I mean they did also inject affiliate links without the users noticing which is really shady behaviour from a browser because it has one job, open the link I click and nothing else. But that’s just IMHO if that is acceptable for you personally then there is no issue with that.

I never actually tried myself, but it seems like the documentation certainly could be improved. I saw that they provide a Docker compose, so perhaps that could be of help if you didn’t use that the last time around. They are currently in the process of cleaning up the projects to make things more maintainable and easier to get an overview, so let’s hope things might improve a bit. I think for me personally, this certainly seems like the most promising Discord replacement because it feels like a set and get solution for non-techy people trying to switch instead of relearning everything like with Matrix.

Revolt is self-hostable. It isn’t E2EE but if you’re controlling the users anyways transport encryption should be enough since you have control over the data anyway.

I don‘t think you understand my point. Let me be a bit more high level. It’s not about the three major outages WhatsApp had this year for like 30 mins. or whatever.

A perfectly set up Matrix server with more than enough resources allocated has issues decrypting messages when there’s a few hundred people and that’s without federation. This is still happening to today, fully updated server and clients.

As I said, I know they are working with a lot less resources than Meta. But at the moment the implementation doesn’t even do the most basic thing, deliver messages reliably. I know their new encryption library is supposed to do a better job but it’s just the cold hard truth that it’s not up there with the big messengers yet. Denying that doesn’t do the project any good.

Matrix does definitely not have the same reliability as WhatsApp or Signal. I’ve used it for around 3 years now with a group of tech savvy friends.

It’s still a regular occurrence that we get cannot decrypt errors, sometimes the app doesn’t show new messages in the chat but they are visible in the preview, also the app can be soooo slow.

Also, I know it’s not user error. If you check the Matrix development and follow their blog posts they already acknowledged the issues and are working on fixes. But for now it’s just wishful thinking when one calls them reliable alternatives for mainstream use. I’m not hating and will keep using the project because I truly think they are doing amazing work.

Sure, I agree. The problem is (and I’m sorry Matrix fans) but decentralised services don’t cut it for messaging at the moment. I’m on multiple Matrix instances which I use for different groups. One more tech savvy than the other, but still. Message can not be decrypted, or toggling one wrong switch and all messages become unreadable without you knowing. I would absolutely not have been able to switch 90% of my contacts to Signal if that were the experience.

Centralisation does not inherently have to be bad and Signal has been operating with good faith for many years now. I don’t see them selling out anytime soon and I think they are our best shot at a good FOSS instant messaging contender for the broad masses.

I really dig Signal‘s new long-sleeves. Depending what aspect of FOSS you like this might be something for you: https://shop.signal.org/

So someone already mentioned this, but there is this list I maintain on Codeberg: https://codeberg.org/RayJW/awesome-foss

There is also this website which is pretty neat if you’re searching for an alternative for a specific software: https://www.opensourcealternative.to/

Hot take: but I think it makes sense. If anyone would pay for a closed source editor it’s mac developers hence it made sense to chose that as your first platform to support, especially considering that they are a small startup. I don’t use mac either but I think they made the right choice from a business standpoint when they were still closed source.

I mean if a class action lawsuit is enough documentation, then here you go: https://www.npr.org/2023/12/30/1222268415/google-settles-5-billion-privacy-lawsuit

This is actually why they implemented this new disclaimer.

I don’t use the official app. However if you would like to try out Ice Cubes that would be another fully open-source and free as in beer and speech app which has trending hashtags, trending posts, and suggested users in it’s search tab.

The algorithms it uses are pretty simple and fully auditable. I think it’s mostly just tags with the most posts in the 24 hours etc. Discovering important news like back in the days on Twitter works the same with this feature.

What a shame… this was the chance to finally get rid of this cancerous herbicide and now we’re stuck with it for another ten years it seems. If you want more information and / or voice your disagreement there is this petition with more than 2.5 million signatures.