multiple platforms chat clients was Re: casual proposal, some potential sponsors and telegram.
Hi all,
I had some free time yesterday and took time to see the alternatives
that were shared by people. My expectations are the following :-
a. The messaging client should be on multiple platforms (as far as
possible be platform agnostic) even if some features on one platform
that is ok but basic chat facility should be there.
b. If it can be relatively secure than IRC then would be happy. The
more secure it is, that is better but there doesn't seem to be anyway
to know other than to trust the vendors. Not a good way :(
c. Should be able to run on Debian without much effort.
d. Have somewhat of a decent UI.
I tried three apps. which were shared on the list :-
1. chat secure
2. surespot
3. telegram
4. jitsi
a. On the first criteria, only c. and d. were possible as both have an
implementation for desktop, lappies rather than just phones. It's far
easier to type on a desktop or a lappy than a phone and till phones
don't improve in that regard (possibly never due to the form factor) .
I know they are hardware accessories which can make it more efficient
to type but that was outside the scope in any case. For me having a
desktop/lappy equivalent has more weightage than anything else.
So in this test telegram and jitsi are equal with 1 point each while
rest are 0.
b. Not really known as it's all about whom do you trust. As somebody
who has little knowledge in security matters it is hard to know whom
should you trust.
c. Should be able to run on Debian without too much effort - Jitsi is
available via an apt-get/aptitude while telegram comes in a .tarball
with a binary which auto-updates itself as and when it checks with the
server to see if a new version is out and auto-updates.
d. Except for jitsi which seems to have a very poor UI (or wants to
target kids) the rest of them were ok.
All in all, both jitsi and telegram were good with telegram slightly
outperforming jitsi in both the UI design (simple, understated and
clean) and having multiple platform builds.
The only con in case of telegram is that the server code is the secret
sauce i.e. source-code is not open.
A pity in number of choices as of right now, Probably need to wait 6
months to see if some of them do get a desktop port.
Till l8er.
--
Regards,
Shirish Agarwal शिरीष अग्रवाल
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