Of the Air (cele/celes)

shocked pikachu face

Tech obsessives, tech obsessing

Captitalists capitalising.

Yes, this is why we use matrix over IRC due to e2ee. PGP last we checked doesn’t have PFS, sadly.

We remember when we used IRC having to remember all those silly commands for nick bots wasn’t exactly good UX.

We said that we don’t use Discord/Slack for that reason, so yes, we are disgusted by them too.

Because none of the examples you listed have end-to-end encryption with perfect forward secrecy for one, including IRC. Also, IRC specifically is very confusing to even make a username on and keep it, let alone know how to do anything else on.

We have never used Discord or Slack, specifically because they don’t have e2ee, but at least they have, from what we understand, a pretty simple sign up process and good UI/UX.

Too bad a lot of it is using LLM/Machine Learning instead of actual work.

Sure!

They mean that stories are hidden away in a tab rather than up at the top which would be clearly visible at all times, like other messaging apps do it.

Oof, yeah IRC is awful and sadly we’re forced to use some things that still use IRC to communicate and we’re not really sure why. There does seem to be a derth of users that have moved with the times in leadership positions of important projects.

We have seen it recently with some things we use and we hope it strongly forces them to consider being wrong or that it blows up in their faces. Because yeah, we agree if you’re not moving with the times you will hemorage contributors and then you’ll only be left with the ‘old guard’ or worse people (such as fascists not that two aren’t the same many time, heh).

Also, Mozilla is just a really poorly run company to begin with and needs some serious restructuring and to stop doing things that serves only itself and not its users. If it genuinely cared about its users and allowed direct donations to firefox perhaps folks would have fewer problems with it.

Sure, we are happy to help!

That’s fair, although really that’s unfortunately because from what we know of there’s no really good cross platform languages/toolkits etc, so usually we do have to end up with some half-assed solution or folks having to maintain multiple native code bases. Either situation isn’t ideal, but until something that provides the option for genuine security and native looks that works well across all platforms is developed we’ll be kind of stuck.

Oh, sad. Hopefully we can kick up enough of a fuss to evetually get it moved. We don’t know if we agree entirely that developing for only one demographic is always the best idea, but more demographics should be considered for sure, yeah.

No, cele/celes are third person pronouns, not second person, our second person pronouns are y’all etc.

Sadly it won’t meet and/all of your requirements, it is pretty barebones on features and doesn’t really offer message syncing, you have to create a new account for every device, last we checked.

What do you mean cross platform apps are bullshit?

We don’t think more and more messaging apps solves anything really, it just fractures userbases more and more. The best thing folks can do is use the apps that are the most likely for folks to use and work on improving them either by coding for them, or keeping on suggesting and voting for ideas until they get implimented.

Moving again and again to newest app of the week 562 won’t make the situation any better, not to mention most of them probably haven’t had security audits at all or very sparsely if they have, so their privacy and security can’t really be verified.

Signal doesn’t lack group video calls. It can support video calling up to 40 devices at once.

3, 4, 5 and 11.

Not sure about 1 as we run it on our tablet so it definetly can be linked to other devices but we aren’t sure how many.

7 can be done by linking devices, so not sure what is meant by this.

Edit: ah, okay, so seems the Signal app itself cannot be linked to multiple Android devices, including tablets, that’s pretty bad. The Molly fork can work as a linked devices though, however Signal only supports linking 5 devices at the same time.

Yup, all the ‘more private’ ones like SimpleX or Session don’t have as many features and are have pretty suspicious funding sources (or involved in crypto).

WhatsApp might be private but there’s no way to be 100% sure, since it’s closed source and can leak some messages in reports which is intentional.

Yes and no about Signal supporting multiple Android devices, the Molly fork might be able to if you set it up as a linked device, and we know that apple tablets can be linked in the actual Signal app.

Matrix should not be considered as their security has been pretty bad until recently (they intentionally shipped bad code and knew about it for years): https://soatok.blog/2024/08/14/security-issues-in-matrixs-olm-library/ and many clients still use that bad code.

Threema has been pretty bad historically: https://soatok.blog/2021/11/05/threema-three-strikes-youre-out and their desktop offering is not one-to-one with the mobile apps, it’s pretty limited in what it can do and has to have a device connected to the network at all times, open on the app and unlocked with the screen on.

The only thing that fits most of your needs is Signal, we have looked into this heavily and nothing has as many features, is as easy to use as and has a strong of focus on privacy and security as Signal, so it’s either that or Whatsapp.

You can techically use signal on multiple devices, by linking them instead of setting them up as each their own ‘host’, if you want it on multiple phones or multiple android devices you’ll likely have to use Molly, I believe this would work, but am unsure.

Matrix should not be considered because of this:

https://soatok.blog/2024/08/14/security-issues-in-matrixs-olm-library/

and Threema is pretty bad historically ( https://soatok.blog/2021/11/05/threema-three-strikes-youre-out/ ), even though they have improved in the last year or two, but their desktop offering is pretty awful, as unless you want to use the beta and use iOS then you have to keep your device attached to the network, on and open on Threema only.

Signal really is the only option here.

We would not recommend Matrix for security considering the recently admitted their old encryption code was bad and a lot of clients are still using their old encryption code:

https://soatok.blog/2024/08/14/security-issues-in-matrixs-olm-library/