I have been cleaning my phone - removing Google Services, Google Account and replacing it with alternatives. Strangely, I do still have many very different messaging app. If I count correctly, there is Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram, Signal, Viber and also two local apps TakeUp and Mastadon. I am more and more returning back to SMS messages and normal encrypted e-mails.
What do you use most and is it normal, to have so many messaging apps and using them all for different people groups?
Surprised nobody here is talking about Matrix. Open source, client side / end to end encrypted, chat history stored (encrypted) on the server so it syncs to every device, supports federation, and supports bridges so you can use Matrix to access your other accounts like Signal, WhatsApp, etc and have everything in one place.
https://Beeper.com is based on Matrix and worth a look. But you can also self-host everything.
Happy self-hosting matrix user with bridges to various chats, and I’ve successfully converted family to use it, too.
People really like having all their chats in one app.
It’s not simple though. Matrix is the most complicated service I have to maintain.
Yeah Synapse is still largely a first gen system. There will be others.
I really like beeper, but im probably gonna selfhost all the bridges once i have the hw
FWIW beeper is moving towards a client side hosting model where your phone app hosts the bridges. They currently have a local hosted Signal bridge which runs on the phone…
did they also move the HS to the phone?
That was for Beeper Mini which was an attempt at imessage on android.
I don’t think the new version runs the homeserver on the phone; with the new version you can still participate in federated chats and use the desktop client so I don’t think it majorly changed in that way.