====== Matrix: the decentralized chat ======

[[https://matrix.org|Matrix]] is a "**An open network for secure, decentralised communication**", which provides "**A cozy, safe, supercharged place for your community**". What does this means?

Imagine Whatsapp or Telegram, but without a //for-profit// company that backs it. Imagine //Signal//, but not dependent on a single company to carry out, and care for, the development. Imagine Discord, but without all the annoying monetization and ever growing demands to buy or pay for it. Imagine the //good old// [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRC|IRC]] (Internet Relay Chat) but on steroids, and upgraded to modernity.

Matrix is the **future** of chats. Both personal and cummunities, both private and public. Matrix is a set of //open standards// for which there are some great implementations to choose from.  

The advantages of the Matrix approach:
  * Open standards: like e-mail, anybody can write it's own Matrix server or client
  * Fully secure: support end-to-end encryption on full stack
  * Self-hostable: host your own instance and connect to everybody else
  * Fully federated: a resilient network of servers that cannot be //killed// or //shut down//
  * In your control: your chats belongs to you, nobody can censure or delete them
  * Future proof: Matrix is controlled by a non-profit foundation

===== Why Matrix? =====

Whatsapp is the chat standard nowadays. Telegram is growing more and more, Signal push it all on privacy and encryption, Messenger is quite common, even Instagram is commonly used to chat today. So why Matrix?

== Interoperability ==
With Matrix, using **bridges**, you can connect to all those services (and more) above. Yes, one app to rule them all... A single app from which you can see all your chats.

== Ownsership ==
When an old friend of mine died, after about one year, all the chats i shared with him disappeared because his account got deleted due to inactivity. If i had used Matrix, those messages, pieces of my life and fond memories of him, wouldn't be lost. 

With Matrix, your chats stay with your server and don't get deleted just because some third party says so.

== Privacy ==
In theory what you say should be private to the participants of the chat. I wouldn't be surprised if in the future backdoors or other means of snooping came to light. Or maybe the chat starts to be harvested for IA purposed, or for marketing purposes. Commercial services, after all, needs to make money.

On my Matrix server, my data is private, encrypted and protected.


===== What is Matrix? =====

The idea of Matrix can be reduced to:
  * A server, a central place where all the messages are stored
  * A client, an app you use to actually chat, it connects to the server
  * Some bridges, installed into the server, which let's you connect to Whatsapp, Telegram, and many more different chat systems.
  * A federation, a network of Matrix servers that lets you talk with people on different Matrix servers


===== Matrix Server =====

A Matrix server is like the home to all your chats. It's where all the messages are stored (encrypted). It's like, say, //gmail.com// or //hotmail.com//, but yours. In fact, you can choose a public Matrix server, like **matrix.org**, or create your own by installing a Matrix server software.

There are many Matrix servers around, you can even pick the one you prefer. A very popular one is [[https://github.com/element-hq/synapse|Synapse]], another growing, younger, and promising one is [[https://conduwuit.puppyirl.gay|Conduwuit]].

===== Matrix Client =====

There are lots of Matrix clients. For Android, for PC (Windows and Linux), for IOS... Take your pick.


===== Matrix Bridges =====

Bridges are pieces of software that you connect to your Matrix server and let you login into other chat systems and interact from Matrix with them.

[[https://matrix.org/ecosystem/bridges/|This]] page list all the currently available Matrix bridges. The best ones, in my experience, are the so called Mautrix bridges, that can be found [[https://docs.mau.fi/bridges/|here]].  They are stable and actively supported.

You should always enable double-puppeting

Some examples are:
  * Whatsapp 
  * Telegram 
  * Signal 
  * Discord 
  * Meta (Instagram & Messenger) 
  * Google Chat
  * Slack
  * GMessage
  * iMessage
  * E-Mail
  * Mattermost
  * Line
  * WeChat
  * XMPP
  * Groupme
  * QQ
  * Zulip
  * Linkedin

And the list grows over time.