but overall, I prefer Matrix these days. On XMPP, offline messages still have issues, and so far, the only client I've tried that displays OMEMO encrypted images at all is Conversations, which is only available on Android. (OMEMO is the XMPP implementation of Signal's encryption algorithm.) All other clients point to an HTTP link, which opens in a browser, which in turn can't open the picture because it's encrypted. And that happens whether the recipient is online or offline.
Then there's the issue of clients. You can't know which client your contact is using, and some of them still don't even support OMEMO. Yes, Matrix also is an open protocol with a selection of clients, but at least there's an "official" one which supports all features of the server and is truly cross-platform.

As for movim, I took a look at it a while back and failed to be impressed. I think they're over-complicating things. Self-hosting is incredibly hard, and I don't understand why they need to go through so many contortions to write a social media app around a protocol that hasn't been designed for the purpose.

Barry Solow

Wed, 20 Oct 2021 13:56:24 +0200

@kris I don't know how to interpret that. I don't think it's owned by Facebook. How is it more like WhatsApp than, say, Matrix?

Barry Solow

Wed, 20 Oct 2021 13:57:34 +0200

@Tanja We keep posting at exactly the same time!

Barry Solow

Wed, 20 Oct 2021 14:01:58 +0200 last edited: Wed, 20 Oct 2021 14:02:23 +0200

To be clear, I am not abandoning Hubzilla. But it does have an XMPP add-on and I figured that the only way I could really decide whether I should offer access to XMPP to my (eventual) Hubzilla users is to experience what it's like. I entered the XMPP world too do field research ...

Tanja

Wed, 20 Oct 2021 14:14:34 +0200

@Barry Solow The Hubzilla XMPP addon needs an external XMPP server, though. There seems to be a way to automatically create accounts for local Hubzilla users on an ejabberd instance, but I have no clue how that works. I can't test it, since I'm using Prosody for my XMPP server these days.

Barry Solow

Wed, 20 Oct 2021 14:23:45 +0200

@Tanja Early days. So far I haven't seen anything in the XMPP world that tells me it would be of much use or interest to my hypothetical users. I just recognized that Is need to find out for myself.

Tanja

Wed, 20 Oct 2021 15:12:20 +0200

@Barry Solow It depends on how tech-savvy your hypothetical users are. I would not recommend XMPP to try and get the average user weaned off of WhatsApp...

kris

Wed, 20 Oct 2021 15:40:06 +0200

When I say it is like whatsapp I mean it is only for instant messages. I don't know why I loose the use of xmpp. Maybe because I don't know anybody who have it. Specialy with my Real live friends or family. I always loose the name of my account or loose the password and create a new account again and forget the name...

Barry Solow

Wed, 20 Oct 2021 17:21:11 +0200

@Tanja I was thinking more along the lines of Google Gchat or the like. I thought various chat services that my non-tech-savvy hypothetical users might utilize could be interoperable with XMPP, so I started an account to play around with. From what I'm now learning it looks like a lot of services which once offered XMPP interoperability have scaled back or eliminated it entirely so the whole exercise may simply turn out to be a somewhat abstract learning experience for me.

Tanja

Wed, 20 Oct 2021 18:28:17 +0200

@Barry Solow

I was thinking more along the lines of Google Gchat or the like.

Ah, no. They ditched that idea a while back. They must have realized they were opening their chat service to the competition. Interoperability? Can't have that, now, can we.