Riot allows you to connect to any server you choose. The privacy policy is if you are using the riot.im matrix server. Don’t like it? Make your own server. Its that simple.
I think. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong.
okay accepted 
I am using only Jabber, Spreed (sometimes Signal by exception and recently trying Briar) - I guess I need to dig a bit deeper into Matrix/Riot before doing another fast posting …
Simple? Teach me how make a server with riot, i m a user not a sysadmin
I have another question. When librem5 will be released and will use their own matrix server i need to make another account or can i use the one i already have and be in touch with everyone who use matrix also in the matrix/riot main server?
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I agree with @eagle and @o-k : it is easy just to say to switch to another server. But it is not the way to proceed. Let´s all remember that the Librem 5 is a phone for everybody who care about privacy. It means admins, geeks, programmers, but also taxi drivers, doctors, teenagers, old people, etc. If I buy a car and ask for a rear camera as an option, I don´t expect the dealer to tell me ¨If you wan´t it, just install it by yourself¨, because, you have to buy the good part model, to connect the video wire to your screen, the power wire to you rear light, to unscrew/screw panels, sometimes to make holes for the camera, etc. You see, this is not only ¨If you are not happy, then just do it yourself¨.
I mean Riot has a huge potential in terms of private communications, but it has currently 3 cons : complex design, not easy customization, and no SMS/MMS encryption (like Silence in android, because SMS/MMS are massively used in Europe).
I am sure all of these cons can be solved in the future, I trust Purism and Matrix teams to make things simple for everybody.
Purism is also integrating NextCloud for file sync and share solutions. NextCloud is the same way as Matrix. You can either use somebody else’s service and share your files with them, or you can build your own server . Email is the same way. Either build an email server in your basement or use something easy like gmail and compromise your privacy. Synced messaging with history has the same tradeoffs. Perhaps we can build a “Matrix Box” like the “Nextcloud Box” to make using Matrix as easy as Nextcloud. That would be my “ideal” world.
What you said could be a solution : there is a partnership with Nextcloud. It is not clear how will be the result of this project but I hope we will be able to use the Librem 5 as a kind of server through Nextcloud (possible because we never turn off the phone, and it is always connected / less possible because it means a large disk size).
If Purism and Nextcloud can do an “out of the box” server, then we can select it for Riot.
Anyway, I still insist about SMS/MMS encryption. I think about all this people in Europe/rest of the world which use this protocol : I really hope something like Silence. Today, mobile network operators can read meta data but also content of SMS/MMS, then a few months later, you receive some ads related to what you said.
I know that a bridge to connect SMS with Matrix already exists but it is not clear how it works, if it is E2E encryption or not, etc.
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Just stop bashing the water please. Read above official statement from Matrix representative
To be clear: the “local homeserver” idea is 100% vapourware scifi at this point, but still an interesting thought experiment about where things could go in future.
So it’s a no-go at the moment. Unless you mean by that - go write your own matrix protocol implementation and run it on your private server.
For those interested in running said “vapourware scifi”, I would advise you read the official instructions over on GitHub.
The link is: https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/blob/master/README.rst.
great news from @matthew
i’m really happy to see they are start to work actively to this project again, improve the feature already have without pushing on newer things like other project do is a good news, i’m curious to see how they can make riot more user friendly, so i can finally bring more people to riot/matrix
dear matthew just don’t forget us about privacy policy, i know you have to focus on other things and i understand, but just no delay this topic too much please
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Indeed amazing news! Congratulations @matthew
Can’t wait for a more stable version of Riot with better PP so that I could introduce it to friends. 
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I totally back this. I managed to get somehow most of my friends on Signal because I’m concerned about privacy, and Signal’s interface is simple enough for Average Joe.
I think the most important things to address for Matrix to gain traction are:
- Fix the privacy policy, because the early adopters and the most willing to give Matrix another chance when a changelog appears are people concerned with privacy
- Improve the UI, so the early adopters can bring in their family and friends along the way
Thanks for your great work 
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I just managed to self-host some home server on a raspberry pi with yunohost, and will be able to serve a matrix-synapse node soon https://github.com/YunoHost-Apps/synapse_ynh. That + matrix on phone
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Signal has some privacy issues. And well, by starting my research here I understood that Signal has no intent fixing them. github link (Signal developer nickname: moxie0)
So again, I hope soon to jump ships and focus only on a single platform, the closest to my ideologies.
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In my understanding, the main concerns are:
- Signal uses Google Cloud Messages to push notifications (while the notifications themselves are empty, it is “only” meta-data)
- The Signal application has an auto-update mechanism that could allow silent replacement by a backdoored app
In a purely selfish way:
- I currently have a phone with LineageOS and no GApps nor MicroG, which prevents Signal from being reached by GCM. My Signal app does active polling against Signal servers using websockets
- I use Noise, the rebranded app built by Copperhead and distributed through F-Droid, which I think does not suffer the auto-update issue (to be confirmed).
m0xie has been known to be incredibly stubborn when confronted to privacy issues raised by users. More than 5 years in, and he still refuses to produce a 100% free build of Signal, which would allow it to be distributed by F-Droid. Moreover, he has stated that he wants a no opt-out feature of telemetry, so he can provide a quality app.
Long story short, the code is open source and anyone willing to put enough energy into it could fork Signal. I am one of the critics of m0xie for some aspects (the main concerns raised about Signal are valid in my opinion), but I do not have the time nor energy to fork it and provide an alternative.
To get back to the topic: as a heavy user of Signal, my hopes and expectations are very high about Matrix. I am willing to spend much time to test it and provide feedback, so a polished app could surface. This could be a total game changer for me.
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Hi, I just found this interesting app called Ring. What is interesting in this open-source app is that it works P2P, with E2E encryption without any server.
If I understood well, the server is your phone/desktop. I know that this feature about Matrix is kind of vapourwave for the moment, but I would like to share anyway, maybe this can help to get such feature in Matrix :
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Given that running one’s own server for Matrix is not currently possible, is it better to use Conversations(XMPP)?
This is slightly off-topic: currently, I run my own Asterisk server and clients use SRTP+TLS. I believe I am only managing hop by hop encryption since the clients are behind a carrier grade NAT. Is there any way to get true end-to-end encryption using SIP? I hear ZRTP is the way to go but I’m not sure.
Given that running one’s own server for Matrix is not currently possible
?
is it better to use Conversations(XMPP)?
XMPP is it’s own bag of problems. Mostly revolving around E2E encryption, which requires a plugin to work (OTR) and federation of rooms with different servers.
Running one’s own matrix server is absolutely possible. What isn’t possible is running that server on your phone. But you can definitely run your own server.
So is this no longer true or am I missing something?
I believe that @matthew was referring to running a homeserver on a phone. That does not exist. Running your own homeserver on an actual always on computer has existed for a while now.
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