Our great sponsors
-
Signal-Server
Server supporting the Signal Private Messenger applications on Android, Desktop, and iOS
-
-
WorkOS
The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS. The APIs are flexible and easy-to-use, supporting authentication, user identity, and complex enterprise features like SSO and SCIM provisioning.
-
-
-
matrix-docker-ansible-deploy
🐳 Matrix (An open network for secure, decentralized communication) server setup using Ansible and Docker
-
-
libsignal
Home to the Signal Protocol as well as other cryptographic primitives which make Signal possible.
-
InfluxDB
Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale. Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.
-
signal-cli
signal-cli provides an unofficial commandline, JSON-RPC and dbus interface for the Signal messenger.
-
-
-
All of the code was released today. Up until earlier today, the most recent public commit on the repo was https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server/commit/3432529f9c... , the commit immediately prior to the previously unseen https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server/commit/95f0ce1816... "Support for advertising payment addresses on profile"
It looks like they are, but there might be a minor issue in verifying the content: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/10476
But despite best efforts by the community to verify builds, Google and Apple can be forced to upload a malicious app to a particular user, meaning they aren't using the same app at all.
Current numbers re: adoption were discussed in Status' most recent Town Hall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98wsQe6hHHs&t=365s
As for dev support: Status has teams of full-time devs working on various projects related to the mobile[1] and desktop[2] (beta) apps, as well projects that are related to the larger Ethereum ecosystem, e.g. nimbus-eth2[3]. Our teams aren't particularly large, but are working steadily to squash bugs and add/improve features. We also have teams dedicated to UX and design.
[1] https://github.com/status-im/status-react
[2] https://github.com/status-im/status-desktop
[3] https://github.com/status-im/nimbus-eth2
Telegram offers APIs and libraries that allow you to create clients for any platform [0].
[0] https://core.telegram.org/tdlib
Been using it for a while now, mostly through bridges. e2ee works pretty much seamlessly now, as does the entire federation thing. Cross-device verification is simple; manual fingerprint comparisons have been replaced by the simple emoji comparison screens also found in other apps.
If you don't want to bother setting up a server (and power to you, because server maintenance is annoying) just register with any open Matrix server you deem reliable enough. The matrix.org one is (obviously) pretty popular. As an end user, the federation stuff is no different from your average email address; there's a domain you store your stuff on and send your stuff through, that server is part of your address. If you make an account with a service provider that goes down, your messages disappear, same thing as would happen if Gmail or iCloud would take their servers down.
If you want the security of your domain but none of the hassle of managing a server, you can get managed Matrix servers from different providers these days [0]. Just get your own domain like normal, so your address will always be your own property and you can take it somewhere else if you really need to, and point the domain records at the servers of your provider.
If you do want to set up a server and join the Matrix network, there's an Ansible playbook [1] that'll set everything up on your server. You can also use the complete guide [2] if you want to manage everything manually. If you have any trouble getting federation to work, there's a nice diagnostic utility [3] that can help you identify the most common problems.
Alternative client are coming along nicely now, as well. For the longest time, encryption support was missing from the major ones (with "solutions" like running a pantalaimon instance in the mean time), but e2ee support has been added to most clients now. The only fully-featured client without encryption support I've come across has been GNOME's Fractal. On mobile, Fluffychat [4] has been working well for me, and on desktop Element [5] has been working well, too.
TL;DR: go to https://app.element.io/#/register, pick a username, and give it a try in your browser. You can join a bunch of the bridged IRC servers to get a feel of the conversation flow if you have no contacts on Matrix.
[0]: https://matrix.org/hosting/
[1]: https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy
[2]: https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/blob/master/INSTALL.md
[3]: https://federationtester.matrix.org/
[4]: https://fluffychat.im/en/
[5]: https://element.io/get-started
Been using it for a while now, mostly through bridges. e2ee works pretty much seamlessly now, as does the entire federation thing. Cross-device verification is simple; manual fingerprint comparisons have been replaced by the simple emoji comparison screens also found in other apps.
If you don't want to bother setting up a server (and power to you, because server maintenance is annoying) just register with any open Matrix server you deem reliable enough. The matrix.org one is (obviously) pretty popular. As an end user, the federation stuff is no different from your average email address; there's a domain you store your stuff on and send your stuff through, that server is part of your address. If you make an account with a service provider that goes down, your messages disappear, same thing as would happen if Gmail or iCloud would take their servers down.
If you want the security of your domain but none of the hassle of managing a server, you can get managed Matrix servers from different providers these days [0]. Just get your own domain like normal, so your address will always be your own property and you can take it somewhere else if you really need to, and point the domain records at the servers of your provider.
If you do want to set up a server and join the Matrix network, there's an Ansible playbook [1] that'll set everything up on your server. You can also use the complete guide [2] if you want to manage everything manually. If you have any trouble getting federation to work, there's a nice diagnostic utility [3] that can help you identify the most common problems.
Alternative client are coming along nicely now, as well. For the longest time, encryption support was missing from the major ones (with "solutions" like running a pantalaimon instance in the mean time), but e2ee support has been added to most clients now. The only fully-featured client without encryption support I've come across has been GNOME's Fractal. On mobile, Fluffychat [4] has been working well for me, and on desktop Element [5] has been working well, too.
TL;DR: go to https://app.element.io/#/register, pick a username, and give it a try in your browser. You can join a bunch of the bridged IRC servers to get a feel of the conversation flow if you have no contacts on Matrix.
[0]: https://matrix.org/hosting/
[1]: https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy
[2]: https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/blob/master/INSTALL.md
[3]: https://federationtester.matrix.org/
[4]: https://fluffychat.im/en/
[5]: https://element.io/get-started
> It's practically a principle of the Signal project to discourage third-party clients
It depends on what you call "client". At the protocol level sure, you're supposed to behave just like any official client. But to do that you just have to use their client library[0] and implement whatever you want on top of this, like signal-cli[1] has been doing successfully for quite some time now.
Some forks exist here and there (from memory, there's one with WhatsApp import, another with UI features), there's just no interest for a completely new client. There's only so much space for innovation for what is mostly a messaging app.
To be fair, the absence of an API (which Telegram has) also limits possibilities.
[0]: https://github.com/signalapp/libsignal-client
Interestingly, this brand-new custom coin they're using is not Proof-of-Work or Proof-of-Stake.
> The MobileCoin Consensus Protocol avoids the environmentally-damaging mathematical “work” required by Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus protocols like Bitcoin and realizes a much higher transaction rate than the Bitcoin consensus protocol. In contrast to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus protocols, practical control of governance in MCP is ceded to the users who are trusted the most by the extended MobileCoin community, rather than to the wealthiest users who control the largest financial stakes.
https://github.com/mobilecoinfoundation/mobilecoin/tree/mast...
Current numbers re: adoption were discussed in Status' most recent Town Hall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98wsQe6hHHs&t=365s
As for dev support: Status has teams of full-time devs working on various projects related to the mobile[1] and desktop[2] (beta) apps, as well projects that are related to the larger Ethereum ecosystem, e.g. nimbus-eth2[3]. Our teams aren't particularly large, but are working steadily to squash bugs and add/improve features. We also have teams dedicated to UX and design.
[1] https://github.com/status-im/status-react
[2] https://github.com/status-im/status-desktop
[3] https://github.com/status-im/nimbus-eth2
Current numbers re: adoption were discussed in Status' most recent Town Hall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98wsQe6hHHs&t=365s
As for dev support: Status has teams of full-time devs working on various projects related to the mobile[1] and desktop[2] (beta) apps, as well projects that are related to the larger Ethereum ecosystem, e.g. nimbus-eth2[3]. Our teams aren't particularly large, but are working steadily to squash bugs and add/improve features. We also have teams dedicated to UX and design.
[1] https://github.com/status-im/status-react
[2] https://github.com/status-im/status-desktop
[3] https://github.com/status-im/nimbus-eth2