81 lines
4.7 KiB
Markdown
81 lines
4.7 KiB
Markdown
#Conversations
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Conversations is an open source XMPP (formally known as Jabber) client for Android 4.0+ smart phones.
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[Link to Play Store](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations)
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##Design principles
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* Be as beautiful and easy to use as possible without sacrificing security or
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privacy
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* Rely on existing, well established protocols
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* Do not require a Google Account or specifically Google Cloud Messaging (GCM)
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* Require as little permissons as possible
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##Features
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* End-to-end encryption with either OTR or openPGP
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* Holo UI
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* Syncs with your desktop client
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* Group Chats
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* Address book integration
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* Multiple Accounts / unified inbox
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###XMPP Features
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Conversations works with every XMPP server out there. However XMPP is an extensible
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protocol. These extensions are standardized as well in so called XEP’s.
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Conversations supports a couple of those to make the overall userexperience better. There is a
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chance that your current XMPP server does not support these extensions.
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Therefore to get the most out of Conversations you should consider either switching to an
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XMPP server that does or - even better - run your own XMPP server for you and
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your friends.
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These XEPs are - as of now:
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* XEP-0198: Stream Management allows XMPP to surive small network outages and changes of the underlying TCP connection.
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* XEP-0280: Message Carbons which automatically syncs the messages you send to
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your desktop client and thus allows you to switch seamlessly from your mobile
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client to your desktop client and back within one conversation.
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* XEP-0237: Roster Versioning mainly to save bandwith on poor mobile connections
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##FAQ
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###General
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####How do I install Conversations?
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Conversations is entirely open source and licensed under GPLv3. So if you are a
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software developer you can check out the sources from github and use ant to
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build your apk file.
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The more convenient way - which not only gives you automatic updates but also
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supports the further development of Conversations - is to buy the App in the Google
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[Play Store](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations).
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####How do I create an account?
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XMPP like email for example is a federated protocol which means that there is
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not one company you can create your 'official xmpp account' with but there are
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hundreds or even thousands of provider out there. To find one use a web search
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engine of your choice. Or maybe your univeristy has one. Or you can run your own.
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Or ask a friend to run one. Once you found one you can use Conversations to
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create an account. Just select 'register new account on server' within the
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create account dialog.
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####How does the address book integration work?
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The address bock integration was designed to protect your privacy. Conversations
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neither uploads contacts from your address book to your server nor fills your
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address book with unnecessary contacts from your online roster. If you manually
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add a Jabber ID to your phones address book Conversations will use the name and
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the profile picture of this contact. To make the process of adding Jabber IDs to
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your address book easier you can click on the profile picture in the contact
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detais within Conversations. This will start an add to address book intent with the jabber ID
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as payload. This doesn’t require Conversations to have write permissions on your
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address book but also doesn’t require you to copy past Jabber ID from one app to
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another.
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###Security
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####Why are there to end-to-end encryption methods and which one should I choose?
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In most cases OTR should be the encryption method of choice. It works out of the box with most contacts as long as they are online.
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However PGP can be in some cases (carbonated messages to multiple clients) be
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more flexible.
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####How do I use openPGP
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Before you continue reading you should notice that the openPGP support in
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Conversations is marked as experimental. This is not because it will make the app
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unstable but because the fundamental concepts of PGP aren't ready for a
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widespread use. The way PGP works is that you trust Key IDs instead of XMPP- or email addresses. So in theory your contact list should consist of Public-Key-IDs instead of email addresses. But of course no email or xmpp client out there implements these concepts. Plus PGP in the context of instant messaging has a couple of downsides. It is vulnerable to replay attacs, it is rather verbose, decryping and encrypting takes longer than OTR. It is however asynchronous and works well with carbonated messages.
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To use openpgp you have to install the opensource app OpenKeychain (www.openkeychain.org) and then long press on the account in manage accounts and choose renew PGP announcement from the contextual menu.
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