I am running my own home server, everyone in my family has an account they use there (the domain is our last name). Non-techy people use it and like it (past the initial setup, since setting up a custom domain requires a few more clicks than :matrix.org account). I am not waiting for the day, though, when they will need to set up a new device without access to the old one because of E2E setup. I would like Matrix to provide a setting to advise UIs to not use e2e encryption for the same domain -- that's useless if you trust the home server (my family do trust my home server).

> I personally haven't met any "real" people who are even aware of Matrix. When I broached it with a non-IT friend, they were actively uninterested in unifying messaging applications as they had "facebook friends" and "whatsapp friends" and interacted with them differently.

I tried to sell it too with the "unify your messaging apps", but this is a wrong selling point to new users. First they need to start using matrix as their messaging app, realize that it works well, including VoIP and video calls. Once trust is there, only then start thinking about using bridges. Because there will be rough edges (e.g. federated voice/video calls do not work).

Because of the way bridges integrate to third-parties, they are not bug-free. Reliability is just not great yet. Maybe except a hosted service, Beeper[1], which is run by people who know most about these bridges and can provide support.

To sum up, I am using Matrix for my family network, and some bridges personally; I am not yet planning to spread the use of bridges beyond myself. Besides the encryption setup, I like the UI a lot. I also use gomuks[2] from time to time, which is a terminal matrix application. I have not stumped into server-side problems.

I am donating monthly to Tulir[3], the most prolific Matrix bridge developer (and, to my knowledge, co-founder of beeper). Because I started using Matrix thanks to his bridges.

Oh, and I love the Matrix sms bridge[4]. I set it up to see if it works, and I am not going back. It's great.

[1]: https://www.beeper.com/

[2]: https://github.com/tulir/gomuks

[3]: https://github.com/tulir

[4]: https://github.com/tijder/SmsMatrix

> I would like Matrix to provide a setting to advise UIs to not use e2e encryption for the same domain -- that's useless if you trust the home server (my family do trust my home server).

It's not useless. What if there is a server vulnerability and someone (or something) hacks your server? Now all your logs have been exposed because they were stored plaintext.

That's super cool! I have not gotten anyone else on Matrix, I (and my bridges) am the sole user of the server, and it's my first exposure to the ecosystem. I had basically just set everything up when I saw Beeper's announcement. I'd love to set up an Android VM to host WhatsApp, as that's an appealing part of Beeper's offering. The host phone having to stay Internet connected is a pain.

> Oh, and I love the Matrix sms bridge

Agreed - I totally buy Beeper's testimonials, as I 100% am more willing to have an actual conversation with a text contact if I'm able to type it out on the device of my choosing. Ever since by Blackberry kicked the bucket, I've hated typing on my phone. That said, I've meant to fork the Android app to try and put a bit more feedback in it - if it doesn't work 100% right off the bat it gives roughly no indication of why. Could use a little love, as it's one of the killer bridges!

Holy moly I can't believe it took me this long to hear about beeper. I'm pretty awful at responding to msgs sometimes because I have so many different places that I can receive them. Will definitely be giving Beeper a shot and am surprised that more people aren't looking for this exact solution.

I even went looking a while back and all I found was franz which felt clunky and unusable.

Even though I want to get away from the fb ecosystem, at the end of the day, normies gonna norm.

That doesn't use signald. It uses the full desktop client in nodejs and as such uses a lot of memory :(

Check the link -- there is an older bridge which ran the client with some monkey-patched JavaScript, but this is a new bridge that does use signald.

Ahh ok I wasn't aware of this. I used the bridge about 1.5 years ago and dropped it because of its crazy memory use and instability. I didn't realise it had been rewritten. I'll give it another try, thanks!