App looks very similar too. But friends, other devs and communities aren’t using it. Their privacy agreements seems to be much better than Discord, especially because their servers are located in Europe. But one should still understand this is not entirely private either. Note, I am not dunking on this service, just want to remember people to read privacy notices:
We do use certain service providers to process your data on our behalf.
Law & Order: We may disclose your information to third parties only if such disclosure is absolutely necessary to comply with a valid legal process, protect any person from death or serious injury, prevent fraud or abuse, or protect our rights, property, safety and interest.
If you wish to request deletion of any information stored on our servers … Exceptions apply for the third-party service providers used to process your data as described in the service supplement.
We may also process your personal data to comply with our legal obligations, to protect our legitimate interests or the interests of others.
True story: one weekend I convinced my friends and family to try Matrix instead, and within the first day of using it someone spammed them with CSAM. That was the last of trying Matrix.
This is horrible, but its not like a Matrix only issue. I used Matrix a few times, but stopped because most people aren’t there. Never had an issue like CSAM or similar. In example someone got hacked by an exploit in the Linux Kernel. Does that mean everyone should stop using Linux?
Don’t get me wrong, I understand your situation. It’s also embarrassing and traumatic, especially because you had experienced it yourself. I just meant this in general, that people should not be afraid of trying Matrix, because YOU had these terrible experience.
That was a coordinated attack that happened for a brief period. As a guy who runs his own home server, trust me when I say it was a nightmare for all involved.
That’s over, now that there are strong protections in place to prevent those sorts of attacks.
Also, if you’re trying to just use something between friends and family you can always turn off federation (E.g. Have matrix act just like the alternatives where you have one network and are only communicating with local accounts).
So glad I don’t have to wake up every morning and purge all remote media from the prior evening 😂
App looks very similar too. But friends, other devs and communities aren’t using it. Their privacy agreements seems to be much better than Discord, especially because their servers are located in Europe. But one should still understand this is not entirely private either. Note, I am not dunking on this service, just want to remember people to read privacy notices:
- https://stoat.chat/legal/privacy
An alternative could also be Matrix, which at least is decentralized: https://matrix.org/
True story: one weekend I convinced my friends and family to try Matrix instead, and within the first day of using it someone spammed them with CSAM. That was the last of trying Matrix.
This is horrible, but its not like a Matrix only issue. I used Matrix a few times, but stopped because most people aren’t there. Never had an issue like CSAM or similar. In example someone got hacked by an exploit in the Linux Kernel. Does that mean everyone should stop using Linux?
I just simply can’t and won’t ask friends and family to try it again after they experienced that.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand your situation. It’s also embarrassing and traumatic, especially because you had experienced it yourself. I just meant this in general, that people should not be afraid of trying Matrix, because YOU had these terrible experience.
That was a coordinated attack that happened for a brief period. As a guy who runs his own home server, trust me when I say it was a nightmare for all involved.
That’s over, now that there are strong protections in place to prevent those sorts of attacks.
Also, if you’re trying to just use something between friends and family you can always turn off federation (E.g. Have matrix act just like the alternatives where you have one network and are only communicating with local accounts).
So glad I don’t have to wake up every morning and purge all remote media from the prior evening 😂