Rather than trying to persuade people to use either incompatible or insufficient alternatives, we must call people to arms and actually create an alternative. Matrix/Element is getting very close and we need more people improving the ecosystem.

Element still needs a UX overhaul and voice channels and the basic building blocks are already there then.

[–] Yujiri@lemmy.ml 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

As an element user for about a year: the biggest thing element needs is to make E2E actually work consistently. Every day I see random "can't decrypt this message for some reason" errors, and it makes me embarrassed whenever I convince someone to try using Matrix instead of proprietary platforms and then I have to tell them I can't read their messages and the first three things we tried to fix it didn't work. This is the biggest reason why I want to abandon Matrix for good as soon as possible, and am working on creating another federated chat protocol.

[–] sibachian@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago

i haven't had this issue in over a year except for when using clients other than element.

[–] mp3@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

At least Cinny is kinda close UI-wise to Discord.

[–] Helix@feddit.de 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

it doesn't have drop-in voice/video channels though, which is the #1 USP for Discord for gamers.

[–] sibachian@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

element (like discord) is using an electron wrapper, which is awful and there is no way around it. what we need is a real client. nheko is far behind in features, so if anything, we need more people involved in improving that client.

[–] SrEstegosaurio@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Nheko is the best alternative that I know for the desktop scene. Tbh I hate electron apps.

[–] sibachian@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago

i've had a lot of issues with getting nheko to sync for some reason. suddenly it just desyncs and all messages are encrypted. or it doesn't sync at all and i only get messages on element on the phone. but yes, we should all collectively be against electron; it just gives google/chrome another platform to dominate - which is especially important to be now that they're disabling adblockers.

[–] Yujiri@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I used to use Mirage (fancy interface, multi-account, i liked it except for lack of support for edits and reactions) until one day it had some weird error connecting to my homeserver and no matter what I tried I could never get it to connect again, even while other clients could. Even tried reinstalling Mirage and removing and readding my account but I could never get it to connect again so I was forced to switch back to Element.

[–] Yujiri@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 years ago

I agree btw that Nheko's the closest thing to a fully functional desktop client, just felt like sharing the story about Mirage