
Public XMPP Server Directory - tshtf
https://xmpp.net/directory.php
======
LeoPanthera
I've been running my own XMPP server for years, with federation enabled. A few
years ago, it seemed like the logical successor to AIM and MSN and all those
other walled garden IM systems. And how easy! My XMPP "name" was the same as
my email address. One less thing to put on my business card.

But since then, I have realised a big problem with it - no-one uses it! Today
I communicate with the world by iMessage, SMS, Twitter, and email. "Instant
messaging" just seems to have died as a concept entirely, replaced by yet more
walled gardens like Snapchat.

My XMPP server is being turned off for good, next week.

~~~
scintill76
I've also been running my own federated XMPP server for a few years. To my
dismay I discovered about a month ago, that a Gmail user on the "new Hangouts
UI" never saw me as online. I could send them messages but they just got
dumped into an "email"-looking message within Gmail, which I don't think even
registered as unread. You'd have to go looking to find it at all. I think they
could send me messages, but why would they if I never appear to be online? If
the Gmail user reverted to the "old chat", things seemed to work as expected.
They're nice enough to let you toggle between them for now, but my friend said
only the new interface allows free SMSing or something.

Don't take my word too heavily, as this was just what I saw in a quick test
with one Gmail account of my own. But I decided if Google is going to
basically hellban me, and since almost all of my contacts are on Gmail anyway,
I'd just transition to a Gmail account to talk to them. I only have one
contact that's not on Gmail, and it's an acquaintance I'll probably not talk
to again. Maybe I'll keep the server running just for decentralized geek-cred.
At least Google is nice enough to let me use a desktop client, for now.

I also noticed Google doesn't seem to support encryption on federated chats. I
guess the proper solution is something like OTR anyway, but that was
disappointing to see.

~~~
takeda
Why no one created a transport for hangouts? This is how XMPP conquered msn,
aol, yim and others, and could once again become popular.

Is communication with hangouts much harder?

~~~
McGlockenshire
Hard isn't the right word - it seems to not currently be officially possible.
There is no documented interface for communication with users on Hangouts. Not
even XMPP is supposed to work, though I and some other users are still able to
use it.

The only API available is for building applications that interact with the
existing Hangouts UI.

~~~
ianlevesque
AIM (OSCAR) was never officially possible either. Reverse engineering has a
long history in IM clients.

------
legulere
XMPP is dead. The only people you can reach over XMPP are technically minded
people and you can already reach more of them via IRC. XMPP didn't manage to
spread. It's over.

~~~
mrmondo
I think you may feel this as you don't see all the organisations that use XMPP
internally for their office communications and video conferencing. We use it
internally, we have rooms for each department and some group rooms that are
very active - when a new person starts with us they often comment how good it
is to have a functional internal chat system. We have OTR encryption for
confidential exchanges such as providing users with passwords and developers
with SQL from databases etc...

~~~
ktt
Would you mind sharing which XMPP client do you use?

~~~
mrmondo
Yeah we use Adium which we've found to be fantastic especially when paired
with the OTR plugin.

~~~
ktt
Thanks!

------
spiralpolitik
Plenty of places use XMPP, they just end up running it over some proprietary
transport protocol so it doesn't interoperate with anything else. Federated
XMPP on the other hand is dead with its eulogy delivered by Google.

------
shmerl
Situation with instant messaging is still a huge mess. Especially with Google
deserting XMPP efforts. I lost majority of my contacts after this Hangouts
fiasco. Everyone should thank Eric Schmidt for this.

