XMPP greatest peak was when Google Talk was around. Being able to chat with thousands, if not millions, of Google users at that time, using your own domain, and your own XMPP server was amazing. Then Google, in all its wisdom, and as it does very often, decided to kill it.

I might be on the minority, but can care less about video calls. Heck, even calls! Text is King. 🤪

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org How many people are still using XMPP? 🤔 I’d expect the number to just as low as IRC users? 🤔

@aelaraji@aelaraji.com I do use XMPP. But only the text chat part. ;-)

Anyone using XMPP? I’ve been hearing a lot about how it is the OG messaging protocol. That G00gle Talk used to use it as a back-end, that FB messanger and w_hatsapp use some modified version of it or something; And that setting up a server (or even using a public one) would be a better alternative to the aforementioned apps, so I did. Now the question is: “Where the Fu__ are my video calls at!!? 🤣” … The protocol supports videoconferencing and I’m yet to find a decent Desktop/Mobile client that implements it. I wish I knew enough Code-Fu to contribute/help implement some, somewhere.

@shinyoukai@yume.laidback.moe Jabber = XMPP.

My open letter, to the European Commission digital markets act team:

Hello,

I am joining other developers, concerned about Googles new plan, to approve every app and effectively destroy most of the competing 3rd party stores this way. The biggest one of these alternative stores, most known for their focus on user and developer privacy, already states, this would make it impossible for them to operate: https://f-droid.org/cs/2025/09/29/google-developer-registration-decree.html
Even communities like the XDA forum, where new developers are often introduced to the world of Android development, would likely be strongly impacted, as making, publishing and installing Android apps is made less accessible.

I am not just writing on their behalf, I run a small website myself (https://thecanine.ueuo.com/), that both provides legal modifications, for some android apps - for example adding an amoled dark theme, to the most popular XMPP chat client for Android, or increasing one of Androids keyboard apps height. This all comes after Googles previous changes to the Android operating system, that prevent users from installing old apps (old to Google, can mean only a couple of months, without an update - https://developer.android.com/google/play/requirements/target-sdk and the target version gets increased every year). I rely on apps developed by a single developer, even for things like making the pixel art presented on my website and sideloading as a way to make these apps work, before developers can catch up to Google’s new requirements - if Google is allowed to slowly kill these options, us digital artists will soon lose the tools we need to create digital art.

@bender@twtxt.net Believe me, I’ve never been more tempted to switch, than now, as Google is one by one, removing (or at last trying to remove) all the reasons why I chose Android, over iOS. In fact, many friends who were fellow “Android diehards”, ended up switching recently.

Sadly what I need is a headphone jack, ability to modify apps on device (decompile, change file, recompile), many specific mods, strong XMPP support, Pixel Station,… nothing switching to iOS, would give me.

Reading something spaghettycat wrote on tilde.green has got me looking into the xmpp protocol.

@bender@twtxt.net I think it’s actually a new XEP proposal ( https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0084.html#proto-info ), but it’s still a bit unclear. Sorry for the late and vague response, I’m still trying to test it and see what it’s even about, didn’t yet find a server, that supports it.

@thecanine@twtxt.net with this you meant Conversations, not XMPP, right?

“Also, finally getting full screen view for avatars in XMPP - a better integrated one, after 25 years. Y@ay!”

QR codes, already posted about them in the last two posts, but I want to hear your hot takes: Should they only be black and white, are they even worth doing in 2025, incorporating them into things,..?
Also, finally getting full screen view for avatars in XMPP - a better integrated one, after 25 years. Y@ay!

@bender@twtxt.net NOOOO i self host an XMPP server and also revolt but as much as i love XMPP (gajim client reminds me of using skype as a kid highkey) i don’t use it much and revolt is a bitch to maintain. like i broke revolt file uploads and it stayed that way for months until literally last week lmao. i never bothered with matrix tbh maybe i should’ve but it seems not worth it

I left XMPP because I found no interactions. Long live IRC!

for example, ejabberd, redka, and litefs. all using sqlite+litefs for their database needs allows agents to communicate over xmpp, matrix, mqtt, and sip. other applications can use sqlite for storage or speak the redis protocol to redka. ejabberd can also handle file uploads, static file publishing, identity, and various other web application services. when scaling, litefs integrates with consul to manage replication which grants the network access to service disco, encrypted mesh networking, and various other features that can be used to build secure service grids. ejabberd and redka can be scaled to multiple nodes that coordinate over the litefs replication protocol without any changes to the db storage config. other components can be configured to plug into this framework fairly easily as well. we keep the network config fairly simple by linking nodes together with yggdrasil to flatten the address space and then linking app nodes together using consul to provide secure routing for the local grid service. yggdrasil also offers utility for buliding federated networks in a similarly flat address space, for more secure communications i2p is also available in yggdrasil mode. minibase is wonderful, and we have not even started to talk about secure IoT.

its offline atm, but my usual setup basically makes my xmpp server into a bouncer (biboumi) and my xmpp client just does its normal thing to read the irc backlog as server-side message history.

In nostr/simplex you did not bounded account to server because its just a relay. In matrix, xmpp and salty.im you store account data on broker and when broker is down you will no longer to communicate

Interesting. Thanks! And thank you for replying. :) Indeed, I don’t check for mention with twtxt. To me, twtxt is to share, not to talk: there is my email commented at the top of my #twtxt.txt for this purpose. Trying to create discussions with twtxt is nonsens : there are much better tools to do so (email, xmpp, …) @aelaraji@aelaraji.com @im-in.space@im-in.space

So much agree with this: https://0x19.org/posts/2023-06-09.php #xmpp

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Lack of comments are definitely a shortcoming of JSON. I don’t like TOML because it lets you have nested categories ([foo] [foo.bar] [foo.baz]) and it just feels confusing to me, even with indentation. Simple INI files are okay.

The Prosody XMPP server’s configuration file is just a Lua script because Prosody is written in Lua, and that’s excellent.

@jmjl@tilde.green I’m sorry that I’m not super knowledgeable about alternatives to jmp.chat but I’ll tell you what I know.

You’re probably right about jmp.chat not working for you, at least as it is now. You can only get US and Canadian phone numbers through it last time I checked, so if you’re not in either of those countries you’d be making international calls all the time and people who wanted to call you would be making international calls too.

I’ve seen people talk about using SIP as an intermediary: you can bridge SIP-to-XMPP, and bridge SIP-to-PSTN (PSTN = “packet switched telephone network”, meaning normal telephone). You can skip the SIP-to-XMPP side if you’re comfortable using a SIP client. I don’t know very much about SIP or PSTN so I am not sure what to recommend, but perhaps this helps your search queries.

There are a fair number of services like TextNow that let you sign up for a real telephone number that you can then use via their app (I wouldn’t use TextNow–they had tons of spyware in their app). I don’t know if that kind of service works for you but if it does perhaps you’d be able to find one of them that isn’t horrible. This page (https://alternativeto.net/software/jmp-chat/) has a bunch of alternatives; I can’t vouch for any of them but maybe it’s a starting point if you want to go this route.

Good luck!

@mckinley@twtxt.net Yes, I’m still with jmp.chat, and still very happy with them overall. Their beta period ended and their pricing increased a bit, so that’s worth a bit of consideration. I also managed to get one of their eSIMs. I’m slightly less happy with that aspect of their service, though they seem to be actively working on improving it and I knew in advance this was an early beta kind of thing and likely to have issues.

The only unreliability with calls that I’ve noticed was traceable to the unreliability of my own internet connection. I’ve confused incoming calls by simultaneously making and taking calls from the computer and the phone, but I think it’s understandable that problems might arise and that’s not a real use case for me. Once or twice I did not receive a text transcription of a voice mail, but the support is usually quick to address things like that.

I host my own XMPP server and have for a good decade now, and that’s what I use with jmp.chat. I can’t speak to the quality of their hosting options.

Group texting works fine for me if one of the other parties initiates the group text. I haven’t tried to initiate my own group text in well over a year; last time I did, it didn’t work. That may or may not be a problem for you, and it may or may not have been fixed by now. Worth investigating more if it’s important. I should also say I’ve only ever used group texts with 3 participants, and can’t speak to what happens if there are more nor whether there are upper limits.

Group texts don’t use MUC. Rather, they use a special syntax in the JID, something like “+1XXX,+1YYY,…,+1ZZZ@cheogram.com”, where the + and , are required, the XXX, YYY, through ZZZ are the phone numbers (no dashes or other special chars just digits), and the @cheogram.com at the end is required.

I recommend the cheogram app if you’re on android. It has a lot of nice features on top of the Conversations base. I use gajim on my (linux) computer and it works well with jmp.chat.

I’m happy to answer other questions if you have them!

@Planet_Jabber_XMPP@feeds.twtxt.net

The benefits of blockchain implementation across multiple sectors are well-documented

WTF are you talking about? The only thing well-documented about “the blockchain” is that it sucks and its primary use case is creating Ponzi schemes.

@Planet_Jabber_XMPP@feeds.twtxt.net No. ChatGPT does not improve your code. Coding is thinking. You offloaded your thought to a machine. You will not be able to reproduce what the machine did for you if you don’t have the machine, so you learned nothing.

I guess Google Hangouts is finally dead.

Why is Google such a mess at making messaging apps? This has more or less been a solved problem for decades. Google Talk worked well enough, and since it was based on XMPP and Jingle it was perfectly suited to become a large-scale text/voice/video messaging system. If they’d run with that they’d have been able to dominate that space, I think. Instead, they’ve created and shitcanned half a dozen messaging apps and platforms, flailing around copying someone else’s app (now they’re trying to copy Slack I guess).

@novaburst@twt.nfld.uk Ah.. that is probably the XMPP verify code.. it doesnt really work that well. I aught to take it out.

@prologic@twtxt.net Re: Chat system, What if the base specification included a system for per-user arbitrary JSON storage on the server? Kind of like XEP-0049, but expanded upon. Two kinds of objects: public and private. Public objects can be queried by anyone, private objects cannot and must be encrypted with the user’s private key. Public keys could be stored there, as well as anything else defined by extensions. Roster, user block list, avatar, etc.

@prologic@twtxt.net sometimes I think it would be nice to have a XMPP instance. then I remember it’s all XML and I think “nah.”

I am constantly in awe that IRC remains the only realtime chat that isn’t unnecessarily complex. name another that can run chatops bot with just nc and sh?

@prologic@twtxt.net () ha yeah. COVID makes for a timey-wimey mish-mash. Worked on some WKD and fought with my XMPP client a bit.