It seems really cool but I’m a bit wary of it due to the crypto stuff.
Simplex is the better choice imo.
From two days ago:
https://lemmy.ml/comment/13108576
A few SimpleX shortcomings beyond what you noted, in no particular order:
- No multi-device support.
- Adding contacts requires sharing somewhat large links (as either text or QR code) which can be inconvenient.
- Messages are lost if not retrieved soon after they’re sent. (I think it’s 21 days by default. I’ve had vacations longer than that.)
- No group calls.
- Group messaging is full-mesh, meaning that as a group grows, the network traffic will balloon faster than it would with any other topology. This is generally bad for high-traffic groups, but it might be okay if they stay small or everyone always has great unmetered connectivity.
- The claim to not have user IDs is misleading at best, and outright false in group chats.
- The desktop app uses Java, which will be unappealing to more than a few people. (To be fair, several other messengers use Electron, which is also unappealing to more than a few.)
It does have some neat design ideas. I don’t consider it ready for general use, but I look forward to seeing how it develops.
- The claim to not have user IDs is misleading at best, and outright false in group chats.
I’m in a group chat but I’m unable to send a direct message to a group member, that’s annoying, but would substantiate the claim that they don’t have general user IDs.
Their queue IDs are user IDs. Each one points to a specific user. You can call it a queue ID, or an account ID, or a user ID, or an elephant, but that doesn’t change what it is.
They crate a different ID to share with each contact in 1:1 chats, but that doesn’t make them anything less than user IDs. You can do the same thing on any other chat service by creating a different account to reveal to each contact. (This is obviously easier to manage on clients that support multiple accounts, but again, that doesn’t change what the IDs do.)
And in group chats, they don’t even do that; they reveal the same ID to all group members.
Do I understand it correctly that the queue ID is specific to the group chat? How is that a user ID, then? The point is that the user doesn’t have an ID, and so you can’t find them in any other group chats unless they have introduced themselves. It basically only identifies the destination, and you really can’t avoid that, can you? Well, unless all messages are basically broadcasts, and everyone receives them, generating unimaginably larger traffic
