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For all of you saying we should switch to Matrix, please outline the user sign up flow in your comment. Be detailed. Your audience is your 50 something aunt who

For all of you saying we should switch to Matrix, please outline the user sign up flow in your comment. Be detailed. Your audience is your 50 something aunt who calls her iPad her Facebook.

thepasswordis 6y ago
Can we please stop it with the sexist/ageist "old lady as a standin for incompetent" tech bro stereotype here? Not really befitting of this place.
- dxdm 6y ago
  My mum is such an aunt, she makes no secret of often being baffled by her smart phone, she doesn't know all the right words, but she's curious, she tries, and really appreciates apps that are easy to use, with her in mind.
- shsbdhx 6y ago
  Why? For all you know, the OP had specifically his/her aunt in mind. If I wrote that, I’d have my 93 year old grandma who got Signal years in mind. She’s i it because because I refuse to share pictures of my kids otherwise. Or maybe I’d have my sister in mind. The older one of the two, who has zero interest in this stuff. My youngest sister, OTOH would just as likely advice me to adopt some technology. All this ranging about fake (and it is fake) politeness is oppressive to the thought process. And it’s very irksome and tiring. When I speak, I want to say something. Not stop and figure out which real an imagined person with a disadvantage might perceive a slight where none is intended. If I mean to insult you, you’ll know. When you write instructions to others, by all means, make the “idiot” a young white man from the Midwest. I don’t care. But, just so you know, my grandma is an inspiration of fierce independence (she lives alone in a bad neighborhood in a third world country ). My sister who doesn’t care about tech is brilliant. They just don’t care about apps. And it’s ok.
- crocodiletears 6y ago
  My boss just learned last week that he could reject phonecalls on android…
arnoooooo 6y ago
If you don't intend to use a specific server, it's the same as creating an account on any online service.
Arathorn 6y ago
we’ve been working a lot on onboarding on Element, just as Signal have. it’s not perfect, but empirically it’s good enough for many non-technical users. comments like this are likely based on stale data (eg from when we forced e2ee setup during registration).
- spurgu 6y ago
  Well if you think about sending this to your aunt: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Matrix https://wiki.mozilla.org/Matrix Compared to installing the Signal app and verifying your phone number over SMS, the difference is quite remarkable. Signal has had smooth and frictionless onboarding as part of the design. But also, comparing Matrix to Signal is a bit like comparing apples to oranges IMO.
  - eredengrin 6y ago
    Why would I send my aunt to a page about how to join the mozilla community? Over half of that wiki page is mozilla specific information, and even most of the matrix info is irrelevant to most users if they just want to do a basic registration. The real apples to oranges comparison is you thinking that this wiki page is somehow comparable to registering a signal account.
kevincox 6y ago
This is definitely the weakest point of Matrix. There are clients that have a nice setup flow (like FluffyChat) but the are missing some pretty important (to me) features such as sending images and video calling.
Groxx 6y ago
https://app.element.io/ https://app.element.io/ -> click "create account" -> create account. The default is for a matrix.org account which is totally fine for anyone who can't/won't dig deeper.
- Niten 6y ago
  Does that create an account with end-to-end encryption? If not, it's not a replacement for Signal at all.
  - eredengrin 6y ago
    yes
    - Niten 6y ago
      Oh, well nice, then
- chopin24 6y ago
  I tapped this link on my iPhone. There’s nothing that says create account. It says I have to download an app called Element. But you said it was called Matrix. This is the level of technical ability that you need to be targeting.
  - Groxx 6y ago
    If you install the Element app, its first-launch is quite simple and newbie-friendly. There are a couple more "options" than e.g. WhatsApp, but they're presented very clearly: "Join millions free on the largest public server" or "Premium hosting for organizations" or "Custom & advanced settings" -> tap the first + free one -> Sign up / Sign in with a totally-normal experience after that. Re "you said it was called Matrix": fair, but I wouldn't send people to "matrix" / the protocol for any system with multiple implementations. I'd send them a link to one of the user-friendly apps (i.e. Element). Similarly, you wouldn't tell someone to join XMPP, you'd send them to the Google Hangouts or MSN Messenger or Playstation apps.
pmlnr 6y ago
If matrix.org were to see this level of influx of users, given their constant scaling problems, they would be down in minutes.
- bosie 6y ago
  tried to create an account on app.element.io just now and got: > Cannot reach homeserver > Ensure you have a stable internet connection, or get in touch with the server admin wise prediction of yours ;)
- Aaronn 6y ago
  The whole point of Matrix is that you don't have to use matrix.org to use Matrix. Anyone can host a server and talk to anyone on any Matrix server.
  - MAGZine 6y ago
    So you're suggesting grandma connects to a different server when setting up the app? next you're going to tell me grandma should just use IRC instead.
    - ketamine__ 6y ago
      Grandma's hate IRC. The text is just too damn small! How can ya see anything?!
      - coolspot 6y ago
        Also so many n00bs !
  - pmlnr 6y ago
    > Anyone can host a server and talk to anyone on any Matrix server. I host my web, my email, my XMPP, my TURN/STUN, etc, so I gave Matrix a try. In short: it's horrible. It's insanely resource hungry, both synapse and dendrite, plus dendrite is so not finished it hurts. Stick to XMPP until Matrix is in an actually usable shape when one doesn't need a small power reactor to run it.
tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
This is the second opportunity Matrix has to win over users (the first one was when Signal decided to lock everyone out until they agree to their SGX-based cloud storage scheme), and I predict that they'll miss this one just like they missed their last one due to not being ready yet.
estaseuropano 6y ago
Wow I just had to reset my password and am stunned how broken this process is. 1. Click reset password 2. You enter your email and new password (already here!) 3. A password reset request has been received for your Matrix account. If this was you, please click the link below to confirm resetting your password: [link] If this was not you, do not click the link above and instead contact your server administrator. Thank you. 4. Text page with the sentence "You have requested to reset your Matrix account password" but a button saying "Confirm changing my password" 5. Button clicked, password is set to the one entered in step 2. This just absolutely is waiting for abuse. Every other site asks you to enter the new password after you have clicked the link. Here it's before you have clicked and there is no option to see or confirm the password entered initially. There is no indication that that is what's happening. In addition the word 'reset' is confused with 'change'. Super easy for anyone - even the most techie user - to be fooled by this workflow. Someone else initiates the request and enters a new password, grandma gets the reset link and clicks it, password is changed and the other party can login and change also the email.
- chopin24 6y ago
  Don’t worry. I already gave up on the sign-up flow when I entered my preferred username and password, then tapped register in the top right corner, only to be confronted with a prompt to —- again enter a username and password of my choice. I would have to spend hours getting my family signed up for this thing.

For all of you saying we should switch to Matrix, please outline the user sign up flow in your comment. Be detailed. Your audience is your 50 something aunt who calls her iPad her Facebook.

thepasswordis 6y ago

Can we please stop it with the sexist/ageist "old lady as a standin for incompetent" tech bro stereotype here? Not really befitting of this place.

dxdm 6y ago
My mum is such an aunt, she makes no secret of often being baffled by her smart phone, she doesn't know all the right words, but she's curious, she tries, and really appreciates apps that are easy to use, with her in mind.
shsbdhx 6y ago
Why? For all you know, the OP had specifically his/her aunt in mind. If I wrote that, I’d have my 93 year old grandma who got Signal years in mind. She’s i it because because I refuse to share pictures of my kids otherwise. Or maybe I’d have my sister in mind. The older one of the two, who has zero interest in this stuff. My youngest sister, OTOH would just as likely advice me to adopt some technology. All this ranging about fake (and it is fake) politeness is oppressive to the thought process. And it’s very irksome and tiring. When I speak, I want to say something. Not stop and figure out which real an imagined person with a disadvantage might perceive a slight where none is intended. If I mean to insult you, you’ll know. When you write instructions to others, by all means, make the “idiot” a young white man from the Midwest. I don’t care. But, just so you know, my grandma is an inspiration of fierce independence (she lives alone in a bad neighborhood in a third world country ). My sister who doesn’t care about tech is brilliant. They just don’t care about apps. And it’s ok.
crocodiletears 6y ago
My boss just learned last week that he could reject phonecalls on android…

arnoooooo 6y ago

If you don't intend to use a specific server, it's the same as creating an account on any online service.

Arathorn 6y ago

we’ve been working a lot on onboarding on Element, just as Signal have. it’s not perfect, but empirically it’s good enough for many non-technical users. comments like this are likely based on stale data (eg from when we forced e2ee setup during registration).

spurgu 6y ago
Well if you think about sending this to your aunt: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Matrix https://wiki.mozilla.org/Matrix Compared to installing the Signal app and verifying your phone number over SMS, the difference is quite remarkable. Signal has had smooth and frictionless onboarding as part of the design. But also, comparing Matrix to Signal is a bit like comparing apples to oranges IMO.
- eredengrin 6y ago
  Why would I send my aunt to a page about how to join the mozilla community? Over half of that wiki page is mozilla specific information, and even most of the matrix info is irrelevant to most users if they just want to do a basic registration. The real apples to oranges comparison is you thinking that this wiki page is somehow comparable to registering a signal account.

kevincox 6y ago

This is definitely the weakest point of Matrix. There are clients that have a nice setup flow (like FluffyChat) but the are missing some pretty important (to me) features such as sending images and video calling.

Groxx 6y ago

https://app.element.io/ https://app.element.io/ -> click "create account" -> create account. The default is for a matrix.org account which is totally fine for anyone who can't/won't dig deeper.

Niten 6y ago
Does that create an account with end-to-end encryption? If not, it's not a replacement for Signal at all.
- eredengrin 6y ago
  yes
  - Niten 6y ago
    Oh, well nice, then
chopin24 6y ago
I tapped this link on my iPhone. There’s nothing that says create account. It says I have to download an app called Element. But you said it was called Matrix. This is the level of technical ability that you need to be targeting.
- Groxx 6y ago
  If you install the Element app, its first-launch is quite simple and newbie-friendly. There are a couple more "options" than e.g. WhatsApp, but they're presented very clearly: "Join millions free on the largest public server" or "Premium hosting for organizations" or "Custom & advanced settings" -> tap the first + free one -> Sign up / Sign in with a totally-normal experience after that. Re "you said it was called Matrix": fair, but I wouldn't send people to "matrix" / the protocol for any system with multiple implementations. I'd send them a link to one of the user-friendly apps (i.e. Element). Similarly, you wouldn't tell someone to join XMPP, you'd send them to the Google Hangouts or MSN Messenger or Playstation apps.

pmlnr 6y ago

If matrix.org were to see this level of influx of users, given their constant scaling problems, they would be down in minutes.

bosie 6y ago
tried to create an account on app.element.io just now and got: > Cannot reach homeserver > Ensure you have a stable internet connection, or get in touch with the server admin wise prediction of yours ;)
Aaronn 6y ago
The whole point of Matrix is that you don't have to use matrix.org to use Matrix. Anyone can host a server and talk to anyone on any Matrix server.
- MAGZine 6y ago
  So you're suggesting grandma connects to a different server when setting up the app? next you're going to tell me grandma should just use IRC instead.
  - ketamine__ 6y ago
    Grandma's hate IRC. The text is just too damn small! How can ya see anything?!
    - coolspot 6y ago
      Also so many n00bs !
- pmlnr 6y ago
  > Anyone can host a server and talk to anyone on any Matrix server. I host my web, my email, my XMPP, my TURN/STUN, etc, so I gave Matrix a try. In short: it's horrible. It's insanely resource hungry, both synapse and dendrite, plus dendrite is so not finished it hurts. Stick to XMPP until Matrix is in an actually usable shape when one doesn't need a small power reactor to run it.

tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago

This is the second opportunity Matrix has to win over users (the first one was when Signal decided to lock everyone out until they agree to their SGX-based cloud storage scheme), and I predict that they'll miss this one just like they missed their last one due to not being ready yet.

estaseuropano 6y ago

Wow I just had to reset my password and am stunned how broken this process is. 1. Click reset password 2. You enter your email and new password (already here!) 3. A password reset request has been received for your Matrix account. If this was you, please click the link below to confirm resetting your password: [link] If this was not you, do not click the link above and instead contact your server administrator. Thank you. 4. Text page with the sentence "You have requested to reset your Matrix account password" but a button saying "Confirm changing my password" 5. Button clicked, password is set to the one entered in step 2. This just absolutely is waiting for abuse. Every other site asks you to enter the new password after you have clicked the link. Here it's before you have clicked and there is no option to see or confirm the password entered initially. There is no indication that that is what's happening. In addition the word 'reset' is confused with 'change'. Super easy for anyone - even the most techie user - to be fooled by this workflow. Someone else initiates the request and enters a new password, grandma gets the reset link and clicks it, password is changed and the other party can login and change also the email.

chopin24 6y ago
Don’t worry. I already gave up on the sign-up flow when I entered my preferred username and password, then tapped register in the top right corner, only to be confronted with a prompt to —- again enter a username and password of my choice. I would have to spend hours getting my family signed up for this thing.