this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2024
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Element for Android doesn't support searching in encrypted channels and I think you can't use E2EE in the browser at all(?), plus basically every other client has even more drawbacks when it comes to E2EE.

My team recently tried RocketChat, but E2EE is obviously an afterthought for that project as it has even more limitations than non-Element Matrix clients (no searching, no pinning, no file upload, no edit, etc.). Plus Jitsi integration seems to be buggy right now (at least on my Windows installation).

What else is out there that's not on my radar? Is Matrix with Element really the best option right now? Is there no project that puts E2EE above all else?

Edit: Should be self-hostable and (FL)OSS.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 9 months ago (11 children)

Correcting some misconceptions...

Element for Android doesn’t support searching in encrypted channels

That's true of regular Element for Android, but it's being replaced with Element X (which is built with Rust). I would expect search to be added there if it isn't already.

and I think you can’t use E2EE in the browser at all(?)

I have done it in Firefox, so that's false. Perhaps you had trouble with a specific browser?

plus basically every other client has even more drawbacks when it comes to E2EE.

Nheko handles E2EE just fine, so that would seem to be false as well.

Since you're looking for recommendations, it would help if you said which clients you tried and what problems you had with them.

In case you haven't seen it, you can set a Features: E2EE filter on this list:
https://matrix.org/ecosystem/clients/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (9 children)

I would expect search to be added

That's what I expected fo regular Element for Android as well, but it never came into existence.

Element X

I fail to find a feature comparison between the two. Does it have feature parity with Element yet? If not, what's missing?

Firefox

Firefox is my main browser and has been for the last 15 years or so. It definitely was Firefox, but maybe I'm confusing it with a different issue. There definitely was some feature in Element Web that didn't work and told me to use Desktop instead, unless I'm imagining things now.

Nheko

Interesting, I'll take a look.
EDIT: Nheko is NOT a mobile client. I've misinterpreted your statement.

https://matrix.org/ecosystem/clients/

That unfortunately doesn't specify the extend of the E2EE support (like search), but I appreciate your effort.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (5 children)

There definitely was some feature in Element Web that didn't work and told me to use Desktop instead, unless I'm imagining things now.

It's search.

Even in Element, last time I checked, search was incredibly half-baked and mostly useless.

I know you don't want to use Signal, but it actually has searches that function.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Back when encrypted search was being developed for the Electron app, I think someone had it working in a standalone browser as well. Perhaps that was with the help of a browser add-on; I don't remember for sure. I suspect github.com/t3chguy would know, as he seems to be active in discussions of that feature. It might be worth asking him about it.

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