💾 Archived View for sdf.org › mutoshack › log › im.gmi captured on 2023-09-28 at 16:53:49. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2021-12-03)
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june 1, 2021
I don't really do a lot of messaging, mostly cause I don't
really have long-term friendos for that sort of thing, but I
still want a good instant messaging service for business and
casual use! Right now we have a few contestants, but they
all have their drawbacks...
XMPP is probably my favourite here. It supports groups and
direct messages, and it has good clients such as:
The main problem with XMPP is that it revolves around
community standards that not everyone agrees on. For
example, I want my server to store messages, so that I can
view my messages on multiple devices. Lots of servers don't
do this, probably for privacy reasons, but I appreciate it
when they store my texts!
I haven't used Matrix much, but barely any of the clients
worked when I tried it, and people say that the flagship
server implementation is SUPER heavy and can't be run on
low-Hz hardware.
Aside from those two things, Matrix looks like it could be
really cozy. We'll see how it turns out.
IRC is simple and cute, but it lacks a LOT of stuff like
multi-line messages, replies, images, and formatting. It's
not intuitive for new users, and it just has that overall
clunky "I was made in the 80's and kinda stuck" vibe.
I know I'm dissing the protocol quite a bit here, and I do
love IRC, it's just not a /proper/ solution to textual
communication.
I spend so much time trying to find an email system that
works, and so much more time tweaking that system to fit me
perfectly.
As fun as it is to mess with email, it's not that great.
Lots of clients send HTML mail, and there's no "did ya get
it?" "yup! I got it!" handshake between servers.
Also ports, protocols, MTA's, MUA's, MRA's, storage methods,
and encryption is all really confusing, and isn't really a
solution for modern computer users who possibly don't enjoy
wasting their life in configuration.
Cabal is a P2P IRC-like messaging service, which SONUDS
adorable but I never used it.
The flagship client is in JS, and NPM never works on my
machine, so I wasn't able to use it.
I wonder what else there was, or what there will be. I'm
excited because it feels like we're finally headed to
"Decentralized communication for the masses" now, which
would be rad!
anyway time to stop ranting...