<story><title>Threema Goes Open Source</title><url>https://threema.ch/en/blog/posts/open-source-and-new-partner</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tweetle_beetle</author><text>Out of curiosity what does Threema do that Element[1] (née Riot.im) doesn&amp;#x27;t? It seems to tick those boxes, but admittedly is still in quite active development and may not be as polished.&lt;p&gt;[1]&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;element.io&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;element.io&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>est31</author><text>This is really big news. I use Threema because it is the only messenger out there that is:&lt;p&gt;a) always end to end encrypted (unlike Telegram)&lt;p&gt;b) supports account creation without any phone number (unlike Signal)&lt;p&gt;c) supports phones without google messaging service (unlike Signal, it formally supports it as well but in reality it&amp;#x27;s just a big battery drain)&lt;p&gt;It not being open source was always a bit sad for me, because most of the other apps on my phone are open source.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m curious about the multi device sync. I hope that it will be implemented in a way that doesn&amp;#x27;t use passwords but pair syncing. This is bad from a usability perspective (firefox abandoned it because of usability), but the only way I&amp;#x27;m aware of how syncing can be made secure.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Arathorn</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s more a question of &amp;quot;what does does Element do that Threema doesn&amp;#x27;t&amp;quot;?&lt;p&gt;Element is a Matrix client, so you connect to the global open Matrix decentralised network, rather than just closed-source servers run by a (newly-sold) company like Threema.  Typical Matrix implementations are entirely Apache licensed open source, so you get full control and visibility both clientside and serverside.  Matrix also already provides synchronised multi-device conversations, as well as more advanced cross-signing verification for E2EE key validation than Threema.  Finally, Matrix is an open standard protocol maintained by the non-profit Matrix.org Foundation, that anyone can contribute to via the open governance process (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;matrix.org&amp;#x2F;foundation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;matrix.org&amp;#x2F;foundation&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;matrix.org&amp;#x2F;docs&amp;#x2F;spec&amp;#x2F;proposals&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;matrix.org&amp;#x2F;docs&amp;#x2F;spec&amp;#x2F;proposals&lt;/a&gt; etc) - the Matrix standard gives developers full freedom to write their own clients&amp;#x2F;servers&amp;#x2F;bots&amp;#x2F;bridges&amp;#x2F;whatever.&lt;p&gt;Personally I&amp;#x27;d say that Element &amp;amp; Threema have similar levels of UX polish these days (but I&amp;#x27;m biased, working on Element).  It&amp;#x27;s perhaps true that Threema&amp;#x27;s relatively limited featureset means that polish is easier to achieve.</text></comment>
<story><title>Threema Goes Open Source</title><url>https://threema.ch/en/blog/posts/open-source-and-new-partner</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tweetle_beetle</author><text>Out of curiosity what does Threema do that Element[1] (née Riot.im) doesn&amp;#x27;t? It seems to tick those boxes, but admittedly is still in quite active development and may not be as polished.&lt;p&gt;[1]&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;element.io&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;element.io&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>est31</author><text>This is really big news. I use Threema because it is the only messenger out there that is:&lt;p&gt;a) always end to end encrypted (unlike Telegram)&lt;p&gt;b) supports account creation without any phone number (unlike Signal)&lt;p&gt;c) supports phones without google messaging service (unlike Signal, it formally supports it as well but in reality it&amp;#x27;s just a big battery drain)&lt;p&gt;It not being open source was always a bit sad for me, because most of the other apps on my phone are open source.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m curious about the multi device sync. I hope that it will be implemented in a way that doesn&amp;#x27;t use passwords but pair syncing. This is bad from a usability perspective (firefox abandoned it because of usability), but the only way I&amp;#x27;m aware of how syncing can be made secure.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>qbonnard</author><text>I kinda forced a friend of mine into using element&amp;#x2F;riot. He mostly complained about the lack of &amp;quot;polish&amp;quot; (which I also feel, and I&amp;#x27;m a rather &amp;quot;frugal&amp;quot; user). He proposed Threema as an alternative, so I guess that the polish is quite the missing box.&lt;p&gt;The box I&amp;#x27;m missing in Threema (unless I&amp;#x27;m wrong of course) is the &amp;quot;not centralized&amp;quot; one. If for some reason (and admittedly, there aren&amp;#x27;t many realistic ones), Threema&amp;#x27;s servers&amp;#x2F;organisation are corrupted, the whole networks falls, right?</text></comment>