Movim works on mobile via the installable PWA, it works quite well.

Movim.eu offers free XMPP accounts just like Matrix, and virtually all other XMPP servers are free as well.

I agree, it’s an unfortunate downside. But it’s still probably our best option long-term.

At least in XMPP’s case, I think a way of dealing with the fragmentation is to treat Movim as the ‘main’ app, and to encourage any friends willing to leave Discord to just use that, and not mention other options unless you know they’re a bit more tech savvy, and can understand the limitations of the other clients and just think of them as fun little bonuses (until they catch up, anyway). :)

No Linux OS currently supports many models of phones, and the ones it does support, it is still quite janky and not ready for a general audience (calling is often flakey, phone apps are pretty glitchy, etc). The best we can do at the moment is either donate toward those projects with either money or code (if someone is able to) to help get more hands on it to polish it up and expand support for more phones.

GrapheneOS is currently the only really polished privacy respecting mobile option that the average user can realistically adopt.

I also notice from your recent Lemmy posts that you are evangelizing Movim pretty hard lately.

I am, mainly due to the Discord situation which has resulted in much more interest in alternative platforms. After everything dies down and everyone is settled in their new platform, I’ll likely be posting about it a bit less.

but praising XMPP without mentioning its drawbacks

I am mentioning its drawbacks; it does not have two very important Discord features as of now, which I explicitly point out. I also pointed out that screen sharing audio only works with Chromium browsers, which is another downside (I only use Firefox myself).

while spreading outdated and vague criticism of other options

You yourself said that the issues I had were only fixed a few months ago. I had been using it in the period you mention the problem existing in, but stopped using it due to those issues. I think it’s a little unreasonable to expect me to regularly re-try every other platform before relating my past experiences with it (a few months is not that long ago). I’m glad to hear that problem has been finally resolved for them. As it’s not relevant anymore, I won’t mention it when relaying my experience with it in the future.

Ideally we’ll eventually switch to a Mobile Linux OS in the future, such as postmarketOS, as that would not be beholden to corporate decisions like Android is with Google.

with Gajim, it is a simple toggle in the client options. I don’t use it but I assume Movim is similar.

Can confirm, it’s just a toggle, and then you can click a padlock icon in any chat to send any new messages as encrypted.

Movim only offers a PWA, but there are other native Android XMPP apps, such as Monocles Chat, but it isn’t as advanced as Movim in some ways, as it’s still lacking the ability to make or receive group voice/video calls, nor can it screenshare. It is however able to make 1-on-1 calls, even with Movim users.

It is. It offers OMEMO encryption of both chats and video/audio calls. It’s based on Signal’s encryption, but modified to work with a federated/decentralized model.

Fluxer, while promising, is currently too buggy for people to switch to, and still has an unproven back-end that needs to show it can scale up. I am hopeful for it though, as it uses GPL, and the dev plans to implement federation and encryption at some point.

XMPP is rapidly gaining Discord-like features thanks to the Movim client, but it too is not yet a 1:1 replacement. It is however pretty stable, and could be used while users wait for those additional features.

I’ve personally not had terribly good experiences with Matrix. I found it to be slow at times, but more annoyingly, it would very consistently not un-encrypt messages both for me and the people I was talking to, requiring both parties to regularly need to re-send messages until they finally unencrypted properly. This made it a real ball-ache to use, as you could send a message, and then hours later have someone else say they can’t read it. I’m also not a fan of how much Metadata it spreads around.

XMPP on the other hand has always been snappy and fast, and I much prefer the clients available for it. It’s currently the most promising federated option, IMHO, with Movim being the most promising client as a Discord replacement.

It’s still missing some essential Discord-like features, such as groups of rooms in a server and drop-in voice rooms, but both features are being actively worked on, and a funding campaign was started to accelerate development.

But what it can do already is:

• Excellent text chats, including with very good optional encryption
• Group voice/video calls with screensharing (must use a chromium based browser to screenshare an app’s audio)
• A neat integrated blogging feature for communities & individuals
• a built-in paint program to draw stuff to input into the chat
• Full working and proven federation thanks to the XMPP back-end

That’s a screenshot of the Movim client’s WIP of Discord-like servers w/spaces, which is being rapidly worked on.

XMPP does, but how advanced depends on the client used. Only the Movim and Dino clients support group voice/video calls at the moment, and Movim is the only client that supports Screensharing (requires a Chromium based browser to screenshare w/audio).

• XMPP

Highly mature, looks very promising, but lacks any kind of guild/nested channel grouping support which makes it unsuitable for my group, so I didn’t look too deep at it.

No XMPP clients currently have that feature, but the Movim client is actively working on implementing it, and it should be ready in a few weeks. They recently launching a modest funding campaign to accelerate development.

I suspect many Discord refugees will be looking for an all-in-one app that can do both solid text chat with discord-style servers and many rooms/spaces in them, as well as the ability to seamlessly have voice/video calls with groups of friends, as well as screenshare applications to watch movies together or stream games while chatting.

IRC is only capable of the text chat part, and would require an additional video conferencing app with a separate account to fulfill the video call part, which most would find off-putting after having it all-in-one for over a decade.

Hey, quick update, the Fluxer dev has agreed to remove the CLA, so I’d say that puts it back in the running.

EDIT: The Fluxer dev has agreed to remove the CLA!

I was just informed today of a huge red flag for Fluxer; it has a contributor CLA that could allow it to change to a non-FLOSS license in the future. I was hopeful for it previously, but that kills it for me.

Also @[email protected]

I’ll be sticking with Movim, which is already federated, encrypted, can do group video calls, can even screenshare, and most critically does not have a CLA.

Movim would be a good one to try. It’s actually more full featured than Stoat as well, as it offers Encryption, Federation (XMPP), group video/audio calls, and screensharing with application audio! (must use a chromium based browser to pass the audio for now). It is currently missing Discord-like channels with rooms, but the dev is actively working on that.

Stoat currently cannot do video calls or screensharing, and has no plans to implement encryption or federation, AFAIK.

Also @[email protected], @[email protected] and @[email protected]