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[–] 16 points 1 week ago (3 children)

It's not entirely dystopian (just barely), we have newer messengers like SimpleX and DeltaChat (I/we use Delta) on the up and coming which deliver on all the same e2ee promises as Signal. It's just network effects as usual, getting people to try is the real hurdle.

What they share in common (mostly) is the architecture - they're built natively decentralized, utilizing caching relays with no single source of truth, or device of truth, to be used to create a profile of you like a phone number does. Encryption keys owned by the user and no single servers. Generally this is the Nostr design as well, so we have 3 different teams all focusing on the same natively decentralized architecture patterns.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    Is any of these apps good for phone calls or video calls, or just text messages?

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  • [–] 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 child)

    At this rate Canada would probably ban anything they can't get records from eventually if it got popular enough. I hate this timeline.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (2 children)

    And Canada is supposed to be “the good guys”.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    I started self-hosting xmpp recently, and the calls work perfectly! You don't need to self-host either, there are plenty of public servers.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 days ago (1 child)

    I tried XMPP but could not find a client that let me have a "video call" where I could share my screen without also needing a webcam. Or even have a video call where not everyone is forced to have a video flux. As far as I can tell an audio call cannot be turned into a video call for 1 streamer.

    Like in Discord where one want to share its screen while playing. XNPP was my biggest hope to replace Discord with my friend but I either did not find the correct client or the ecosystem is not mature enough (or oriented in the direction I expected).

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  • [–] 3 points 6 days ago (1 child)

    Yeah, screensharing is not a thing in most clients, but I think it's a matter of time (years?) before it's properly implemented. In the meantime, you can use jitsi meet? Not sure if it covers your use case. I'll just copy this reddit comment, which has some good info:

    Yes, it’s possible, but with some limitations. For video calls between a Linux and a Windows client using ejabberd, you need an XMPP client that supports WebRTC. Some options: • Dino (Linux) – Supports video calls but no screen sharing. • Gajim (Linux/Windows) – Can do video calls with plugins, but no screen sharing. • Jitsi (XMPP mode) – Supports WebRTC and screen sharing but requires a separate Jitsi server. Since most XMPP clients don’t natively support screen sharing, you have two main options: 1. Use Jitsi Meet, which integrates with XMPP and allows both video calls and screen sharing. 2. Use OBS VirtualCam (on Windows) to share the screen as a “camera” in a video call. If you want a fully functional setup with both video calls and screen sharing, setting up Jitsi Meet with ejabberd is the best approach.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Arcane chat (a delta chat client) offers video/audio calls as well

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  • [–] 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)
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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    I think it is. I don't remember seeing it before.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (1 child)

    The arcane chat dev is a fucking shit head so knowing delta chat has video chat as well will definitely make me go back to it.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 week ago

    It's been in DC for a few versions now, we've used a combination of: macOS desktop, Android mobile, Linux desktop, iOS Mobile - and haven't had problems more than usual getting apps access to the cam/mic on macOS.

    They just dropped DC 2.57.0, it hit F-Droid and Arch repos in my morning updates. An update to the relay code was also dropped, 1.12.0, for relay operators.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago (1 child)
  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago

    Briar fits into it's own niche (operational design), making it a choice for certain activities but not what I would call your general normie chat app. It makes tradeoffs (using the local network, no caching relays, etc.) to increase security posture at the expense of general use. IIRC, Jack Dorsey's BitChat was modeled after the same designs? (which is interesting, because Nostr his other pet doesn't)

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (1 child)

    Simplex is a dog though compared to Signal.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 week ago

    I haven't tried SimpleX yet, as they can't share the same profile to multiple devices (it's explained in detail in the FAQ) which makes it a normie usability deal killer. I've heard it has really bad battery life on mobile too, but that's just reading random comments. Right now we're using Delta (and running a relay) and it's just fine.

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