1# Conversations
2
3Conversations: the very last word in instant messaging
4
5[](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations&referrer=utm_source%3Dgithub) [](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WD35AAC/)
6
7
8
9## Design principles
10
11* Be as beautiful and easy to use as possible without sacrificing security or
12 privacy
13* Rely on existing, well established protocols (XMPP)
14* Do not require a Google Account or specifically Google Cloud Messaging (GCM)
15* Require as few permissions as possible
16
17## Features
18
19* End-to-end encryption with [OMEMO](http://conversations.im/omemo/), [OTR](https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/), or [OpenPGP](http://www.openpgp.org/about_openpgp/)
20* Send and receive images as well as other kind of files
21* Share your location via an external [plug-in](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations.sharelocation&referrer=utm_source%3Dgithub)
22* Indication when your contact has read your message
23* Intuitive UI that follows Android Design guidelines
24* Pictures / Avatars for your Contacts
25* Syncs with desktop client
26* Conferences (with support for bookmarks)
27* Address book integration
28* Multiple accounts / unified inbox
29* Very low impact on battery life
30
31
32### XMPP Features
33
34Conversations works with every XMPP server out there. However XMPP is an
35extensible protocol. These extensions are standardized as well in so called
36XEP's. Conversations supports a couple of these to make the overall user
37experience better. There is a chance that your current XMPP server does not
38support these extensions; therefore to get the most out of Conversations you
39should consider either switching to an XMPP server that does or — even better —
40run your own XMPP server for you and your friends. These XEP's are:
41
42* [XEP-0065: SOCKS5 Bytestreams](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0065.html) (or mod_proxy65). Will be used to transfer
43 files if both parties are behind a firewall (NAT).
44* [XEP-0163: Personal Eventing Protocol](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0163.html) for avatars and OMEMO.
45* [XEP-0191: Blocking command](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0191.html) lets you blacklist spammers or block contacts
46 without removing them from your roster.
47* [XEP-0198: Stream Management](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0198.html) allows XMPP to survive small network outages and
48 changes of the underlying TCP connection.
49* [XEP-0280: Message Carbons](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0280.html) which automatically syncs the messages you send to
50 your desktop client and thus allows you to switch seamlessly from your mobile
51 client to your desktop client and back within one conversation.
52* [XEP-0237: Roster Versioning](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0237.html) mainly to save bandwidth on poor mobile connections
53* [XEP-0313: Message Archive Management](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0313.html) synchronize message history with the
54 server. Catch up with messages that were sent while Conversations was
55 offline.
56* [XEP-0352: Client State Indication](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0352.html) lets the server know whether or not
57 Conversations is in the background. Allows the server to save bandwidth by
58 withholding unimportant packages.
59* [XEP-0363: HTTP File Upload](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0363.html) allows you to share files in conferences
60 and with offline contacts.
61
62## Team
63
64#### Head of Development
65
66* [Daniel Gultsch](https://github.com/inputmice)
67
68#### Code Contributions
69
70(In order of appearance)
71
72* [Rene Treffer](https://github.com/rtreffer) ([PRs](https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3Artreffer+is%3Amerged))
73* [Andreas Straub](https://github.com/strb) ([PRs](https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3Astrb+is%3Amerged))
74* [Alethea Butler](https://github.com/alethea) ([PRs](https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3Aalethea+is%3Amerged))
75* [M. Dietrich](https://github.com/emdete) ([PRs](https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3Aemdete+is%3Amerged))
76* [betheg](https://github.com/betheg) ([PRs](https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3Abetheg+is%3Amerged))
77* [Sam Whited](https://github.com/SamWhited) ([PRs](https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3ASamWhited+is%3Amerged))
78* [BrianBlade](https://github.com/BrianBlade) ([PRs](https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3ABrianBlade+is%3Amerged))
79
80#### Logo
81* [Ilia Rostovtsev](https://github.com/qooob) (Progress)
82* [Diego Turtulici](http://efesto.eigenlab.org/~diesys) (Original)
83* [fiaxh](https://github.com/fiaxh) (OMEMO)
84
85#### Translations
86Translations are managed on [Transifex](https://www.transifex.com/projects/p/conversations/)
87
88## FAQ
89
90### General
91
92#### How do I install Conversations?
93
94Conversations is entirely open source and licensed under GPLv3. So if you are a
95software developer you can check out the sources from GitHub and use Gradle to
96build your apk file.
97
98The more convenient way — which not only gives you automatic updates but also
99supports the further development of Conversations — is to buy the App in the
100Google [Play Store](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations&referrer=utm_source%3Dgithub).
101
102Buying the App from the Play Store will also give you access to our [beta test](#beta).
103
104#### I don't have a Google Account but I would still like to make a contribution
105
106I accept donations over PayPal, Bitcoin and Flattr. For donations via PayPal you
107can use the email address `donate@siacs.eu` or the button below.
108
109[](https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=CW3SYT3KG5PDL)
110
111**Disclaimer:** I'm not a huge fan of PayPal and their business policies. For
112larger contributions please get in touch with me beforehand and we can talk
113about bank transfer (SEPA).
114
115My Bitcoin Address is: `1NxSU1YxYzJVDpX1rcESAA3NJki7kRgeeu`
116
117
118[](https://flattr.com/submit/auto?user_id=inputmice&url=http%3A%2F%2Fconversations.siacs.eu&title=Conversations&tags=github&category=software)
119
120#### How do I create an account?
121XMPP, like email, is a federated protocol, which means that there is not one company you can create an *official XMPP account* with. Instead there are hundreds, or even thousands, of providers out there. One of those providers is our very own [conversations.im](https://account.conversations.im). If you don’t like to use *conversations.im* use a web search engine of your choice to find another provider. Or maybe your university has one. Or you can run your own. Or ask a friend to run one. Once you've found one, you can use Conversations to create an account. Just select *register new account* on server within the create account dialog.
122
123#### Where can I set up a custom hostname / port
124Conversations will automatically look up the SRV records for your domain name
125which can point to any hostname port combination. If your server doesn’t provide
126those please contact your admin and have them read
127[this](http://prosody.im/doc/dns#srv_records). If your server operator is unwilling
128to fix this you can enable advanced server settings in the expert settings of
129Conversations.
130
131#### I get 'Incompatible Server'
132
133As regular user you should be picking a different server. The server you selected
134is probably insecure and/or very old.
135
136If you are a server administrator you should make sure that your server provides
137STARTTLS. XMPP over TLS (on a different port) is not sufficient.
138
139On rare occasions this error message might also be caused by a server not providing
140a login (SASL) mechanism that Conversations is able to handle. Conversations supports
141SCRAM-SHA1, PLAIN, EXTERNAL (client certs) and DIGEST-MD5.
142
143#### How do XEP-0357: Push Notifications work?
144You need to be running the Play Store version of Conversations and your server needs to support push notifications.¹ Because *Google Cloud Notifications (GCM)* are tied with an API key to a specific app your server can not initiate the push message directly. Instead your server will send the push notification to the Conversations App server (operated by us) which then acts as a proxy and initiates the push message for you. The push message sent from our App server through GCM doesn’t contain any personal information. It is just an empty message which will wake up your device and tell Conversations to reconnect to your server. The information send from your server to our App server depends on the configuration of your server but can be limited to your account name. (In any case the Conversations App server won't redirect any information through GCM even if your server sends this information.)
145
146In summary Google will never get hold of any personal information besides that *something* happened. (Which doesn’t even have to be a message but can be some automated event as well.) We - as the operator of the App server - will just get hold of your account name (without being able to tie this to your specific device).
147
148If you don’t want this simply pick a server which does not offer Push Notifications or build Conversations yourself without support for push notifications. (This is available via a gradle build flavor.) Non-play store source of Conversations like the Amazon App store will also offer a version without push notifications. Conversations will just work as before and maintain its own TCP connection in the background.
149
150 ¹ Your server only needs to support the server side of [XEP-0357: Push Notifications](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0357.html). If you use the Play Store version you do **not** need to run your own app server. The server modules are called *mod_cloud_notify* on Prosody and *mod_push* on ejabberd.
151
152#### Conversations doesn't work for me. Where can I get help?
153
154You can join our conference room on `conversations@conference.siacs.eu`.
155A lot of people in there are able to answer basic questions about the usage of
156Conversations or can provide you with tips on running your own XMPP server. If
157you found a bug or your app crashes please read the Developer / Report Bugs
158section of this document.
159
160#### I need professional support with Conversations or setting up my server
161
162I'm available for hire. Contact me at `inputmice@siacs.eu`.
163
164#### How does the address book integration work?
165
166The address book integration was designed to protect your privacy. Conversations
167neither uploads contacts from your address book to your server nor fills your
168address book with unnecessary contacts from your online roster. If you manually
169add a Jabber ID to your phones address book Conversations will use the name and
170the profile picture of this contact. To make the process of adding Jabber IDs to
171your address book easier you can click on the profile picture in the contact
172details within Conversations. This will start an "add to address book" intent
173with the JID as the payload. This doesn't require Conversations to have write
174permissions on your address book but also doesn't require you to copy/paste a
175JID from one app to another.
176
177#### I get 'delivery failed' on my messages
178
179If you get delivery failed on images it's probably because the recipient lost
180network connectivity during reception. In that case you can try it again at a
181later time.
182
183For text messages the answer to your question is a little bit more complex.
184When you see 'delivery failed' on text messages, it is always something that is
185being reported by the server. The most common reason for this is that the
186recipient failed to resume a connection. When a client loses connectivity for a
187short time the client usually has a five minute window to pick up that
188connection again. When the client fails to do so because the network
189connectivity is out for longer than that all messages sent to that client will
190be returned to the sender resulting in a delivery failed.
191
192Instead of returning a message to the sender both ejabberd and prosody have the
193ability to store messages in offline storage when the disconnecting client is
194the only client. In prosody this is available via an extra module called
195```mod_smacks_offline```. In ejabberd this is available via some configuration
196settings.
197
198Other less common reasons are that the message you sent didn't meet some
199criteria enforced by the server (too large, too many). Another reason could be
200that the recipient is offline and the server doesn't provide offline storage.
201
202Usually you are able to distinguish between these two groups in the fact that
203the first one happens always after some time and the second one happens almost
204instantly.
205
206#### Where can I see the status of my contacts? How can I set a status or priority?
207
208Statuses are a horrible metric. Setting them manually to a proper value rarely
209works because users are either lazy or just forget about them. Setting them
210automatically does not provide quality results either. Keyboard or mouse
211activity as indicator for example fails when the user is just looking at
212something (reading an article, watching a movie). Furthermore automatic setting
213of status always implies an impact on your privacy (are you sure you want
214everybody in your contact list to know that you have been using your computer at
2154am‽).
216
217In the past status has been used to judge the likelihood of whether or not your
218messages are being read. This is no longer necessary. With Chat Markers
219(XEP-0333, supported by Conversations since 0.4) we have the ability to **know**
220whether or not your messages are being read. Similar things can be said for
221priorities. In the past priorities have been used (by servers, not by clients!)
222to route your messages to one specific client. With carbon messages (XEP-0280,
223supported by Conversations since 0.1) this is no longer necessary. Using
224priorities to route OTR messages isn't practical either because they are not
225changeable on the fly. Metrics like last active client (the client which sent
226the last message) are much better.
227
228Unfortunately these modern replacements for legacy XMPP features are not widely
229adopted. However Conversations should be an instant messenger for the future and
230instead of making Conversations compatible with the past we should work on
231implementing new, improved technologies and getting them into other XMPP clients
232as well.
233
234Making these status and priority optional isn't a solution either because
235Conversations is trying to get rid of old behaviours and set an example for
236other clients.
237
238#### Conversations is missing a certain feature
239
240I'm open for new feature suggestions. You can use the [issue tracker][issues] on
241GitHub. Please take some time to browse through the issues to see if someone
242else already suggested it. Be assured that I read each and every ticket. If I
243like it I will leave it open until it's implemented. If I don't like it I will
244close it (usually with a short comment). If I don't comment on an feature
245request that's probably a good sign because this means I agree with you.
246Commenting with +1 on either open or closed issues won't change my mind, nor
247will it accelerate the development.
248
249#### You closed my feature request but I want it really really badly
250
251Just write it yourself and send me a pull request. If I like it I will happily
252merge it if I don't at least you and like minded people get to enjoy it.
253
254#### I need a feature and I need it now!
255
256I am available for hire. Contact me via XMPP: `inputmice@siacs.eu`
257
258### Security
259
260#### Why are there three end-to-end encryption methods and which one should I choose?
261
262* OTR is a legacy encryption method. It works out of the box with most contacts as long as they are online.
263* OMEMO works even when a contact is offline, and works with multiple devices. It also allows asynchronous file-transfer when the server has [HTTP File Upload](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0363.html). However, OMEMO is not as widely supported as OTR and is currently implemented only by Conversations and Gajim. OMEMO should be preferred over OTR for contacts who use Conversations.
264* OpenPGP (XEP-0027) is a very old encryption method that has some advantages over OTR but should only be used by experts who know what they are doing.
265
266#### How do I use OpenPGP
267
268Before you continue reading you should note that the OpenPGP support in
269Conversations is experimental. This is not because it will make the app unstable
270but because the fundamental concepts of PGP aren't ready for widespread use.
271The way PGP works is that you trust Key IDs instead of JID's or email addresses.
272So in theory your contact list should consist of Public-Key-IDs instead of
273JID's. But of course no email or XMPP client out there implements these
274concepts. Plus PGP in the context of instant messaging has a couple of
275downsides: It is vulnerable to replay attacks, it is rather verbose, and
276decrypting and encrypting takes longer than OTR. It is however asynchronous and
277works well with message carbons.
278
279To use OpenPGP you have to install the open source app
280[OpenKeychain](http://www.openkeychain.org) and then long press on the account in
281manage accounts and choose renew PGP announcement from the contextual menu.
282
283#### How does the encryption for conferences work?
284
285For conferences only OMEMO and OpenPGP are supported as encryption method. (OTR
286does not work with multiple participants).
287
288##### OMEMO
289
290OMEMO encryption works only in private (members only) conferences that are non-anonymous.
291You need to have presence subscription with every member of the conference.
292You can verify that by going into the conference details, long press every member and start
293a conversation with them. (Or select 'contact details' if they are already in your contact
294list)
295
296The owner of a conference can make a public conference private by going into the conference
297details and hit the settings button (the one with the gears) and select both *private* and
298*members only*.
299
300##### OpenPGP
301
302Every participant has to announce their OpenPGP key (see answer above).
303If you would like to send encrypted messages to a conference you have to make
304sure that you have every participant's public key in your OpenKeychain.
305Right now there is no check in Conversations to ensurethat.
306You have to take care of that yourself. Go to the conference details and
307touch every key id (The hexadecimal number below a contact). This will send you
308to OpenKeychain which will assist you on adding the key. This works best in
309very small conferences with contacts you are already using OpenPGP with. This
310feature is regarded experimental. Conversations is the only client that uses
311XEP-0027 with conferences. (The XEP neither specifically allows nor disallows
312this.)
313
314### Development
315
316<a name="beta"></a>
317#### Beta testing
318If you bought the App on [Google Play](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations)
319you can get access to the latest beta version by joining the
320[Conversations Beta Testers](https://plus.google.com/communities/107649347599361240873)
321community on Google+ and then using [this link](https://play.google.com/apps/testing/eu.siacs.conversations)
322to sign up for the beta test.
323
324#### How do I build Conversations
325
326Make sure to have ANDROID_HOME point to your Android SDK. Use the Android SDK Manager to install missing dependencies.
327
328 git clone https://github.com/siacs/Conversations.git
329 cd Conversations
330 ./gradlew assembleFreeDebug
331
332There are two build flavors available. *free* and *playstore*. Unless you know what you are doing you only need *free*.
333
334
335[](https://travis-ci.org/siacs/Conversations)
336
337### How do I update/add external libraries?
338
339If the library you want to update is in Maven Central or JCenter (or has its own
340Maven repo), add it or update its version in `build.gradle`. If the library is
341in the `libs/` directory, you can update it using a subtree merge by doing the
342following (using `minidns` as an example):
343
344 git remote add minidns https://github.com/rtreffer/minidns.git
345 git fetch minidns
346 git merge -s subtree minidns master
347
348To add a new dependency to the `libs/` directory (replacing "name", "branch" and
349"url" as necessary):
350
351 git remote add name url
352 git merge -s ours --no-commit name/branch
353 git read-tree --prefix=libs/name -u name/branch
354 git commit -m "Subtree merged in name"
355
356#### How do I debug Conversations
357
358If something goes wrong Conversations usually exposes very little information in
359the UI (other than the fact that something didn't work). However with adb
360(android debug bridge) you squeeze some more information out of Conversations.
361These information are especially useful if you are experiencing trouble with
362your connection or with file transfer.
363
364 adb -d logcat -v time -s conversations
365
366#### I found a bug
367
368Please report it to our [issue tracker][issues]. If your app crashes please
369provide a stack trace. If you are experiencing misbehavior please provide
370detailed steps to reproduce. Always mention whether you are running the latest
371Play Store version or the current HEAD. If you are having problems connecting to
372your XMPP server your file transfer doesn’t work as expected please always
373include a logcat debug output with your issue (see above).
374
375[issues]: https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/issues