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54 minutes agoI wrote to the admin asking for including the 64bit version, let’s see
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Cake day: February 7th, 2021
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2·8 hours agoSure thing! ArcaneChat is decentralized: https://github.com/ArcaneChat/server
The app supports 64bit!! It seems you downloaded the apk for 32bit platform, if you are using IzzyOnDroid repo, that only provides the 32bit apk, switch to the official F-Droid repo, install from Google Play or download the apk for 64bit manually from the github releases page
I bet it is using more resources than my +1400 people server 😅 but yeah for 10 people it is probably OK with matrix as long as they don’t join some crazy federated groups etc
There are a lot of reasons for each of those will try to provide some at a glance:
SimpleX, XMPP, Matrix: The client is more user friendly, less buggy and less “this is for nerds” UI than the clients of those networks, ArcaneChat is more on the WhatsApp-like UI
Signal is centralized, depends on phone numbers so can’t be used by children in the family that don’t have access to SIM card yet etc. Registering in Signal is also more complicated, SMS verification, solving captcha etc. No good multi-account and multi-device as ArcaneChat.
Groups in ArcaneChat are managed independent of the server while in XMPP they are created on a given server and if the server dies the group is lost, while in matrix a lot of group state is replicated and tracked by the servers, in XMPP is easy to end up with unencrypted groups and in Matrix you often get “unable to decrypt” and emoji reaction are not even encrypted, ArcaneChat groups are always encrypted and safe against MITM (green checkmark displayed in the group name)
ArcaneChat has in-chat mini-apps that work independent of any server, communication is only between chat members and e2e encrypted, for example collaborative editor in chat, shopping list, split bill app, several mini games with shared scoreboards etc.
ArcaneChat works offline-first unlike many(all?) of the previous mentioned apps you can even create groups while being offline use and modify the in-chat apps and all state will be synchronized when you are back online. The app also works in slow and unstable connectivity when most of the other mentioned apps would simply not manage to connect.
Yes
btw, Matrix server requirements are much higher, and the client apps are less user-friendly
For example, arcanechat.me server has more than 1400 users and the server is using around 800MB of RAM, CPU is idle most of the time or really low usage, less than 3GB of disk (including whole Debian operative system etc)
Yes and no, it allows to login without providing any data or using any email account, in that case a random/anonymous account is created in arcanechat.me which is an email internally but optimized for chatting with similar speeds of other chatting platforms
Also with arcanechat.me server unencrypted messages are not allowed at all so you can be sure you don’t accidentally leak any message, also all messages are removed from the server immediately after downloading them (or after a few days when using multiple devices)
#DeltaChat a privacy-focused messenger would benefit a lot of a designer, take a look at https://delta.chat/ and contribute if you can! ❤️
1·11 days agoI feel so seen, users often directly drop a lot of new feature requests just when I am announcing a new upcoming feature. And no one is donating to me while I even pay servers for them.
ArcaneChat is a Delta Chat client and uses the Delta Chat core (which contains all the crypto and logic and any app can use to implement e2ee IM) and it is based in the Delta Chat client, which has been audited around 6 times over the years: https://delta.chat/en/help#security-audits
For sure!! The app is decentralized/federated. You can host your own server: https://github.com/ArcaneChat/chatmail
And some 3rd party servers are discoverable inside the app at registration time.
The app can also be used with classic email servers so if you have an email server you can use it as well with ArcaneChat
If what you want is private/secure encrypted email that the provider itself can not even read, I recommend you arcanechat.me
no, there is no important metadata leaked via headers, the only obvious data the server knows is the same as on Matrix and XMPP, when you tell the server to deliver the message to a given user, the server hence knows that X sent a message to Y, but since accounts are randomly generated email addresses without any personal data tied, this is more secure than Signal where phone numbers are collected by a central server and if they wanted to they can match your IP to your phone number even if you use sealed sender to send it is obvious who you are by your IP and timing since you also connect to the server non-anonymously to receive messages
at the moment there is not “integrated calls” that would cause the phone to ring, but it is planed, but what is available is calls/video-calls invitations in-chat that show a nice “Foo invited you to a video call” message in chat with a button to join but on click it just open the call room in Jitsi Meet app or web browser
the app is much more on the WhatsApp and Telegram level UI wise, much more user friendly for “normies” like family and friends, while Matrix and XMPP are more “nerdy” and hard to understand and onboard
Nice multi-device (that actually works without encryption problems) and multi-account support.
Security-wise it is easy to end up sending unencrypted messages in XMPP (groups are often unencrypted due unusable otherwise) and in matrix it is also a mess with “unable to decrypt” and the reactions are not encrypted. ArcaneChat groups and 1:1 chats have a concept of “protected chats” via scanning QR or invite links that are warrantied to be e2e encrypted and safe against MITM attacks.
Groups in XMPP depend on the server, if the server dies the group is lost, in Matrix the groups metadata is spread across several servers, in ArcaneChat the servers are agnostic of the group state, the group lives in the users’s devices and hence don’t depend on any server, user can even migrate account/address and keep participating in the group
The server requirements for ArcaneChat are super lightweight (ex. https://arcanechat.me/ has +700 users right now and it is only using ~500MB of RAM and ~3GB of disk) in this regard XMPP might also be similarly lightweight but Matrix is well know for the complexity and requirements on the server
ArcaneChat is offline-first, you can fully use the app while being offline, even create groups, search across all your groups, messages and contacts, play in-chat mini-games or use collaborative tools like in-chat WYSIWYG editors etc. send messages etc. and all will be nicely synchronized when you go back online.
ArcaneChat is super lightweight, apk size in google play is only 13-15MB while being feature rich and beautiful
creating bots to provide extra functionality (similar to telegram bots) is easy and there are already several bots available and discoverable in the app.
Now lets talk about some downsides:
ArcaneChat doesn’t support integrated phone calls at the moment (but it is planned, and it has jitsi meet videocall invitation integration)
ArcaneChat doesn’t support discoverable public groups or channels (it is an app for private chats, you can invite people to group via invite links tho, and telegram-like channels are in the roadmap) a public bot can be used to list and join “public” groups tho, but at the moment everyone in the group is admin, there is no group admin concept as groups are private
there are more stuff to say but this post is too long already 😅
Or the classic “guys I am leaving WhatsApp, moved my whole family to Signal, another centralized US-based silo that requires phone numbers and runs on AWS, CloudFlare, etc.”