@bgtlover just out of curiosity what mastodon client do you use?
Also, you might like this article: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Terminal_productivity_software
There are some real terminal-based gems in there. Off the top of my head the following stand-out:
* ledger is a double entry accounting program with a simple text-based file format.
* sc-im is a spreadsheet with vim-like bindings.
* podget for downloading podcasts.
* newsboat RSS feed reader.
@profoundlynerdy
> sc-im is a spreadsheet with vim-like bindings
Whoah! 😲
@bgtlover
@profoundlynerdy @bgtlover
My personal TUI favourites:
gomuks the Matrix client (https://github.com/tulir/gomuks)
tut the Fedi/Masto client (https://github.com/RasmusLindroth/tut)
and amfora the Gemini browser (https://github.com/makew0rld/amfora)
All of them are written in Go so they are really easy to build if your platform is supported by Go.
Sorry for using different account. I use this one for longer replies as it doesn't have the five hundred character limit, otherwise I'd have to split my reply into four parts.
Tough question. Short version: I think it's the next big IM thing. It's modern, fully functional with group video calls and all that, and easy enough so your non-tech-savvy aunt (happen you to have one😅) can figure out how to use it. It doesn't use your phone number as ID unlike obvious alternatives and even Signal, but it uses the same double-ratchet encryption as Signal does. It's not tied to your phone in any way, desktop clients are completely autonomous.
There are other privacy-centric alternatives, but Matrix seems like the most trustworthy of them, being truly decentralized and open source.
A lot of people on Fedi might prefer XMPP, but being tried and old, it's still old IMO and despite that never managed to gain enough steam. It has a few technical advantages over XMPP, not going into too much technical details, group chats are truly decentralized and can carry along even if originating server goes offline, but has shortcomings that stem from this — higher hardware requirements for server and there is an infamous bug about group chats leaking your presence type events, I don't think that it compromises my privacy, but a lot of people might think otherwise. Anyway it's planned to be fixed if not done already. XMPP doesn't have this problem because it doesn't have this function at all.
It's relatively new, so the only fully-featured client is Element, desktop version of it is an Electron app. I don't like that so I just use Firefox to run web version when I need stuff like video calls. Gomuks that I have already mentioned covers most of the IM part for me, supports encryption so it's what I personally use most of the time.
Also, like I already said, the requirements for the server are relatively high, definitely higher than for XMPP. That might be a factor if you intend to self-host.
Well, something like that. To sum it up: it's on par with the mainstream IMs in the ease of use department, but way more trustworthy, feature-complete with nice features of its own and is more modern than XMPP.
@m0xee @bgtlover
@m0xEE@breloma.m0xee.net @bgtlover @m0xee@librem.one Thanks for the detailed reply! I'm going to look into this.
@m0xee @bgtlover What attracts you to #matrix? I don't think I've ever heard of it.