>Telegram is great if you like shiny native features like stickers and having lightweight native clients, but at everything else Telegram is at risk of losing in the long-term.
Whatever ends up winning is going to need:
- Native clients on all major platforms
- Full support for all the fun little extra's like emoji's, reactions, gifs, file transfers etc.
- True multi-device support that doesn't require any sort of forwarding from another device
- Group chats
- Searchable history
- Your full history to automatically load when you log in on a new device (manually transferring isn't going to be an acceptable solution)
- No concept of selecting a server or anything. Users need to be able to just log in with a username/password and carry on.
- E2E encryption that doesn't sacrifice the user experience
Anything missing from this list? Also, does Matrix support all of that? Last time I checked Matrix out it seemed clunky and confusing (especially for non-technical users) and it was missing a ton of the 'basics' that people expect out of a chat app.
I think I can speak to how Matrix deviates from your list:
- There are technically native clients on every platform, so best kind of correct? However, the "official/main/most popular" client is Electron on Desktop. Partial credit?
- Yup
- Yup, even when using E2E, which is a hell of an accomplishment. You transfer keys from other devices, but not entire messages.
- Yup. E2E or not, your choice.
- Searchable history plus E2E is... hard, to say the least. Some clients will index your conversations while they happen, but that's obviously not the perfect solution. That said, the APIs are so open that I've written python scripts before that download and search entire rooms. It would be possible for a client to do the same, though I don't think any do. Non-encrypted rooms are trivial to search, or course.
- This as well. As before, keys transfer from other devices, messages load from the server.
- This seems like it was engineered to exclude Matrix. The default in every client is matrix.org, and there's no reason you ever need to change it if you're not concerned with it. In fact, most clients make it a couple clicks to change it (https://app.element.io/#/login).
- Not totally sure this is possible, but Matrix comes very close. On par with Signal, though with different tradeoffs (stored history, for example).
- The native clients for Matrix suck. Even the mobile clients for Matrix are full of bugs.
- No custom emojis; every chat application known to man has regular emojis supported in UTF-8, so the author must be talking about custom ones. Which Matrix still does not have: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/pull/1951
- I don't think doing what PGP does is really impressive, but okay, fine, one point.
- Matrix group chats are broken and this is why Synapse eats resources like a bear.
- No searchable history on all but one Electron client on one platform when using E2E is terrible, and further supports the argument that all clients suck.
- Point; this is pretty convenient.
- XMPP sucks. Matrix is modern XMPP. People don't like getting confused with servers and similar nonsense, and when your homeserver goes down, you're out of luck. Federation sucks. The question wasn't made to exclude Matrix, it was made to point out that federation sucks. Matrix didn't invent federation; it chose it long after it failed.
- E2E degrades experience greatly. To list my two biggest complaints: It ruins search for all but one client, and the UX around keys is terrible. I frequently have conversations with incredibly technical people and they'll still get absolutely stumped by the UX around keys, because it's awful.
Two out of eight isn't bad.
I use Matrix every day. I have for years; long before the recent rebrand, and multiple presidents have vacated office since I started using Matrix. I love Matrix. But there's no reason to act like it's some golden goose when there are problems from 2015 that are no closer to being fixed than they were at the time. It's a comfortable protocol for usage by people who have powerful computers. For everyone else, it still isn't great.
> - I don't think doing what PGP does is really impressive, but okay, fine, one point.
it's more than PGP, it includes variable PFS, automatic key exchanges
> - Matrix group chats are broken and this is why Synapse eats resources like a bear.
I have heard it's because Synapse is a proof of concept that went into production
> Federation sucks. The question wasn't made to exclude Matrix, it was made to point out that federation sucks. Matrix didn't invent federation; it chose it long after it failed.
I disagree. Federation is a burden, but it enables interoperability between independent parties.
> But there's no reason to act like it's some golden goose when there are problems from 2015 that are no closer to being fixed than they were at the time.
There's also no reason to do the same thing into the other direction.
Signal seems to have everything you listed except for the full history transferring to a new device (works on Android but not as well with iOS). Though like you implied, it is done manually. I'm still not convinced that this can be done without making major sacrifices to security because I really do want a trustless system where my messages aren't stored on a company's servers (I am okay with optional backups though, so there's a middleground).
> No concept of selecting a server or anything.
This has been one of the big concepts that has bugged me with Matrix. It also is why I'm confused with why people pit Matrix vs Signal. Honestly I see Signal/WhatsApp/iMessage/WeChat as competitors whereas Matrix/Slack/Teams/IRC is a different ecosystem. But I can't get my parents or grandma to use something like Matrix (or even Slack) but they are able to use things in the former category. In fact, this has been one of the great successes of WhatsApp (looking at India with all the aunties and uncles using WA or China with WeChat).
> Anything missing from this list?
- Pinned messaging
- Other class of extras/plugins: on-device translation, calendar reminders, etc
Pinning messages is important for search, but seems to be overlooked frequently (I use this a lot in slack). I often know something is important and need to find it again in a day or two (e.g. traveling) but will also be talking with the other person and that message gets pushed. Pinning lightens the load of searching. It also lightens the load of backups as most people truly want a very small subset of their messages saved but are only aware of an all or nothing approach.
Plugins will be important as well. To complement pinning calendar reminders are great. Google does stuff like this frequently like when you get an email about a flight and then your phone's home screen will have all the information on it. It's also naive to think that you can think of all the things people would want. That's why smartphones have been so successful, because they provide the ecosystem. This isn't too dissimilar from creating a super app. But there's none where the ecosystem is fully secure.
> Signal/WhatsApp/iMessage/WeChat as competitors whereas Matrix/Slack/Teams/IRC is a different ecosystem. But I can't get my parents or grandma to use something like Matrix
I can't get why people need to put Matrix in either Box.
It's a communication protocol.
Client UX is completely independent, like you can have K9Mail and Thunderbird
I agree that it's a great option, but unfortunately it's also not secure at all. You're what, one SIM swap away from having your whole chat history owned?
If you can do recent history, you can probably do the full history.
I personally search my deep history regularly. I might be looking for a recipe, link, someones contact information, an address... There are many reasons having the full history available is important, and "losing" it by getting a new device is a terrible user experience.
Whatever ends up winning is going to need:
Anything missing from this list? Also, does Matrix support all of that? Last time I checked Matrix out it seemed clunky and confusing (especially for non-technical users) and it was missing a ton of the 'basics' that people expect out of a chat app.