Matrix clients on Debian

[nurmagoz]

@HulaHoop

Matrix is interesting but can you suggest a desktop client already packaged for Debian?

• There is UI for stretch which is Weechat

• There are 2 GUI applications for Buster
  ** Nheko
  ** Quaternion

[HulaHoop]

The Matrix plugin for weechat is not in Stretch though. Can you dig up the upstream repos for the other two? I want to read more about their implementation and the competency of their devs, Just because something is labelled as “encryption” doesn’t automatically make it safe for use.

[HulaHoop]

Here is Riot for the desktop:

Debian -- Details of package revolt in buster

I found the upstream repo addresses listed on the Debian pages. No need to post them here.

[HulaHoop]

From my experience playing around with Riot the problem is its a little convoluted to setup encrypted chat and encryption is not the default option. VoIP components are WebRTC based meaning they are UDP and don’t work over Tor. The default riot.im server seems to collect more info about parties than is necessary. Signing up is possible without email but requires solving a Google Catpcha.

As soon as we identify something Matrix based that is frictionless to use as Coy.IM I am for switching them out. Meanwhile I think a meta-datales alternative like Ricochet will always be superior because it leaks nothing to the network about the parties involved in a conversation and automatically benefits from Tor’s competent crypto transport.

[CompOC]

Agreed. Although with Riot you can host your own matrix server, this didnt change my mind about how much information they leak out. Their privacy policy of Riot even states that.
Its actually quite sad that Ricochet stopped development, it used to the best of the best most privacy aware app using hidden services.

[Patrick]

@nurmagoz

** Quaternion

At time of writing, Quaternion did not support end-to-end encryption yet.

Support E2E encryption

[Patrick]

Enable Thunderbird chat features - Matrix client

This Tails issue is also relevant to Whonix, because the last commit on the Thunderbird config file where mail.chat.enabled is set to false reads “Updated to reflect Tails version as of 2022” . Having Thunderbird chat features enabled would give Whonix a default Matrix client. Remains to be seen in that issue if the Tails team feels that " there’s a reason for not enabling Thunderbird chat features", but I thought Whonix could discuss as well.