1#Conversations
2Conversations is an open source XMPP (formerly known as Jabber) client for
3Android 4.0+ smart phones.
4[](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations)
5
6
7
8##Design principles
9* Be as beautiful and easy to use as possible without sacrificing security or
10 privacy
11* Rely on existing, well established protocols
12* Do not require a Google Account or specifically Google Cloud Messaging (GCM)
13* Require as little permissons as possible
14
15##Features
16* End-to-end encryption with either OTR or openPGP
17* Sending and receiving images
18* Holo UI
19* Syncs with your desktop client
20* Group Chats
21* Address book integration
22* Multiple Accounts / unified inbox
23
24###XMPP Features
25Conversations works with every XMPP server out there. However XMPP is an extensible
26protocol. These extensions are standardized as well in so called XEP’s.
27Conversations supports a couple of those to make the overall userexperience better. There is a
28chance that your current XMPP server does not support these extensions.
29Therefore to get the most out of Conversations you should consider either switching to an
30XMPP server that does or - even better - run your own XMPP server for you and
31your friends.
32These XEPs are - as of now:
33* XEP-0065: SOCKS5 Bytestreams - or rather mod_proxy65. Will be used to tranfer files if both parties are behind a firewall (NAT).
34* XEP-0138: Stream Compression saves bandwith
35* XEP-0198: Stream Management allows XMPP to surive small network outages and changes of the underlying TCP connection.
36* XEP-0280: Message Carbons which automatically syncs the messages you send to
37 your desktop client and thus allows you to switch seamlessly from your mobile
38 client to your desktop client and back within one conversation.
39* XEP-0237: Roster Versioning mainly to save bandwith on poor mobile connections
40
41##Contributors
42(In order of appearance)
43
44###Code
45* [Rene Treffer](https://github.com/rtreffer)
46* [Andreas Straub](https://github.com/strb)
47* [Alethea Butler](https://github.com/alethea)
48
49###Logo
50* [Diego Turtulici](http://efesto.eigenlab.org/~diesys)
51
52###Translations
53* [Sergio Cárdenas](https://github.com/kruks23) (Spanish)
54* [Benoit Bouvarel](https://github.com/BenoitBouvarel) (French)
55* [Daniel Gultsch](https://github.com/iNPUTmice) (German)
56* [Aitor Beriain](https://github.com/beriain) (Basque)
57
58##FAQ
59###General
60####How do I install Conversations?
61Conversations is entirely open source and licensed under GPLv3. So if you are a
62software developer you can check out the sources from github and use ant to
63build your apk file.
64
65The more convenient way - which not only gives you automatic updates but also
66supports the further development of Conversations - is to buy the App in the Google
67[Play Store](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations).
68####I don't have a Google Account but I would still like to make a contribution
69I accept donations over PayPal and BitCoin. For donations via PayPal you can use the email address donate@siacs.eu or the button below.
70
71[](https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=CW3SYT3KG5PDL)
72
73**Disclaimer:** I'm not a huge fan of PayPal and their business policies. For larger
74contributons please get in touch with me beforehand and we can talk about bank
75transfer (SEPA).
76
77My Bitcoin Address is: 1NxSU1YxYzJVDpX1rcESAA3NJki7kRgeeu
78
79####How do I create an account?
80XMPP like email for example is a federated protocol which means that there is
81not one company you can create your 'official xmpp account' with but there are
82hundreds or even thousands of provider out there. To find one use a web search
83engine of your choice. Or maybe your univeristy has one. Or you can run your own.
84Or ask a friend to run one. Once you found one you can use Conversations to
85create an account. Just select 'register new account on server' within the
86create account dialog.
87
88####Conversations dosen't work for me. Where can I get help?
89You can join our conference room on conversations@conference.siacs.eu A lot of
90people in there are able to answer basic questions about the usage of
91Conversations or can provide you with tips on running your own XMPP server. If
92you found a bug or your app crashes please read the Developer / Report Bugs
93section of this document.
94
95####I need professional support with Conversations or setting up my server
96I'm available for hire. Contact me at inputmice@siacs.eu
97
98####How does the address book integration work?
99The address bock integration was designed to protect your privacy. Conversations
100neither uploads contacts from your address book to your server nor fills your
101address book with unnecessary contacts from your online roster. If you manually
102add a Jabber ID to your phones address book Conversations will use the name and
103the profile picture of this contact. To make the process of adding Jabber IDs to
104your address book easier you can click on the profile picture in the contact
105detais within Conversations. This will start an add to address book intent with the jabber ID
106as payload. This doesn’t require Conversations to have write permissions on your
107address book but also doesn’t require you to copy past Jabber ID from one app to
108another.
109####Where can I see the status of my contacts? How can I set a status or priority
110Status are a horrible metric. Setting them manually to a proper value rarly
111works because users are either lazy or just forget about them. Setting them
112automatically does not provide quality results either. Keyboard or mouse
113activity as indicator for example fails when the users is just looking at
114something (reading an article, watching a movie). Furthermore automatic setting
115of status always implies an impact on your privacy. (Are you sure you want
116everybody in your contact list to know that you have been using your computer at
1174am?!)
118
119In the past status has been used to judge the likelihood of whether or not your
120messages are being read. This is no longer necessary. With Chat Markers
121(XEP-0333, supported by Conversations since 0.4) we have the ability to **know**
122whether or not your messages are being read.
123Similar things can be said for priorites. In the past priorties have been used
124(By servers, not by clients!) to route your messages to one specific client.
125With carbon messages (XEP-0280, supported by Conversations since 0.1) this is no
126longer necessary. Using priorities to route OTR messages isn't pratical either
127because they are not changeable on the fly. Metrics like last active client
128(the client which sent the last message) are much better.
129
130Unfortunatly these modern replacement for legacy XMPP featurs are not widely
131adopted. However Conversations should be an instant messanger for the future and
132instead of making Conversations compatible with the past we should work on
133implementing new, improved technologies into other XMPP clients as well.
134
135Making these status and priority optional isn't a solution either because
136Conversations is trying to get rid of old behaviours and set an example for
137other clients.
138
139####Conversations is missing a certain feature
140I'm open for new feature suggestions. You can use the issue tracker on github.
141Please take some time to browse through the issues to see if someone else
142already suggested it. Be assured that I read each and every ticket. If I like it
143I will leave it open untill it's implemented. If I don't like it I will close
144it. (Usually with a short comment). If I don't comment on an feature request
145thats probably a good sign because this means I agree with you. Commenting with
146+1 on either open or closed issues wont change my mind nor will it accelerate the
147development.
148
149####You closed my feature request but I want it really really badly
150Just write it yourself and send my a pull request. If I like it I will happily
151merge it if I don't at least you and like minded people get to enjoy it.
152
153####I need a feature and I need it now!
154I am available for hire. Contact me JID: inputmice@siacs.eu
155
156###Security
157####Why are there two end-to-end encryption methods and which one should I choose?
158In 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.
159However PGP can be in some cases (carbonated messages to multiple clients) be
160more flexible.
161####How do I use openPGP
162Before you continue reading you should notice that the openPGP support in
163Conversations is marked as experimental. This is not because it will make the app
164unstable but because the fundamental concepts of PGP aren't ready for a
165widespread 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 attacks, it is rather verbose, and decryping and encrypting takes longer than OTR. It is however asynchronous and works well with carbonated messages.
166
167To 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.
168####How does the encryption for conferences work?
169For conferences the only supported encryption method is OpenPGP. (OTR does not
170work with multiple participents.) Every participant has to announce their
171OpenPGP key. (See answer above). If you would like to send encrypted messages to
172a conference you have to make sure that you have every participants public key
173in your OpenKeychain. Right now there is no check in Conversations to ensure
174that. You have to take care of that yourself. Go to the conference details and
175touch every key id (The hexadecimal number below a contact). This will send you
176to OpenKeychain which will assist you on adding the key.
177This works best in very small conferences with contacts you are already using
178OpenPGP with. This feature is regarded experimental. Conversations is the only
179client that uses XEP-0027 with confercenes. (The XEP neither specifically allows
180nor disallows this.)
181###Development
182####How do I build Conversations
183Make sure to have ANDROID_HOME point to your Android SDK
184```
185git clone https://github.com/siacs/Conversations.git
186cd Conversations
187git submodule update --init --recursive
188ant clean
189ant debug
190```
191####I found a bug
192Please report it to our issue tracker. If your app crashes please provide a
193stack trace. If you are experiencing missbehaviour please provide detailed
194steps to reproduce.
195Always mention whether you are running the latest Play Store version or the
196current HEAD.