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I use Element in an organisation of around 300 people, most of which are non technical. 98 % of them really dislike Element and I really understand why. Even for the most technical people it just does not work reliably like WhatsApp, Telegram or iMessage, which are some apps those people use privately. I really hoped that it'll all get better with Element X, both on Android and iOS, but it's not. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone really.


This would make sense if you were talking about the old Element app, but Element X is generally seen as a night and day improvement. Can you say what the problems are on Element X?

Trying to speak dispassionately as someone who lives their life in Element X iOS, I find it is way more reliable than WhatsApp (where I get way more “waiting for message…” e2ee bugs than Element X these days), and more featureful than iMessage. You can’t compare with TG given TG isn’t E2EE.

I am not disputing the lived experience on your side, but something big must be different. Is the server underpowered or misconfigured or something? Or is it using a beta server like Dendrite?


I don't know about the server being underpowered or misconfigured.

I compared it with those Messengers because that's what we as users are used to. I know that TG is not E2EE and therefore not comparable on a technical level, but that's still what users of Element are used to.

I personally use iMessage the most as my Messanger and in the last >10 years I never had any problems with a message not being able to be decrypted. And iMessage not being as featureful as Element is not an excuse for having more bugs especially in key areas of the service. Again, iMessage being just an emxample.


A reasonably long message, but you didn't actually give any specifics on what bugs you encountered.

You implied an "unable to decrypt", but this should be fixed in Matrix 2.0 and Element X. If you encounter a UTD now, you must capture it and let Arathorn know.


Night and day improvement is relative. For example, last time I tried the iOS version had no localization to some languages, which the old one has, and not everyone can deal with an interface falling back to English.


While I agree with you. Element is tooo heavy! I know there is Element X, but it has a lot issues working with others who has different clients. I would rather not use element if possible. There is a lighter weight Hydrogen seems more pleasing on code and front end.

https://hydrogen.element.io/#/login

So on the up side about matrix is if you don't like you can roll your own.


(unfortunately Hydrogen is no longer being developed; nobody funded it. Instead, focus is on Aurora, aka Element X Web: https://element.io/blog/hacking-for-a-sovereign-digital-euro... etc)


Yikes!!! One question got for matrix people?

Why is there NOT a version that works in the mobile browser?

Is it because the key management the whole indexDB gets deleted on Safari?

Can we just have matrix-js-sdk working in lowest possible mobile browser for public rooms and unencrypted messages?


hydrogen (hydrogen.element.io) was built for mobile web. but all our effort goes into native mobile apps these days.




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