Having got Element X out the door, my attention at least is going to swing back to Element Web. In terms of encryption disasters, we are about to switch Element Web’s crypto to the same rust implementation as Element X, hopefully next week - you can track the progress at https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/21972#issuec.... Hopefully this will make a much-needed massive improvement on encryption, while also speeding it up 5x or so. On Element X, encryption failures are almost unheard of (other than when talking to Element Web).
This alone makes Matrix the worse chat platform out there from a users perspective IMO. I invested too much effort in getting things up and running and using it now though, so I'm just hoping that this gets fixed one day, or something better comes along that I can migrate to.
One time I had to manually export and import my own keys to be able to read old messages, which was a task that would have been too technical for most of the people I'd like to chat with, and was supremely annoying for me.
It's just a non-starter. I have a community I've been considering moving to Matrix for literal _years_ now and there are just so many sharp edges.
I've been confused about Matrix's priorities for a long, long time. I am not getting any less confused, to be honest.
The high level plan is:
* Fix all the bugs which cause random undecryptable messages, which was the main thing causing frustration. This is (hopefully) done now by converging on the new Rust implementation.
* Generate a recovery key, rather than confuse the user by asking them to pick two passwords (one for their account, one for their encryption). Impress on the user that if they ever want to recover their history, they'll need it. Expect that most users will lose it.
* When logging in on a new device, scan a QR code on an existing device to transfer over the keys (and thus history). Users are used to this now thanks to WhatsApp and Discord, and empirically they can do it fine. The recovery key is used only as a worst-case scenario if the user has no other devices. The act of logging in (either via scanning another device, or via recovery key) signs that device as owned by you.
* Only accept messages from devices that a given user has signed (i.e. trust on first use for users). If you want to verify that user out of band, they get an green tick too, purely to help you keep track of which users you're sure are legit and which users you've assumed are legit.
* At any given point, encryption is either enabled on your device (i.e. you've signed that device; it can access your encrypted message history; it can store keys for your encrypted message history) or it's not (and you can't do any E2EE). There are no halfway states.
This may sound simple and obvious when written out like this, but each point is a major change from the supremely confusing system we have today. The thing stopping us from having implemented it sooner is the huge amount of effort which went into reimplementing the engine in Rust. But having now (almost) finished that project, next thing up is fixing the UX, at last. The rough timeline is hopefully end-of-year, but, again, timings are contingent on funding pressure.
the way threads are displayed in the browser versions makes them hard to follow. in our hackerspace, where many are tech minded people, i see regular complaints about that.
scrollback to unread messages often fails. i have never had another chat application where that was a problem. this should just work.
the handling of encryption keys is very confusing. there are to many moving parts, it's not clear what i must save so that i can restore the keys in a new client.
private rooms are also confusing. i want to have a private room be the name of my chat partner, and they want it to carry my name. being able to do that would be very helpful.
i am also missing the ability to use a different nickname in every room. different groups know me under different nicknames. discord and wechat can do it. it would be great if matrix/element could do that too.