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Fluxor as discord alternative? Thoughts? (fluxer.app)

submitted 2 days ago by Awoo@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net

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Asking because I value opinions here.

Personally I don't think anyone can influence what the general audience of chat users ultimately coalesces around. That's going to happen, and it's going to be out of anyone's control as people discuss and compare and decide which they prefer of the dozens of alternatives appearing.

This however looks interesting to me. I know it's not Matrix and thus not secure like everyone here wants. But it is fully open source and it is AGPLv3.

It feels like it's getting some traction and interest. If it has problems that anyone here can spot (besides the full encryption which isn't something the rest of the discord users looking to leave are going to demand), I am interested in hearing them.

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[–] spectre@hexbear.net 12 points 2 days ago (2 children)

matrix uses a security protocol that sometimes has an absolute meltdown, leading to people not being able to see or send certain messages once the encryption breaks. Good for secure messaging (because messages stay encrypted), but it is frustrating to deal with, and will turn people away (including me).
element doss not support multiple accounts and has no plan to do so. I hear that other apps may support it, but I'm not sure what the current status of that is.

Messaging particularly benefits from a smooth UX and I think matrix has accepted certain trade offs for the aspects it's strong in.

[–] lapis@hexbear.net 3 points 2 days ago

Matrix’s UX has a bit of friction, but that’s the cost of an open, federated, encrypted platform where you own your own encryption keys. Every closed-source, centralized alternative is very much a “trust me bro” situation when it comes to message encryption and backdoors.

Element sucks as a client, I always recommend FluffyChat or SchildiChat to first-timers. On desktop/web, Cinny and Commet are fantastic options for people who want a Discord-like UI.

[–] Inui@hexbear.net 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

I'm not an engineer or programmer so I'm ignorant, but I use Delta Chat as a Whatsapp replacement and its 500x less friction than Matrix when it comes to usability but also security. Everything is encrypted by default and it leaks much less metadata. I don't know what it is about their encryption implementation, but everything works in Delta, so I'm left to wonder what is their problem that they can't get a handle on this and also implement basic features people have asked for for years? When they do put them in, they make boneheaded decisions like defaulting to your camera on for Video Calls and no option to change defaults for on/off. Zoom has been sitting right there to copy these things from. If Signal is encrypted in any meaningful capacity and not backdoored, it also doesn't have any of the encryption issues Matrix users seem to run into.

[–] lapis@hexbear.net 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Delta Chat looks fascinating, it’s literally email-based with some extra bits and bobs to make it behave like chat software.

[–] Inui@hexbear.net 2 points 2 days ago

If anyone is checking it out, I recommend Arcane Chat for Android. It's from one of Delta developers but it's their own frontend. I use it on my phone and the regular Delta flatpak on my computer. Never any problems syncing.

[–] spectre@hexbear.net 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Right that's the vibe I have too. I've heard deltachat is a decent replacement for self-hosted messaging.

Edit: after reading more about deltachat, it seems like it is pretty well suited to being Hexbear's main messenger instead of matrix, no? It is almost a Signal replacement where I don't need a phone number to sign up.

I might give it a go, but it sounds like it isn't a replacement for a heavy duty messenger like Discord/Slack, unforuntately.

[–] Inui@hexbear.net 3 points 2 days ago

I would say it's more of an instant messenger replacement for something like Signal or WhatsApp. I migrated all my family to it from Signal. I mostly brought it up to mention that it really seems like the Matrix developers are bad at their jobs when other apps are out there that don't have the UI and encryption problems Matrix has.