Matrix in UC.Technology > Why Matrix?
There are many services and programs for instant electronic communication.
Matrix was chosen because it has the following characteristics:
Additional information and some analysis:
Currently we all communicate through messengers. The most popular ones are WhatsApp, Telegram, Viber, Slack, Discord, VK Messenger, Facebook Messenger.
What they all have in common is that they are proprietary. Of course, proprietary products have advantages - large audiences due to advertising budgets, and the products themselves are well-made from a UI/UX perspective. They are indeed pleasant to use.
But the disadvantages of proprietary products are much more significant.
Your data is not yours!
The main disadvantage is that you do not control your data. First, your account can be deleted unilaterally. And you cannot do anything about it.
Furthermore, rest assured that your correspondence in the messenger is not only yours. If desired, people can gain access to your conversations.
If this were not the case, messengers would implement end-to-end encryption. But messengers do not do this. Because your data is a valuable resource. Why give it up?
Advertising
Sooner or later, advertising will appear in all these products.
Even if it is not there now, it may appear tomorrow, and it will appear in the most obtrusive way. Telegram claimed it was free and would never have ads.
Congratulations, ads have appeared in it.
And if a product has no ads, think about how that product makes money.
Censorship
You can be blocked at any moment, and not for any serious violations, but simply because the resource owners may not like your words.
For example, Facebook or Twitter currently have the strongest censorship. They block people just for expressing an opinion.
Recently, a Facebook user wrote a post about a series they watched called "MAID". They expressed their opinion that all female characters in the series are wonderful and beautiful people, while all male characters are insane rapists. The administration then deleted their post, calling it harmful content.
Now, if your post does not align with the modern feminist agenda, you cannot speak out.
That is why we believe messengers should be decentralized. Just like money. For example, now we have Bitcoin and we got honest money. The same goes for messengers. We should have an honest messenger. A messenger where there is no centralized authority that could block a person for their views.
A messenger where everything should be encrypted. Where your data is not collected. And where they do not show you ads in the terrible way that Telegram does.
Open Source
The most important thing for a good messenger is open source code. And the source code must be open not only for the client, but also for the server. This is very important. I remember how Telegram once boasted about having open source code. But only the client was open source. And the client's open source code, essentially, does not affect anything.
If you look at Open Source, you will realize how many incredibly wonderful tools and opportunities it has given us. We use it, build many other useful things based on it, and it is all thanks to it.
Email itself does not belong to anyone. You can take your server, set up your own mail server and send mail to anyone. Because the code of the protocol and the server is open. You cannot be blocked in Email. Yes, of course, you can be blocked on a particular server. But you can always move to another or set everything up on your own server.
Apache, Nginx
Also open source. Thanks to them, you can set up any server in minutes.
Bitcoin
A tool that allows you to exchange money and be confident that your money will not be taken away or a third party will not cancel your transaction. And most importantly, no interested party can steal your money by issuing new money (i.e., causing inflation). This is also an open source tool.
Linux
An operating system that runs on a huge number of computers. 90 percent of servers run on it. 100 percent of all small smart home devices run on it.
Nextcloud
A server for storing and sharing files, which is also open source. There is currently no point in using Dropbox and sharing your personal data with it.
IF THERE ARE ALREADY...
Some may say that we already have tools for this. Tools that are open source and allow communication.
IRC, XMPP, Signal, Telegram
IRC?
We have very warm feelings towards IRC as in the recent past many people, especially students, used it and communicated there.
But nevertheless, this protocol has a large number of drawbacks.
-text only
-no history
-no multi-device support
-no presence support
-no open federation
-no standard API
-no built-in end-to-end encryption
-splits that cause many problems and even affect security
XMPP?
We still remember Jabber. In its time, it was quite an interesting tool. But it also has a large number of drawbacks.
-Incomplete multi-device support
-The protocol is not very good for the web, i.e., for working from a browser
-And overall, it is quite overloaded
Signal?
Because Signal does not support decentralization.
Matrix!
So the most interesting option right now is Matrix - a free protocol for decentralized real-time communication. It can be used for chats, and for audio and video calls using WebRTC. Matrix defines the standard and provides open-source implementations of servers and clients.
Matrix gives people the ability to communicate and synchronize data across the network. While having control over their data.
At the same time, everything looks simple for the user. You can communicate with absolutely everyone without worrying about which applications you use. You can use your own server, or register on an existing one.
Matrix is a federated network. This means that each server can communicate with others. For example, just like a GMAIL.COM server interacts with a MAIL.RU server when you send an email.
Matrix provides open federation - this means that anyone on the internet can join the Matrix ecosystem by deploying their own server.
For example, in IRC you can connect to one network and communicate there. And also connect to another network and communicate there. But effectively these are different networks. And users of one network do not see users from another.
In Matrix, servers can connect to each other.
In Matrix, there are channels. You can join, for example, ours - #ucmeetnews:matrix.ucmeet.chat
And when you want to send a message to this channel, your server looks at which other servers are part of this room and sends the message to each server individually. Then each one shows the message to its users in that room.
And each server saves this message in its local database.
Each homeserver in a room stores the contents of its history.
If for any reason a homeserver goes offline, even if it is the server whose address is in the room name, all other homeservers in the room can continue communicating with each other.
How to register and start communicating?
The fastest way is to go to https://web.ucmeet.chat and register, then follow the instructions to install the UCMeetChat client.
UCMeetChat client provides a simple chat interface not only on ucmeet.chat and ucmeet.org servers, but can also interact with other servers, locally built for closed corporate use on the Matrix protocol, allowing the user to interact with other users and rooms in the Matrix federation. Text messaging, images, files, connection of various bots and bridges for integration with, for example, Telegram, WhatsApp and other well-known platforms are supported. Voice and video calls (1:1 and group) also work.
Successful work with our services!
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