Crosspost: https://feddit.de/post/8502102

Element for Android doesn’t support searching in encrypted channels and I think you can’t use E2EE in the browser at all(?), plus basically every other client has even more drawbacks when it comes to E2EE.

My team recently tried RocketChat, but E2EE is obviously an afterthought for that project as it has even more limitations than non-Element Matrix clients (no searching, no pinning, no file upload, no edit, etc.). Plus Jitsi integration seems to be buggy right now (at least on my Windows installation).

What else is out there that’s not on my radar? Is Matrix with Element really the best option right now? Is there no project that puts E2EE above all else?

Edit: Should be self-hostable and (FL)OSS.

  • ono@lemmy.caEnglish
    0·
    9 months ago

    Correcting some misconceptions…

    Element for Android doesn’t support searching in encrypted channels

    That’s true of regular Element for Android, but it’s being replaced with Element X (which is built with Rust). I would expect search to be added there if it isn’t already.

    and I think you can’t use E2EE in the browser at all(?)

    I have done it in Firefox, so that’s false. Perhaps you had trouble with a specific browser?

    plus basically every other client has even more drawbacks when it comes to E2EE.

    Nheko handles E2EE just fine, so that would seem to be false as well.

    Since you’re looking for recommendations, it would help if you said which clients you tried and what problems you had with them.

    In case you haven’t seen it, you can set a Features: E2EE filter on this list:
    https://matrix.org/ecosystem/clients/

    • Lemmchen@feddit.deOPEnglish
      0·
      9 months ago

      I would expect search to be added

      That’s what I expected fo regular Element for Android as well, but it never came into existence.

      Element X

      I fail to find a feature comparison between the two. Does it have feature parity with Element yet? If not, what’s missing?

      Firefox

      Firefox is my main browser and has been for the last 15 years or so. It definitely was Firefox, but maybe I’m confusing it with a different issue. There definitely was some feature in Element Web that didn’t work and told me to use Desktop instead, unless I’m imagining things now.

      Nheko

      Interesting, I’ll take a look.
      EDIT: Nheko is NOT a mobile client. I’ve misinterpreted your statement.

      https://matrix.org/ecosystem/clients/

      That unfortunately doesn’t specify the extend of the E2EE support (like search), but I appreciate your effort.

      • Pantherina@feddit.de
        0·
        9 months ago

        Element X works really well but Servers need to additionally run the sliding sync program. They still run normal synapse, but the sliding sync needs to be added. I could not find a list of Servers that have that installed.

      • LWD@lemm.ee
        0·
        9 months ago

        There definitely was some feature in Element Web that didn’t work and told me to use Desktop instead, unless I’m imagining things now.

        It’s search.

        Even in Element, last time I checked, search was incredibly half-baked and mostly useless.

        I know you don’t want to use Signal, but it actually has searches that function.

        • Pantherina@feddit.de
          0·
          9 months ago

          You cannot compare Signal to Element at all.

          Like, at all.

          Signal has no search for Groups, there are no public groups or channels. Signal has a monopole server that is supposed to be OpenSource but nobody can run their own one.

          • LWD@lemm.ee
            0·
            9 months ago

            Strange reply.

            • Read the post, the use case doesn’t require public groups.
            • Read the messages above, I was talking specifically about search
            • Does this mean that Telegram (the messaging app) is closer to Element (the Discord-like app) than Signal (the messaging app), because it has channels?

            Etc

            • Pantherina@feddit.de
              0·
              9 months ago

              Yes, search on Signal is fundamentally less complex than on Element because there are no Groups or Servers to search.

              You are talking about searching in local messages I guess, which is unrelated and should work everywhere.

              Telegram, Signal and Element are 3 different products. Signal is very restricted but encrypted. Telegram is way less restricted, the desktop client is somewhat standalone but has no encryption which is bad. Element is way more complex and allows encrypted and unencrypted.

      • ono@lemmy.caEnglish
        0·
        9 months ago

        Does it have feature parity with Element yet?

        Not yet. It’s in beta.

        https://element.io/labs/element-x

        EDIT: Nheko is NOT a mobile client.

        If you specifically meant mobile, you could have said so. Your statement was, “every other client has even more drawbacks when it comes to E2EE.” Nheko disproves that statement. It also suggests that some alternative mobile clients might handle E2EE at least as well as it does. You might want to try them.

        By the way, text search with end-to-end encryption happens to be tricky to implement, and Matrix projects aren’t funded by corporations with deep pockets. Tempering your expectations regarding development speed is probably worthwhile here.