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What are your opinions on Matrix? (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/privacyguides@lemmy.one
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I was sold on Matrix as a viable alternative to Discord but recently read this article which made it look not so good.

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[–] 2 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

"5 years after the creation of Matrix, and after 5 years of centrally receiving such a scandalous amount of users private data from their «decentralized» software, it was only after the mentioned report was published when the Matrix developers published some «privacy improvements» [13] addressing some of the revealed problems.

We have not read it."

This seems lazy to me. I haven't read the report but i'm also not the one writing an article bashing matrix. If i was I'd want to know whether my concerns are still valid, and as a reader i want to know whether the concerns they brought up still apply without having to read a whole other report

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    • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (2 children)

    That article is mostly FUD, but there are very good reasons to be sceptical of Matrix, as it is mostly driven by a VC funded for-profit company.

    If you are looking for a truly community driven and owned alternative, check out XMPP: https://joinjabber.org

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

    Yes the article is FUD and sloppy. This is what Matthew Hodgson (Arathorn) had to say about it:

    Talking of sloppiness, that hackea.org article is a huge steaming pile of FUD about Matrix.

    For what it’s worth, the team who came up with Matrix was originally based in two separate startups: one in the UK doing VoIP, one in France doing mobile dev. Both got acquired by Amdocs in 2010, but we ended up forming an independent “incubated startup” first to build telco apps, and then we came up with the idea of Matrix in ~2013. We then built out Matrix until 2017 when Amdocs killed our funding, having run out of patience for what amounted to generous FOSS philanthropy.

    We then set up New Vector (now Element) as an entirely independent UK/FR startup, and have received zero funding from Amdocs since. To be crystal clear: Amdocs has zero privileged influence or control over Matrix (or Element, for that matter), and has zero access to the Matrix servers we operate as Element. And besides - the whole point of Matrix is that you can and should run your own servers so you can pick who to trust, even if you don’t trust the project itself.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago*

    XMPP has issues such as rooms are not properly decentralised, not all clients support proper replys and you cant edit messages older then 1 message

    the servers are much lighter then matrix servers, conduit is quite light and fast compared to synapse but not as light as XMPP servers

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    • [–] 0 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    My main complaint about it is it just seems so resource heavy and complex for what it offers. It's nowhere near a viable alternative for Discord yet unless all you do is text chat.

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    • [–] 0 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Matrix is fine, just use end-to-end endcryption which is trivial to set up.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Theres a lot of metadata that's not encrypted in matrix, some of which goes to matrix.org no matter what server youre using.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    If your talking to someone and your both on a server that's not matrix.org no data gets sent to matrix.org

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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

    Except that the Element web-client also phones home to matrix/element mothership.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

    thats one check and just use another client :P and that doesnt send the messages in the room to matrix.org so that doesnt have anything to do with the comment I replied to

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    That is the nature of any federated protocol.

    E2EE works well enough within rooms and that is likely where private data is to be anyway. As long as you Matrix and assume that everyone can see your Matrix ID and room IDs you'll be okay.

    XMPP isn't any better in that regard.

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    • [–] 0 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

    Meh, I use it. I'll take it over Discord or Telegram any day. But I don't use it for anything that may be sensitive or anything involving IRL people.

    It's leaky. I remember all media were uploaded unencrypted and available over https, I don't know if it is still like that. Lots and lots of metadata out in the open. To be searchable you have to give your phone number to a centralized service. The protocol is overly complex, all messages live on all servers of everyone involved in the conversation, lots of duplication, but ActivityPub is like that too and we are on Lemmy...

    If I set my own stuff up, I prefer XMPP, and increasingly Simplex. If some project uses matrix, I have an account and will talk to them there.

    Overall I'm not a fan, but I don't outright hate it.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 child)

    You don't have to give them your phone number to be searchable, just use your matrix ID

    Files in encrypted rooms are encrypted

    Your not wrong about the metadata but xmpp leaks the same amount it just doesn't goto every server that has a user in the room

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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    No, to be searchable by your friends you have to attach your matrix ID to your phone number and upload it to an identity server, which anyone can run of course but which is useless unless its the new vector identity server. It's a central database of verified matrix IDs.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    you have to attach your matrix ID to your phone number

    Yes, this is FUD, it's not necessary, and entirely opt-in. Also you don't even need to connect to the identity server.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Yeah, you don't have to. But to be able to easily prove you are who you are to IRL people you will. And the decision tells you something about the product and protocol design.

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