Hacker News Reader

Comment by dmitriid | Hacker News Reader

> and I convinced non-tech users to use it mainly because of the great Android client Conversations.

And that's the only client in existence that supports the XEPs required for XMPP to be a viable alternative in the modern world.

What about iOS? What about desktop?

> I also have had complaints from friends but mainly because I am a shitty admin

What if I don't want to run my own XMPP server? How do I find the one that supports message carbons, file uploads, encryption, push notification, client state indications...

View on HN

> And that's the only client in existence that supports the XEPs required for XMPP to be a viable alternative in the modern world.

That's not true, but admittedly that information is not trivial to find right now for end users. It's a known problem, and people are working on a nice comparison of XMPP client capabilities so people can make a more informed choice.

> What if I don't want to run my own XMPP server? How do I find the one that supports message carbons, file uploads, encryption, push notification, client state indications...

https://compliance.conversations.im/ or for something less overwhelming, https://joinjabber.org/

> That's not true, but admittedly that information is not trivial to find right now for end users.

So, it's true for end users.

> It's a known problem, and people are working on a nice comparison of XMPP client capabilities so people can make a more informed choice.

There can't be more than a handful of usable XMPP clients in existence. The fact that "people are working" and "information is not trivial to find" speaks volumes about the state of XMPP clients.

> or for something less overwhelming

This is the reason XMPP is more-or-less dead for most users: "information is not trivial to find", "overwhelming" and so on.

Meanwhile already in 2016 Daniel Gultsch wrote what's expected of a mobile client for XMPP, and this can be easily extended to all other clients. [1]

Instead, 5 years later there's Conversations, "information is not trivial to find" and "check your server for compliance".

[1] https://gultsch.de/xmpp_2016.html

> Instead, 5 years later there's Conversations, "information is not trivial to find" and "check your server for compliance".

If you think nothing happened in 5 years then you're very much mistaken. As I said, the information should be more easily discoverable, and I linked you to some of the projects working on that aspect.

You seem to confuse "not easily discoverable" with "doesn't exist", which are different things when it comes to the kind and amount of effort required to fix them.

My own work is on Snikket, which is a project working on XMPP clients for all platforms with a modern feature baseline. My belief is that simply telling people to "use XMPP", and requiring them to find appropriate clients and servers is solving the problem from the wrong end. XMPP-based solutions should be attractive to people in their own right. Whether we like it or not, the average person does not (and will never) choose to use software because it "uses open standards".

> You seem to confuse "not easily discoverable" with "doesn't exist"

From the point of users this: "information is not trivial to find right now for end users" is equal to "doesn't exist".

This is true for both clients and servers. When I asked "what if I don't want to run my own server", the very first link you provided me with was "Check the compliance of your server". Wat? I immediately closed the page, and I will never come back to it.

These things simply do not exist for anyone except hardcore geeks who are willing to figure all this out. 20 years ago when I was young I would do that. Now I will just open Telegram.

> My belief is that simply telling people to "use XMPP", and requiring them to find appropriate clients and servers is solving the problem from the wrong end. XMPP-based solutions should be attractive to people in their own right.

Yes! That's so very true.

>What about iOS?

Siskin [1] seems to be the best client for iOS right now. It's not as good as Conversations.

>What about desktop?

I am pretty happy with beagle (OSX) [2], Dino (Linux) [3] and Gajim (linux, windows, OSX) [4]. If in-browser is your thing, converse.js [5] or movim [6] come to mind.

>What if I don't want to run my own XMPP server?

Use quicksy.im?

[1] https://siskin.im

[2] https://beagle.im

[3] https://dino.im

[4] https://gajim.org

[5] https://conversejs.org/

[6] https://movim.eu/

Reply on news.ycombinator.com