Kaidan Joins KDE As A Jabber/XMPP Chat Client

[FishB8]

I wonder why has XMPP been fading away and being replaced by tons of mostly proprietary protocols.
Security? Lack of features (although it was extensible)? Or just the desire to monopolize via incompatibility?

XMPP came about before smart phones. It uses a stateful protocol, which is terrible for the intermittent connections with mobile phones and is a big battery drain. They've created a stateless extension since then, but that only works if the server supports it, and even then I'm not sure how well it works.

Supposedly the matrix chat protocol tries to fill that gap, but that only works if people use it.

[fuzz]

Another XMPP client is all well and good... but gaining adoption on an actual service alike to telegram is a much bigger picture. I think Matrix has a better chance here. But competition helps all.

[gbcox]

As for communicating with my friends, I've mostly dropped back to email although someone had me reconsider Signal this week. I don't mind the phone number requirement, it's things like WhatApp being owned by Facebook that bother me. I just wish the desktop client wasn't Electron-based though. I know I'm not alone there.

You might want to consider Telegram. Has tons of features (more than whatsapp), growing user base, privately owned, and has native clients for all major platforms - including Linux. Client software is GPL3+.

[bitman]

You might want to consider Telegram. Has tons of features (more than whatsapp), growing user base, privately owned, and has native clients for all major platforms - including Linux. Client software is GPL3+.

And a questionable security. Encryption is off by default and last time i checked was only available on mobiles with no intent to support on desktops.

[juno]

And a questionable security. Encryption is off by default and last time i checked was only available on mobiles with no intent to support on desktops.

That's still correct. Plus the server part is of course proprietary, making it the same centralised garbage as WhatsApp. You can't use it without a phone number either.

People recommending telegram over WhatsApp for privacy or security just doesn't make any sense when WhatsApp actually has the superior encryption and telegram none at all. It's a joke. People only use telegram for its features, nothing else

[uid313]

I wonder why has XMPP been fading away and being replaced by tons of mostly proprietary protocols.
Security? Lack of features (although it was extensible)? Or just the desire to monopolize via incompatibility?

There has been a shift in communication from simple text-based chat to rich text with formatting, embedded media, Unicode, emojis, voice, video, etc. Also from desktop to mobile.

It is not only XMPP that has been fading away.
MSN, ICQ, YIM (Yahoo! Instant Messenger), AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), Gadu-Gadu (GG, Polish IM), Skype, and more.
Because these were old desktop instant messengers, and now the communication has shifted to mobile-first messengers such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, etc.

IRC have been fading away too, and is mostly used by older people who grew up with it, and the FOSS community on Freenode. The protocol is old and was designed in a time before Unicode, emojis, voice communication, multimedia, embedding of images and videos, etc. Some clients (mostly proprietary ones for Mac) to try bridge this by providing some rich functionality such rendering of images and embedding of YouTube videos.

Skype came and gained traction by focusing on video conversation, but later faded.
TeamSpeak and Ventrilo came and gained traction by focusing on VoIP for gamers but later faded.

SMS is an old protocol like IRC, and have also faded in favor of more modern messenger apps which provide richer and modern functionality.

As old platforms have faded away, some new ones have popped up that caters to a certain group.

• Slack and Microsoft Teams which caters to companies and organizations.
• Discord have successfully sailed up by catering to gamers. Successfully gaining over users from Skype, TeamSpeak and Ventrilo.
• Gitter which caters to the GitHub community.
• Signal which caters to people who desire secure communication. I believe it is popular among drug dealers.

But it difficult for any new technology to gain traction due to the network effect.
Most users are already on Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp (also owned by Facebook), so its easy for them to connect and communicate with others.

Companies does not seem to want to build a messenger on open standards, they prefer a proprietary solution because it allows them to control the platform so that only their official client can be used, so that they can leverage advertisements to its users. They do not want people to use a third-party client where they can get revenue from advertisements.

There have been some mobile-first messenger apps that has partially faded too such as Viber and Kik, etc. Being eaten by giants like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.

Google did some confused attempts such as Hangouts, Allo, and Duo. Which failed utterly. Google seem to just launch, and abandon apps without a vision and without willingness to commit to anything.

Operators are launching RCS as a modern replacement for SMS. But it is dubious if users even want it, or are more happy with Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.

[Hi-Angel]

And a questionable security. Encryption is off by default and last time i checked was only available on mobiles with no intent to support on desktops.

Well, I don't know Telegram code, but your comment made me concerned, so I downloaded it and glossed over it. I see that tryToSend function in the end sends SecureRequest, which is a result of processing sessionData.

Maybe you mean end-to-end encryption? Which is a separate thing, and indeed doesn't seem to be supported.

[Hi-Angel]

That's still correct. Plus the server part is of course proprietary, making it the same centralised garbage as WhatsApp. You can't use it without a phone number either.

People recommending telegram over WhatsApp for privacy or security just doesn't make any sense when WhatsApp actually has the superior encryption and telegram none at all. It's a joke. People only use telegram for its features, nothing else

Sure, the GNU/Linux desktop Telegram app has better encryption than the Whatsapp, because the latter can't encrypt data. The primary reason for this is that it doesn't exist.

I strongly recommend against Whatapp because they ban 3-rd party apps, which is IMO a big deal. They clearly don't want people to use Whatsapp protocol, so please, do as they wish, don't use it. Use other messengers.

[gbcox]

That's still correct. Plus the server part is of course proprietary, making it the same centralised garbage as WhatsApp. You can't use it without a phone number either.

People recommending telegram over WhatsApp for privacy or security just doesn't make any sense when WhatsApp actually has the superior encryption and telegram none at all. It's a joke. People only use telegram for its features, nothing else

Telegram encrypts all client-server chats by default and stores them encrypted on their servers. If you want more security, they offer the "secret" chats which are not stored on their servers. Storing the chats on the server allows all platforms you have telegram installed to be synchronized. Telegrams security is good enough IMO. In fact, they have been banned in Russia because the Russian government wanted the chat keys and they refused. To my knowledge there have been no instances of Telegram security being compromised.

[gbcox]

Well, I don't know Telegram code, but your comment made me concerned, so I downloaded it and glossed over it. I see that tryToSend function in the end sends SecureRequest, which is a result of processing sessionData.

Maybe you mean end-to-end encryption? Which is a separate thing, and indeed doesn't seem to be supported.

See my response to juno