I am searching for a selfhosted and secure (end to end encryption) chat platform for my family (5-20 users), possibly one i can host on a raspi.

Is matrix a good choice, or should i try something else?

  • philpoEnglish
    80·
    4 months ago

    It is literally one setting in Matrix to force all rooms to only do encrypted messages.

    Signal is pretty unintuitive when it comes to multiple devices per user, device transfers after a device has been lost,etc.

    • essteeyouEnglish
      60·
      4 months ago

      Signal is perfectly good under normal usage. Everything is unintuitive when it comes to extremes like losing your device.

      • EngineerGamingEnglish
        40·
        4 months ago

        Signal is annoying to use if you don’t have a smartphone you can trust, since they do not allow registration from desktop. So either an Android VM or Signal-cli. But maybe it was just a one-off bug that the desktop client didn’t bind to signal-cli for me. Still, the fact that you need an unofficial command-line application just to register makes it not exactly user-friendly.

        • essteeyouEnglish
          50·
          4 months ago

          I imagine that most people’s families will find Singal easier than using a CLI program anyway. It’s rare to find an entire family without typical cellphones.

          • EngineerGamingEnglish
            23·
            4 months ago

            Yea, but a typical cellphone is not as easy to make private as a typical laptop or desktop. Lineage has some tradeoffs and not accessible on all devices, and Graphene needs even more specific, quite expensive hardware!

            • essteeyouEnglish
              21·
              4 months ago

              Good luck getting grandma to install and use Graphene or Lineage on their 3 year old underpowered Samsung device that already works the way they know.

              I think you’re making problems where there aren’t any. A device PIN or fingerprint along with Signal is probably way more secure than any family chat needs to be.

              • EngineerGamingEnglish
                30·
                4 months ago

                I meant telemetry to Google and/or manufacturer. With grandma, I can at least install Linux on her laptop and say to message me there (that’s pretty much what I did with mom).

      • philpoEnglish
        20·
        4 months ago

        Wouldn’t say that. With most Matrix Clients, WhatsApp, etc. it’s far easier. Especially from a perspective of a elderly,less tech adept user.