liajack ,

Why juggle multiple messaging apps when you can have all your conversations in one place? SocialSmartly is the solution you’ve been waiting for. 😍

corsicanguppy ,

tell me how this is better than simply changing all my usernames to “CorsicanGuppy is only on Jabber now, so reach out there” and shutting them all down.

(Actually I liked when pidgin worked, as I could receive on walled platforms and respond on open platforms)

But still, continuing to use closed platforms allows them to perpetuate. Sendmail killed bitnet, and we need to only continue that trend.

yoz ,

The biggest question of all,- Is it Open source ?

My phone will only installs opensource apps.

admin OP ,
@admin@beehaw.org avatar

All of the Matrix bridges, written for use with Beeper, are open source.

corsicanguppy ,

If you have to name the parts that are open-source, then you’re not open-source.

CapedStanker ,

Meh, there is always some kind of feature it’s missing that I want from the official app or one of it’s competitors. I tried it for a while but ultimately went back to my regular apps.

erwan ,

Not in my case. I don’t care about the bells and whistles that messenging apps keep adding, I just want to send and receive messages.

butter ,

I used to say that too. I loved good old SMS. Then I got a job with a metal roof and suddenly I needed something to work over wifi

erwan ,

Having a metal roof doesn’t mean you need stickers or chat backgrounds - even the minimal features of Whatsapp and co in a generic app is fine for me.

NENathaniel ,
@NENathaniel@lemmy.ca avatar

Anyone have any thoughts on the privacy and security aspect of this?

noodlejetski ,

have you read through the comments?

NENathaniel ,
@NENathaniel@lemmy.ca avatar

On my end the post had 0 comments lol, but yes I see when I open it in a browser that my app is bugging out

erwan ,

Your messages will go through their servers. They claim they don’t persist anything but you can’t really have any proof of that.

There could even be NSA spyware that they’re not aware of in their data centers.

neutron ,

I remember trying to setup matrix bridges using these exact repositories a while ago!

So if this company does the dirty job behind like server management and brings it nicely packaged as product, I’m fine with this. I’m tired of having to install more than 2-3 apps (lots of families abroad) just to communicate.

ASK_ME_ABOUT_LOOM ,

Would beeper give me access to iMessage without having an iDevice?

admin OP ,
@admin@beehaw.org avatar

Yes

averyminya ,

Sorry for the follow up question but is it text only or is it a workaround for the video compression as well?

Thanks for sharing, regardless it’s promising!

admin OP ,
@admin@beehaw.org avatar

Text, images, videos…I believe there is, or will be soon, video conferencing.

averyminya ,

My parents are going to be getting a lot more dog videos soon!

KrakBamKrak ,

Damn…I’m going to be getting a lot of dog videos from my parents.

wisdomchicken ,

Yes! One of the main reasons lots of people use Beeper

derin ,
@derin@lemmy.beru.co avatar

Been using their bridges for over 2 years, super happy that I no longer need WhatsApp installed on my phone.

If you’re like me and live in a country where a shitty chat application is required to be able to function in society, software like this is a breath of fresh air. The bridges are also super stable and incredibly well written.

Note: to be clear, I don’t use beeper itself, but use their open source bridges (what beeper is using internally) on my own self hosted Matrix server.

krolden ,
@krolden@lemmy.ml avatar

The one thing that sucks about bridging and is never likely to be solved is voice calls through bridges. Theres really no good way to implement it as you would essentially need to have the bridge call you through matrix after you get a WhatsApp call.

derin ,
@derin@lemmy.beru.co avatar

Yes, this is very correct.

As a person who’s been using said bridges as his primary form of contact for years, it’s very difficult to tell people: “Hey, I’m not actually reachable on Whatsapp/Signal/Telegram, please just call me instead”.

As a result, I have a backup “net phone” in one of my cupboards with each of those apps installed. If I’m dealing with a particularly stubborn person I have to use it as a fall back.

So, while I love these bridges, your comment is completely valid and anyone thinking of using them should be aware of that.

TLDR, my Matrix chats are filled with:

Person A (WA): Incoming call

Me: I don’t have whatsapp, needs to be a normal call :(

Person A (WA): Ok. Calling in five minutes.

krolden ,
@krolden@lemmy.ml avatar

Yeah this is especially difficult if you’re dealing with people overseas who have generally bad cellular voice service. I’ve had to relaunch whatsapp in another profile on my phone just to answer their calls.

derin ,
@derin@lemmy.beru.co avatar

Yep. Shame that we’re so reliant on shit like this.

neutron ,

It gets even funnier when the other person can’t even distinguish between a phone call and a whatsapp voice call.

Me: I can’t answer WA calls, I will call you back.

Person: What???

derin ,
@derin@lemmy.beru.co avatar

Yeah, as a result I just see matrix + Tulir’s bridges as a system that I’ve deployed just for me.

I get all my chat networks in one place, and others get to see me online on their networks of choice. Not perfect, but not the worst.

And it’s leagues ahead of Trillian and the rest of those older solutions.

cradac ,
@cradac@feddit.de avatar

There was a bit in the Office about this… 🐶

Duchess ,
@Duchess@yiffit.net avatar

WUPHF!

GadgeteerZA ,
@GadgeteerZA@beehaw.org avatar

Well universal chat (like universal e-mail) is either going to be a common open protocol (does not seem very likely given Apple and all the other players) or is going to be something like this on the client side. Although its a lot of work, it does seem more possible. The only pity is it can’t solve connecting to services that I don’t use like Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp.

anytimesoon ,

The EU is forcing the big chat companies to open their gates. They have until April of next year to comply, so we might see a common protocol for chat pretty soon

GadgeteerZA ,
@GadgeteerZA@beehaw.org avatar

That is really going to be interesting, yes! It is seriously needed despite what Apple will say. And if implemented correctly it can still be E2EE but with our own client apps.

nixnoodle ,

This one I hadn’t heard about until now, do you have a link to some more information?

anytimesoon ,

Digital market act digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/index_en

Chat apps are only part of it. It will force iOS and android to offer competing app market too.

nixnoodle ,

Oh, I hadn’t realized chat apps were covered by it, but that sounds promising! Thanks for the link 🙂

christophski ,

Can you explain how this affects chat apps? What do they need to implement?

PrivateNoob ,

They need to be interoperable. For example if you’re on Signal but want to chat with your parents who are on FB Messenger, then you would be able to chat to them via Signal.

You can envision each chat apps as different instances and these communicate to eachother with a common protocol, just like ActivityPub in Lemmy.

christophski ,

That sounds like something that companies are going to do literally everything they can to avoid. I hope this makes them squirm.

steltek ,

Isn’t Apple restricting their part of that to EU citizens?

realharo ,

This post reads like an ad, how is it upvoted so much?

sam ,
@sam@lemmy.ca avatar

Well known software built using Matrix. A lot of people have been following this project.

Drewelite ,

Yeah I’m excited about it. Dubious and skeptical, but excited too.

fades ,

And the cost is simply your privacy and security

shrugal ,

Apparently it’s based on matrix bridges, and you can self-host it if you want. Sounds intriguing imo.

fades ,

It’s not all bad, you’re right. It’s just that this

To use Beeper, you must give the app permission to send and receive messages through other chat networks using your account credentials. By definition, this may be less secure than using other chat apps alone, especially encrypted chat apps like Signal.

Makes me lose interest. I understand the motivation behind it, yes they encrypt e2e but it’s still sacrificing security (or maybe I should say increasing risk)

Self hosting is a good alternative option!

lazylion_ca ,

You mean you don’t want to go back to the Blackberry model?

anytimesoon ,

The bridges need to decrypt your messages before encrypting them again to send them to you. This is done in memory, so it’s not impossible for your messages to be read by beeper, but quite difficult.

That said, self hosting will always be a safer option. It’s just not for everyone

jarfil ,

How is it difficult for Beeper to read unencrypted messages from memory?

Rakn ,

Super easy. Especially since this is all under their control. So they could simply write those messages elsewhere if they wanted to. I’m not saying they do, but it’s technically possible and a walk in the park.

I would generally trust such a company to do it right. But that doesn’t save you when law enforcement and such get involved.

anytimesoon ,

Memory is not storage, so you would need to be logging what’s in memory, I guess. Not impossible, but also not trivial either.

Honestly I’m not sure how it could be done, but I’m sure it’s possible

dan ,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

There’s reasons people moved away from multi-network apps like Trillian and Gaim/Pidgin… They were always playing catch-up with the official clients, and frequently broke when there were server-side changes. Protocols for proprietary messaging apps were (and still are) undocumented. I’m not convinced they’ve actually solved any of these issues.

AntonAmo ,

On the behalf of your mentioned problem. I don’t know if it still holds as the eu’s digital market act now forces “gatekeeper” messaging apps to open their api.

stu ,
@stu@lemmy.pit.ninja avatar

Afaik, that isn’t in effect yet, but will become a major factor next year.

aksdb ,

Huh, in my opinion people simply moved away, because the underlying messenger were used less and less. Once everyone ran around with smartphones using WhatsApp, fewer and fewer people cared about MSN, ICQ, etc.

dan ,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

Once everyone ran around with smartphones using WhatsApp, fewer and fewer people cared about MSN, ICQ, etc.

People moved around, but often still use several apps even today. You might have a “main” app you use with friends (this used to be MSN Messenger for me back in the day; now it’s Facebook Messenger), but there may be other people you chat to that use other apps. Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, Wechat, Viber, Signal, Telegram, Slack, Discord, Skype, Kik… I feel like there’s actually more major apps today than there used to be.

GadgeteerZA ,
@GadgeteerZA@beehaw.org avatar

Not “everyone” uses Whatsapp though - I deleted mine after the Cambridge Analytica scandal and I know of a few others who also did so. As far as I know Whatsapp has still never changed their T&C to pass metadata upstream to Facebook.

aksdb ,

Now? Sure. Back then WhatsApp (before it was bought by Facebook) was replacing SMS nearly everywhere.

thesylveranti ,

This is really region dependent. In Europe (or at least the Netherlands) almost everybody with a smartphone uses Whatsapp

GadgeteerZA ,
@GadgeteerZA@beehaw.org avatar

No, not regionally, as Whatsapp is probably used most. It is more individuals who decided not to use Facebook related products. Luckily, about 90% of my contacts are on Telegram. It’s a bit sad that a proprietary product that leaks metadata could be so widely used. If there was going to be a single “one product” I’d rather prefer that to be an open standard protocol. Those protocols exist, but are not in broad use. But the W3C standard for social networking, really needs to also cover chat messengers.

neutron ,

Talk to anyone in latin america, you must use whatsapp. There’s no avoiding it. Some have tried Telegram a while ago, but most have reverted back to their usual whatsapp or facebook messenger. It’s crazy.

NekoRiv ,

I can vouch for this in a small town of like 5k people in zacatecas, Mexico. Everyone including government and businesses uses WhatsApp. You see the logo with phone numbers all over the place.

Zetaphor ,
@Zetaphor@zemmy.cc avatar

Same experience in Argentina and Paraguay

EngineerGaming ,
@EngineerGaming@feddit.nl avatar

I am in a different part of the world, and what you are saying is also true here for the older generation, while the younger one has no escape from Telegram.

lotanis ,

I think they mostly died when GChat turned off XMPP support and became a walled garden.

If Beeper does become a successful business though, there’ll be a full time development team “playing catch-up” with money behind them. It’s interesting if you read this that they’re rolling out features ahead of the message providers in some cases!

They’re also leveraging some existing infrastructure. Beeper is built on Matrix which does a lot of the heavy lifting for them.

dan ,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

I think they mostly died when GChat turned off XMPP support and became a walled garden.

Most of the protocols supported by Trillian were walled gardens too - AIM, ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, etc were all proprietary.

I think they mostly died when GChat turned off XMPP support and became a walled garden.

Trillian had paid full-time developers too. I’m not sure what’d they’d be doing differently to what Trillian did.

shrugal ,

I think one difference is that the rate of change in chat apps has slowed down dramatically. When was the last time one of the major apps added a new feature you can’t live without anymore? So it might be easier now to keep up.

clmbmb ,

Sorry, I’ll never use a service asking me upfront my phone number “for security purposes.” Fuck off beeper!

Hawk ,

Yep, immediately closed the page when I saw that in the sign up.

Zero reason they need my phone number, fuck off

krimson ,
@krimson@feddit.nl avatar

These universal chat apps often do not offer all of the features the underlying apps have. Which makes sense but is probably a reason they never get massively adopted.

NuPNuA ,

Everyone uses what’sapp in the UK, and from what I understand, other countries. It’s the US that seems to have a weird attachment to iMessage.

realslef ,

The faceblocked and facebanned don't and can't. Open chat matters

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