Best Messaging client for pinephone? (arch-phosh)

[pineuser0]

I've looked into using signal in anbox, but I feel that going through an android environment, 'simulated' or not, has its dangers and non-GNU/linux aspects.

What are the most private and secure messaging clients for pinephone?

I'm currently mostly using the phone without a sim card, so the messages would be mostly through wifi rather that cell data.

[Nooblife]

I honestly wouldn't recommend anything atm. If you prefer signal you can use Axolotl, but it's not 100% reliable. You can also use matrix bridging to get the messages to your phone, but that requires that you host the service yourself (or pay for it) and it only works as a secondary device. Matrix and Telegram are the only modern solutions that works half decent imo, but Matrix is more complicated for non tech users, and Telegram isn't that secure/private.

[RonaMacGuffin]

Maybe look at this.

https://matrix.org/

[cabbie001]

I have had success installing gajim, but you need to first create a valid XMPP account with a server such as jabber.today.
(https://xmpp.org/getting-started/)
And your contacts must also have an XMPP account ID (username@[xmpp-domain]) but they don't have to be using gajim; they can using any number of clients on Desktops, or Android/iOS devices. Too bad it's so complicated.

[ryo]

I'd say Gajim.
Lightweight client for a lightweight protocol, can't go wrong.
Telegram of course has more users, but it's not as private, secure, and censorship resistant as many of its user claim it to be, and on top you must have an Android or iOS app in order to register an account, and on top of that you must have a phone number, all of which is a big no-no to me (except for the more users part of course).

As for Matrix, the problem is that every single GUI client is either overly bloated, or has no E2EE support (yet), it's always either of the 2 ironically.
Same problem exists on the server side; choice between either bloated software, or no encryption.

---

I honestly wouldn't recommend anything atm. If you prefer signal you can use Axolotl, but it's not 100% reliable. You can also use matrix bridging to get the messages to your phone, but that requires that you host the service yourself (or pay for it) and it only works as a secondary device. Matrix and Telegram are the only modern solutions that works half decent imo, but Matrix is more complicated for non tech users, and Telegram isn't that secure/private.

To be honest, the difference in difficulty between Matrix and Discord is kinda equal to the difference in difficulty between Mastodon and Twitter.
In other words, the only "hard" thing is that you're dealing with a decentralized and federated protocol rather than a centralized platform.
Even then, I'd not really say it's a "hard" thing, but rather a new concept people have to get used to when coming from a centralized platform.

[Nooblife]

Sure, I'm not saying we have any trouble with it, but converting friends and family to matrix is more work than i feel comfortable with.

I've used matrix with bridging and that worked great. When push notifications work properly i'll start using a signal bridging again.

[ryo]

Sure, I'm not saying we have any trouble with it, but converting friends and family to matrix is more work than i feel comfortable with.

I've used matrix with bridging and that worked great. When push notifications work properly i'll start using a signal bridging again.

It's not really hard to convert people technologically.
All you need is tell them what client to use and how to make an account (or if you run the server, you can just create accounts for them).
I did this with my parents before, and they can use XMPP just fine.
Both are elderly.

I think the hard part is to motivate them to use it at all.
I found pretty much all my friends are unwilling to spend 20 seconds to install a client and set up an account on yet another chat system.
It took quite a bunch of missed calls on LINE (because it requires Gulag services to receive notifications) for them to finally look into XMPP.

[Nooblife]

Sure, I'm not saying we have any trouble with it, but converting friends and family to matrix is more work than i feel comfortable with.

I've used matrix with bridging and that worked great. When push notifications work properly i'll start using a signal bridging again.

It's not really hard to convert people technologically.
All you need is tell them what client to use and how to make an account (or if you run the server, you can just create accounts for them).
I did this with my parents before, and they can use XMPP just fine.
Both are elderly.

I think the hard part is to motivate them to use it at all.
I found pretty much all my friends are unwilling to spend 20 seconds to install a client and set up an account on yet another chat system.
It took quite a bunch of missed calls on LINE (because it requires Gulag services to receive notifications) for them to finally look into XMPP.

yeah that's true, but it's still more "complicated" than signal/telegram.  BTW is there a matrix client that can do push notifications on the pinephone? I want it to wake my phone/blink the led when a message is recieved. I've tried multiple apps and nothing happens before i manually wake the phone, with or without crust.

[3np]

As for Matrix, the problem is that every single GUI client is either overly bloated, or has no E2EE support (yet), it's always either of the 2 ironically.
Same problem exists on the server side; choice between either bloated software, or no encryption.

Have you shopped around recently? gomuks is lightweight and decently feature-complete. You shouldn't have to compromise on encryption at all. The client situation continues to improve.

For closed devices, fluffychat has been getting popular as well.

As for the server-side, dendrite's getting ready to be production-ready and conduit will get there as well.

IMO XMPP and Matrix are the only two satisfactory and realistic solutions for IM. Compared to the status quo, I am happy with either. So it makes sense to have a client  for both, and then you can prefer and default whichever after having tried both. Personally that'll be Matrix, but I'll always accept XMPP. We need to meet somewhere.

And BTW, having your main Signal account through the bridge has been supported for a long time now. It bridges with signald.

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BTW is there a matrix client that can do push notifications on the pinephone? I want it to wake my phone/blink the led when a message is recieved. I've tried multiple apps and nothing happens before i manually wake the phone, with or without crust.

Some pointers in this thread: https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=14564

[ryo]

Have you shopped around recently? gomuks is lightweight and decently feature-complete. You shouldn't have to compromise on encryption at all. The client situation continues to improve.

For closed devices, fluffychat has been getting popular as well.

As for the server-side, dendrite's getting ready to be production-ready and conduit will get there as well.

IMO XMPP and Matrix are the only two satisfactory and realistic solutions for IM. Compared to the status quo, I am happy with either. So it makes sense to have a client  for both, and then you can prefer and default whichever after having tried both. Personally that'll be Matrix, but I'll always accept XMPP. We need to meet somewhere.

And BTW, having your main Signal account through the bridge has been supported for a long time now. It bridges with signald.

I think I was a little bit too general here.
I tried gomuks before, nice TUI app, but the lack of being able to upload files (at least through copy/paste) made me stop using it.
Other than that, I really liked it.

As for Fluffychat, last time I used it, the font was all squares only.
Installed it again to check, seems like they're getting close to fixing it.


I'm waiting for Dentrite to implement encryption, are you aware of any advances in this regard?

As for a client that allows you to use both, the first thing that comes to mind is Pidgin, although there's no OTR (encryption used in Matrix) support yet.
Both are open source standards, so eventually we'll have a fully featured client that handles both.
The KDE team is creating 2 separate clients for each of them, would have made more sense to have them both in 1.

Matrix has lots of potential, but there are still red flags (most of its users are on Matrix.org, Matrix.org uses CloudFlare and Google reCaptcha, meta data leakages, 1 company dictates the direction of Matrix rather than letting a grassroots community make it flow naturally etc).
I do appreciate the efforts they make fixing those issues, but for now I'd consider XMPP to be the PeerTube of chat protocols, while Matrix would be the Odysee of chat protocols; so either completely decentralized with no authority involved but fewer users and older, or 1 major flagship centralized platform with pretty much everyone on it on top of a decentralized protocol but more users and newer.