zlacker

>>quenti+(OP)
With Signal moving away from SMS, the required messaging app stack on my phone just to be able to receive everything sent do me will have to be:

- Signal -> Close friends & family I've convinced to use it.

- WhatsApp -> Most of my friends.

- SMS -> School notifications, 2FA, shipping updates, etc.

- Facebook Messenger -> Elderly relatives

- Telegram -> That one relative who wants to use this instead of Signal.

Is there a consolidated messaging app that the HN community recommends?

I can't be the only one suffering from messenger bloat.

>>joel35+Ub
Matrix

>>robobr+rc
It is my understanding that this mostly works with rooms/channels over bridges - not with individual, 1-on-1 communication. Do you have a hint how to set this up?

>>DocTom+pe
I have set up a bridge on my own server. I bridge 1-on-1 chats and group chats equally and have set up spaces to separate the different clients for ease of overview.

Bridging chats of different technologies doesn't work well/at all (i.e. Signal bridge + WhatsApp bridge users in a single room) but bridging external chats (DM or group) into Matrix works very well. Some services need a daemon running on a phone (i.e. WhatsApp) and that's very annoying, but where possible these bridges all run in the cloud.

If you trust third parties, you can also go the easy route by getting a subscription from EMS (https://element.io/matrix-services/ems-pricing) or Beeper (https://www.beeper.com/). I personally prefer to keep my messages and encryption keys on devices I control, but others prefer to let someone else take care of it all and I respect that.

It's relatively straight-forward to set up a bridging server if you're comfortable with Docker and YAML files. You can read how to set up a Matrix server here: https://matrix.org/docs/guides/free-small-matrix-server and here: https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy/b...

If you use the Ansible playbook, all you should really need to do is run through the setup, fire up a Matrix client, start chats with bot accounts, and follow the instructions on the guide (usually sending /login to a bot and authenticating your account with whatever service you're bridging).

Your Matrix account doesn't have to be on the same server as your bridges, which is a setup some seem to prefer. You can set up a Matrix server just for bridging so that you don't need to set up all the VoIP features and performance tricks while keeping your own server dedicated to just bridging stuff. This does break some nice features (i.e. double puppeting, a bridge feature) but it also makes your own server less of a single point of failure if you ever do get talking on Matrix.