Unpopular opinion: There is not the One #Messenger To Rule Them All. It depends on individual #chat requirements.
Extremely easy to onboard and use, but only for Android and iOS: #Quicksy or #Prav.
For Joan & John Average: #Conversations, #Dino, or #Monal.
For team chat: #Gajim or #Prose.
For people with higher security necessities: #Conversations or #Dino with self-hosted server and/or use over #TOR and/or multiple (burner) accounts.
Tbc. Of course, there are many other valid options.
Was having issues with #Signal notifications again, so I set my mom up with #Quicksy #XMPP as a backup messenger in case she can't get hold of me on Signal. I'm still using #Conversations, but talking her thru setting up Quicksy was straight forward and simple.
I'll probably go down and set up #Dino on her desktop PC sometime tomorrow so she has something she can use on her PC.
Thanks to @daniel for all his hard work on both Conversations, Quicksy and XMPP, 
@janvlug #Signal is better than #WhatsApp, but still centralized. The entire world depending on a Single organization is not very sustainable. We have Quicksy and Prav both giving the same convenience of Signal without lock-in. #Quicksy and #Prav users can talk to each other and to any other #XMPP app.
To actually practice the freedom to improve a software, we should be able to self host the server part (not necessarily each person has to self host, but that option can offer real choice).
@iznogoud @xmpp indeed, contact discovery is an identified issue.
There are some answers, such as Snikket from @snikket_im which uses an invitation mechanism, or Quicksy authored by @daniel which uses phone number as other IM platforms.
I have ideas for another decentralized contact discovery mechanism, but lacking time to work on it and specify it right now. @debacle is also interested in working on such specification.
There are also public search mechanisms.
@bshankar I wanted to comment on your blog post https://bshankar.pages.dev/getting-family-on-xmpp/ (saw it on fsci group)
#Quicksy would have been the simpler option for most people. But unfortunately Quicksy is mostly driven by a single person from Germany and mass adoption and publicity seem to be not a priority for them. So we are trying to promote the idea of Quicksy through a cooperative run project called @prav You are welcome to join this effort to take the idea Quicksy to the masses.
https://codeberg.org/TheBigOCommunity/communications
Communicaions
Thank you
#edwardsnowden
#freesoftware
#prav
#quicksy
#taiga
#penpot
#briar
#session
#simplex
#codeberg
#gitlab
and you cutie #mastodon
thank you!!
'Don't like Prav? You can port your account to another app in the Prav network, eg. Quicksy.'
This is not possible with apps like #WhatsApp, #Telegram or #Signal. You are at the mercy of your contacts to switch your messaging provider, even if you like another app.
In India, we can port our sim cards any time if we don't like our current provider or a competitor offers a better deal. #Prav and #Quicksy offers this portability. You can switch apps and still talk to your contacts. #xmpp
@uexo @praveen @ronald @ravi Yes but the conversations are still compromised, so there is no advantage to using #xmpp and it very much limits who you can talk to because most people have never heard of xmpp, and of those that have, some have tried it and decided it's too complicated, while many others just prefer to be on a larger, more well-known platform. And yes, you are kind of restricting the freedom of others, because now no one using xmpp can be certain they are not having a conversation with someone who has given up privacy for convenience, thus making the entire conversation vulnerable. Sure, there is always some degree of trust involved when you are talking to someone else, but that other person may not think that using #Quicksy is an important detail to disclose to conversation partners. So in my opinion, the fact that Quicksy exists totally destroys the freedom of all other xmpp users to know that they are conversing over a reasonably private and secure connection. It's like saying that the Quicksy users aren't peeing in your end of the swimming pool, so it doesn't affect you. And since #Signal is far easier to set up and use, and gives you a much wider universe of people to talk to, you might just as well use that.
I mean, if Quicksy ever ditched phone numbers and let you use a made up identifier, I would have a much higher opinion of them, but right now I think they should be expelled from the xmpp universe. Also, uexo, it seem you just want to argue all the time and I am sick of wasting my time arguing with you about fucking xmpp related topics, so I am blocking you. Life is too short to be constantly aruging with someone who just wants to argue.
@praveen @ronald @ravi But again, one of the big reasons people don't want to use #WhatsApp, or #Telegram (or in some cases, #Signal), other than having some aversion to big corporations, is because they want their conversations to be private and secure. And is a service requires your phone number than it is NOT private. And if you are having a conversation with someone and THEY have given up their phone number, then your conversations with them are not truly private.
I hate #Quicksy with the fire of a thousand burning suns because I feel it is the one #xmpp platform that just should not exist. It bring a level of insecurity to xmpp that has not previously existed, all because they are giving up privacy for convenience. Personally I simply would not trust that kind of platform. I understand what you are saying; there are people who are more than willing to give up privacy for convenience, in this case the convenience of only needing to use a phone number as an identifier. And in that case I say why not just leave them alone and let them stay on WhatsApp or Telegram or Signal; they are no worse off there and all their family and friends are probably there already. In fact I would argue that Signal is a far better choice for such folks, at least for now, because at least there they get more security than when using WhatsApp or Telegram and they will have a much larger community of people to talk to.
@maple @ronald With Quicksy, #XMPP can provide the same level of convenience provided by apps like #WhatsApp, #Telegram or #Signal to people who don't accept the complexity of traditional xmpp apps. But unlike those other apps, #Quicksy don't lock you. People who want to talk to Quicksy users can use any XMPP app. I think trying to push our choice of not using phone number on everyone does not help #XMPP adoption. Let people choose if they want to share phone number or not.
@samuel yes! You mean emoji reactions right? #Conversations (the "flagship' Android client so to speak) added support for them recently
#Quicksy as well as downstream clients like #Cheogram and #Monocles should be having it too (I believe Monocles actually implemented support before Conversations did)
@rysiek @kkarhan @agturcz An awful lot of people say they've used #XMPP "a while back". But they're often unaware of the best of XMPP, and have an unfairly negative view of it.
Did you happen to try...
...#Snikket for hosting?
https://snikket.org
...apps like #Quicksy and #Prav which use phone numbers for easy onboarding, same as #Signal #WhatsApp or #Telegram?
https://quicksy.im
https://prav.app
...featureful clients like #Cheogram #MonoclesChat #Gajim #Movim etc?
I've seen a lot of people talking about leaving #WhatsApp. Great!
Only, don't replace one WhatsApp with another.
#Signal and #Threema are centralized services, and just as vulnerable to #enshittification as Twitter or WA.
Instead, use a platform that's standardized and federated - #XMPP, a.k.a. #Jabber.
The easiest way to use it is to install #Quicksy from the Play Store, App Store, or F-Droid.
Or check out my XMPP guide for more options -
https://contrapunctus.codeberg.page/the-quick-and-easy-guide-to-xmpp.html
#XMPP has #Quicksy for making onboarding really trivial, allowing anyone to start chatting in like 30 seconds.
In contrast, most #Fediverse servers...
* Require an introduction (in English) and manual approval (12 days on, I'm still waiting for seafoam.space to approve me...). Most people don't have that kind of time or patience for a strange new platform.
* Are run by non-Indians (who don't understand #Indian languages)
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