Is it possible to use a throwaway email, such as tempmail.org?
Well, thanks for taking the time to answer me, in turn!
Also thanks for telling me about the Desktop GUI, I was searching for one and didn’t find it. So I’ll look again.
Mind you, this is very recent and it’s in the releases page of their GitHub under a pre-release. It’s in the assets of the 5.3-beta release, which, now that I’ve checked, has packaging for MacOS, Ubuntu and AppImage. They’re the ones with the *-desktop affix.
Now, concerning the absence of identifiers, the marketing material clearly mentions “[not] any user identifiers”. As I understand it, it still has identifiers, but as conversation endpoints, and they are unique to a given conversation. So, yes identifiers, but their meaning is a lot harder to infer than with user identifiers. It kind of is like with using unique cryptocurrency wallets per contact, and making transfer through exchanges, converting between currencies. It is a lot harder to track.
Yes, I think you’ve done a better job of explaining it than me. It’s impossible, to my knowledge, to communicate without any kind of identifier, but their model is a rather ingenious one for people concerned with privacy. Couple that with onion routing, and I feel very safe talking to people on the app.
And as for people adopting the app, it is via people like me and you. I run the operations for around 6-10 people in my immediate surroundings (friends and family), and my recommendations mean a lot to them (it often influences entirely what they get to use). Besides, I also advise people professionally. And, so, assuming we each influence a dozen people on average, they will, in turn, create momentum for their own social circles. That’s exactly how gmail gained traction.
You sound more hopeful than I am, lol. But I too hope that technologies such as SimpleX take off, if only because of early adopters such as us.
Edit: also, something that SimpleX does is markdown editing, which is just… 👌
I’ve been using it the past few months - since April, if memory serves me. I mostly interact with one contact, individually, and a small group with others.
There’s definitely been a few hiccups. I use the default servers, and there’s been times when they weren’t reliable in the past, but that’s been rare. The app itself is not really buggy, but it gives you options without really explaining them, regarding configuration of messaging servers and file transfer servers. You have to go and read the documentation, which is actually pretty good.
Regarding battery consumption, it’s been very battery efficient for me, and this is considering I use the service to receive notifications instantly. This is on a degoogled Galaxy S8, so YMMV. Anyway, there’s plans to use some implementation of UnifiedPush in the future, if I recall correctly?
The bad parts are not really a big deal, in my opinion. I’ve tried a few private messengers in the past, such as Jami, Briar, Signal and (even though this definition is controversial) Telegram, through Nekogram. SimpleX has been the best one so far.
One of the reasons is the feature set. It really tries to be a “mainstream” messaging app, with a sane default set of features. You can send messages, make groups, big and small (the biggest I’ve been in had some 400 members - it was the app’s support and development group), send pictures, video, audio, use a command line client and, since last week, try out the desktop GUI client. I don’t remember if this last one had other releases, but I tried the AppImage, on Linux. It’s okay, if a bit slow.
Also, there’s no user ID and the messages can be routed through Tor, and I think they are by default. Do your research on this, as I’m not too sure, but the way they manage not having a user ID is that they usage message queues on each server, and each is particular to a group or connection between contacts. So you don’t have an ID, people can’t search you, and it’s only you that can give out a link to connect to you. Such a link can be revoked and regenerated at any time, so it’s a platform that is inherently immune to spam.
Regarding the servers, there is the possibility to host your own. Even though I have a small personal server, which serves as a backup for my files and some other small stuff, I have not tried setting up a SimpleX server because my communication with the app is vital and I don’t have the budget to build a trusty server just yet, so I can’t make a review of self-hosting a server. Still, it’s good that the option is there.
Anyway, what I like most about SimpleX is the steady pace of development. As I said, I’ve been using it for just a few months, but a lot has changed already - it’s gone from version 4.something to 5.2. The file transfer, which was slow when I first used the app, has been through a whole redesign, in terms of the protocol used, and they’ve created what they call XFTP, which I think stands for simpleX File Trasfer Protocol. You can self-host your servers with this protocol and they’ve completely changed the game, in terms of sending and receiving files. It makes me very hopeful for the project to see features being steadily implemented. A ton of small others have been added since I’ve been using the app, but that’s the big one, in my opinion.
Phew. That was quite the write. I don’t have to say this, but I am quite invested in this app and want to see it succeed, so I obviously recommend people try it. The problem is convincing regular people to “download one more app”.
I see. I switched from the CLI version to the desktop version when it came out and was considering switching back if it was more convenient than it currently is to use my phone’s profile on desktop, but it sounds like it really isn’t.