Matrix was built to become the open communication of the web and serve everyone. But, as the Internet and email did, its network effect started with governments. Today, and as proven by the audience in the room, most European governments and several others are either using it or looking at implementing it for their communications. This talk will tell the story of how we got there and why.
I think a messaging server should store messages only until they are delivered. It shouldn’t have access to who sent it, only where they are going.
Matrix keeps a massive stack of metadata on the server, because the server takes care of the protocol and it needs all that metadata.
However you can’t loose data you never aggregated.
Matrix can be configured to clear logs and history on whatver basis you want it to. XMPP is a bit better by default but its not like you can’t log messages on a regular basis from any platform. Its up to server operators to set things up securely.
I know that you can configure synapse to delete messages. However every federated server only operates on their own delete scedule and you as the reciever can’t see the messages then anymore. Which I think is stupid.
The messages should only be stored on the reciever device after they were delivered and deleted on the transfering server.
Speaking from experience, matrix is still kinda rough around the edges if you have a 100+ person group with non-technical users.
More broadly, pretty much all of the secure messengers currently have an ~O(N^2) problem with state sync in groups. The only one that isn’t deeply frustrating is Signal and that’s largely because it has very few features and can’t be self hosted.
Why would ppl use group chat for 100+ ppl, just why? Should not something like Lemmy plus Notification suit the role better? I saw ppl use group chat as gallery sharing but when I saw it is WhatsApp, wechat, line… Well, those big corp deserve it.
It sucks because it feels SOOOO close. I had my own server setup but setting up a client was so very hard. And it was hard to explain to friends/family how to set it up.
My CPU on my tiny server was being used like crazy for matrix.
I switched from synapse to continuwuity about 9 months ago and it has been a MUCH better experience. Also switched from Element to Sable recently and it is a much more comfortable and reliable client. Not much more complicated to set up than Discord IMHO.
Shoutout to continuwuity! UwU Queer people power the internet~
How do you migrate everything?
That’s the neat part. You dont!
There may actually be a way to migrate but I am the only user on my instance so I just yolo’d it.
And it was hard to explain to friends/family how to set it up.
That’s why I gave up on self hosting it. I can sit here and mess around with recovery keys and verification and whatever else, but if the people that would use it with me can’t just sign up and chat, then I’ve got no one to talk to. They don’t care much about privacy, which I’m finding is most people.
Yea Synapse is very resource hungry. Element built a much more performative enterprise server implementation, but though it’s open source it comes with a proprietary license, which kind of defeats the point when it comes to digital sovereignty in the public sector. From what I heard they unfortunately concluded that this is the only way to prevent organizations from freeriding, but it still sucks for the ecosystem. I’m working on one of the larger European Matrix public sector projects and we’ve been trying to mobilize funds for upstream contributions for some time, but it’s not easy to convince the policy and finance people to approve sustainable contributions to an open source ecosystem; they want to see procurements where it’s 100% clear what you get for your money. Also, public sector communication use cases frequently have high user count, low message volume and a high number of federated instances; so the current Synapse implementation has mostly been workable as you can feasibly scale horizontally. So there is currently not really that much financial incentive and pressure from the public sector to improve the efficiency of Synapse.
Now for comparison’s sake, try snikket, or even barebones ejabberd on a (featuresfriendliness) vs (admin overheadserver resources) basis. Mix in some https://mov.im/ if you must.
Were you running Synapse?
I tried a couple. Synapse was the one I did the longest if I recall.
I’ve said that before, but the O(N²) issue with E2E encryption only exists in an ideological sense. If your group chat is large enough that the overhead is unbearable, you don’t have a private and secure group chat to begin with, just because a group chat of this magnitude is very much public by definition.
With that said, you can keep server logs encrypted while avoiding the payload/key rotation explosion by using static keys (available since forever with PGP in XMPP) or wait the decade (but most probably, the eternity) that it will take for MLS to be bolted on top of Matrix (and the new protocol design that this entails due to the absence of guarantee about messages ordering)
Appreciate the discussion. I really wish they’d prioritize UX.
ugh matrix sucks and I wish it wasn’t the preferred form of communication for everyone on fedi.
once fluxxer gets federation I’m gonna be done with matrix forever.
Once fluxer gets e2ee and federation and better docs and adoption and professional support and a mature org behind it. Then it can be just like Matrix 😂
I don’t need something “just like Matrix”. E2EE in Matrix sucks and we had to remake several rooms on the FAF Matrix because a bunch of people couldn’t read anything. I need something that actually works most of the time and doesn’t have constant and myriad problems. the fact that most of fedi uses Matrix is even more regrettable considering the plethora of mature alternatives that work well and are stable.
Personally I’d prefer XMPP. They way it caches data between instances is way less bloated
Video is a year old, but still relevant I think.
Here’s this years discussion: https://youtu.be/cQjUjM_OAcw
Criticism of the matrix protocol: https://hackea.org/notas/matrix.html.
I will not access the posted video as it’s hosted on hostile infrastructure. I request that the author share their videos in a way that honours freedom. Continuing to use the current provider is to enforce the existing monopoly on video distribution and is counter productive to libre software. I will list some viable alternatives: Mediagoblin: https://mediagoblin.org/; Peertube: https://joinpeertube.org/; or via BitTorrent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent.
I will not use the matrix protocol due to its origin with Israel’s intelligence community. Its design is nonsensical in the contexts of liberty, privacy and cryptography. However the design is strikingly coherent if the goal was to design an encrypted communication protocol that was ‘decentralised’, but still auditable by external agents. This design is why government agencies would consider its adoption, but knowing its origins I can not endorse it.
Here you go: https://media.ccc.de/v/matrix-conf-2025-74985-how-matrix-is-becoming-the-communication-standard-for-public-sector I get the adversity to YouTube, but the media.ccc link was literally one click away… I find that there is a fine line between having principles and being pedantic.
There was no way for me to know there would be a link to an alternate host in (I’m assuming) the description of the youtube video. It’s not one click away either. You have to allow youtube to run foreign javascript, otherwise you are presented with a blank page. That is to say you have to enable Google’s surveillance before you’re allowed to see a link that may or may not be there (and in this case there was no indication such a link would exist). Why didn’t the author link to the nonspyware host? Hosting video is a cost Google bears to surveil traffic. If you visit youtube to click on a link to a nonspyware host without loading any video resources you’ve given over data that usually would require a penalty from Google (serving the video). Google hosts videos to lure traffic to surveil. It is incorrect and misleading to say it’s “literally one click away”. That euphemism hides the reality, which is you have to submit to Google’s surveillance and malware.
I will take this opportunity to remind people that Google is killing others. They’re selling their AI services to the Americans and the Israelis. They’re enabling a genocide.
Dude just sounded like a sovereign citizen type…
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