@commetchat@fosstodon.org
If the Matrix protocol actually implemented E2E encryption properly I would love to use something like this.
Please explain. They don’t have that?
If it’s the problem that I’ve seen people complain about in the past, it’s effectively the same as HTTPS ‘not supporting’ end to end encryption because it runs over IP and IP packets contain the IP address of where they need to go, so someone can see that two IP addresses are communicating, which is unavoidable as otherwise there’s nothing to say where the data needs to go, so no way for it to get there. Someone did a blog post a couple of years ago claiming Matrix was unsecure as encrypted messages had their destination homeserver in plaintext, but that doesn’t carry any information that isn’t implied by the fact that the message is being sent to that homeserver’s IP.
But what if the name of my home server is my private key? Mah jong, alchemists!
Message metadata - such as sender, recipient, device ID, and timestamps - is not encrypted at the transport layer, and in many cases remains visible to the homeserver
Wire wrote that article in summer last year to prevent the German IT-Planning Council from adopting Matrix as the communications layer for its consolidated interfederal government-to-citizen messaging infrastructure in the public administration.
So be aware that, to my knowledge, this article is not a good-faith tech blog post but part of public affairs campaign / lobbying attempt.
Would be neat to have meta data encrypted in Matrix, but it’s not a deal breaker for most use cases imo.
Agreed, but metadata not being encrypted remains a fact. Sure, metadata of a single message might not mean much, but when combined with metadata of many messages from many users you can find out a lot about a person and their habits. Especially when cross-referencing with other data sources (social media of other users, phone location, etc.).
Absolutely, it’s definitely one of the major areas work on the Matrix standard is needed.
There is an MSC (= a spec change proposal) from September 2025 where the folks at Element proposed a solution for how to do this going forward: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/3414?ref=element.io
This blog article explains it more clearly: https://element.io/blog/hiding-room-metadata-from-servers/
Thank you very much for these links. I really like the ideas Matrix + Element, and I think they have the best shot of making something very usable. Hopefully this gets implemented one day and I can actually make the switch!
Edit: While clicking around I came across this: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-rust-sdk/issues/5397#issuecomment-3714128184
Does this mean it should be already implemented or am I reading it wrong?
Looks like it’s behind an experimental flag, only applies to new rooms, and isn’t available on the public app.element.io instance right now (the Labs screenshot they showed doesn’t show the option on element.io+matrix.org when I checked just now):
https://github.com/element-hq/element-web/pull/31513
For it to work, looks like it needs another in-progress feature to allow new members to decrypt previous messages (Matrix can’t do that yet???):
https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/4268
(That one isn’t even in the spec yet, it’ll take a lonnnnnng time before we see any real movement on it, possibly a year or two. A year or two before you can see encrypted messages from before you joined a room. Insanity.)
A contributor calls this encrypted metadata feature a “partial prototype:”
https://github.com/element-hq/element-meta/issues/1214#issuecomment-3714132569
And that issue was opened in 2017. Pretty crazy they’ve been discussing this for nearly 10 years and it’s just now “a partial prototype,” but that’s Matrix for you.
No macOS or iOS support, but looks clean.
Just install as PWA.
TAGIITT
God bless you
Oh that’s just the acronym for “that’s a good idea, i’ll try that.”
PWA + Apple products that is not possible anymore…
You’re a freaking genius, you know that?
Ill do that and give it a whirl. Thanks for the PWA tip, i had completely forgotten about that.
PWA? Fill a noob in.
progressive web app. Some browsers will let you install a page as a standalone app running minimal version of the browser, this can be a snappy alternative to installing a package.
Progressive Web App
Put website in app-shaped bucket, use like app on phone. No app stores, special permissions, etc required
I believe it also drops the extensions from being used as well.
The ui still kind of feels unpolished in commet. I tried it out two days ago, but ended up going with element instead. Just felt better to use
Looks good actually… I think I will keep using Element for now… but for new people joining matrix coming from Discord, I would definitely recommend trying out Commet.
It’s cool that it “supports threads”, but - as so many other clients - it forgets to actually expose threads! As in: once the initial comment starting a thread slides up in the chat, the only way to access the thread is to scroll all the way up there again.
Fake edit: OK, Commet shows all threads if you type “thread” in search. Still, having a button to do just that would be infinitely better.
Also: no support for polls? :(
The age old matrix problem, every client is uniquely shitty and poorly put together.
I swear the day a feature rich and actually competent matrix client is released is the same day gnome devs will stop having stupid takes and Wayland devs will stop arguing.
And KDE devs will stop assuming they know better than their users…
What kills me is that even the “official” clients (Element, and Element X) are not full-featured. What kills me even more is that Element X (the official “new” app and the “replacement” for Element) supports some additional features over Element, but not all - as in, some things are not possible in it, but are possible in Element.
It’s like it’s run by an insane asylum…
My best friend used to go by @comet on Discord. He’s the one who made my friend group’s server, and he’s essentially the only reason I ever got it in the first place (now, he’s one of the first to join my Matrix instance). The fact that this project is named Commet is NOT good for my “main character syndrome”!
The one silver lining of commercial apps shitting the bed (or shitting on their users) is that it helps accelerate development of FOSS/decentralized/federated alternatives because of the sudden interest.
Flutter? No thanks
What’s wrong with flutter?
Thank you so much! Always down to try a new matrix client. So much potential.
I really hope they add this to F-Droid.
Seems to currently be worked on https://github.com/commetchat/commet/issues/115
That issue is >2 years old and the maintainer hasn’t commented on it at all.
You can install from GitHub via Obtainium. I prefer to just use the PWA.
Looks good, I fiddled around with it for a bit. For now, I prefer FluffyChat. I‘m actually wondering how little it is mentioned in the recent pop up of discord alternatives / matrix clients given how polished and easy to use it is.
You’re just never going to convince me to use an app called “FluffyChat”. Same for “Contunuwuity” or other baby-speak “cute” names. Sorry.
Seconding, also prefer FluffyChat, I just don’t really like discord UI, but it’s always good to have more options
Good on mobile but on desktop the UI is way too big i find
It is insane how big it is, there’s a slider for text size but that only affects the text inside of chats. The difference in the UI between Fluffy and Element on desktop means I’ll probably end up with Fluffy on mobile and Element on Desktop
Interesting, I’ll have to check how it compares to Cinny.
Is there a reason the room icons have to be humongous, at least in the web version on PC?
Other than that, looks great.
It’s spelled Among Us, not humongous.
its spell amogus
Ugh. Another one that doesn’t support OIDC.
Is there a reason for not being centrally distributed like on flathub and fdroid?
No idea.
Someone has to maintain that.
