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
69We accept donations over PayPal. You can use the E-Mail address donate@siacs.eu
70or use the button below.
71[](https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=CW3SYT3KG5PDL)
72####How do I create an account?
73XMPP like email for example is a federated protocol which means that there is
74not one company you can create your 'official xmpp account' with but there are
75hundreds or even thousands of provider out there. To find one use a web search
76engine of your choice. Or maybe your univeristy has one. Or you can run your own.
77Or ask a friend to run one. Once you found one you can use Conversations to
78create an account. Just select 'register new account on server' within the
79create account dialog.
80####How does the address book integration work?
81The address bock integration was designed to protect your privacy. Conversations
82neither uploads contacts from your address book to your server nor fills your
83address book with unnecessary contacts from your online roster. If you manually
84add a Jabber ID to your phones address book Conversations will use the name and
85the profile picture of this contact. To make the process of adding Jabber IDs to
86your address book easier you can click on the profile picture in the contact
87detais within Conversations. This will start an add to address book intent with the jabber ID
88as payload. This doesn’t require Conversations to have write permissions on your
89address book but also doesn’t require you to copy past Jabber ID from one app to
90another.
91####How can I change my status
92You can set an account offline by long pressing on it and select temporarily
93disable account from the context menu. Other statuses like away, DND and N/A are
94not supported for simplicity reasons. Users tend to forget their status, other
95users ignore them and setting the status automatically would mean too much of an
96impact on privacy.
97###Security
98####Why are there two end-to-end encryption methods and which one should I choose?
99In 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.
100However PGP can be in some cases (carbonated messages to multiple clients) be
101more flexible.
102####How do I use openPGP
103Before you continue reading you should notice that the openPGP support in
104Conversations is marked as experimental. This is not because it will make the app
105unstable but because the fundamental concepts of PGP aren't ready for a
106widespread 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.
107
108To 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.
109####How does the encryption for conferences work?
110For conferences the only supported encryption method is OpenPGP. (OTR does not
111work with multiple participents.) Every participant has to announce their
112OpenPGP key. (See answer above). If you would like to send encrypted messages to
113a conference you have to make sure that you have every participants public key
114in your OpenKeychain. Right now there is no check in Conversations to ensure
115that. You have to take care of that yourself. Go to the conference details and
116touch every key id (The hexadecimal number below a contact). This will send you
117to OpenKeychain which will assist you on adding the key.
118This works best in very small conferences with contacts you are already using
119OpenPGP with. This feature is regarded experimental. Conversations is the only
120client that uses XEP-0027 with confercenes. (The XEP neither specifically allows
121nor disallows this.)
122###Development
123####How do I build Conversations
124Make sure to have ANDROID_HOME point to your Android SDK
125```
126git clone https://github.com/siacs/Conversations.git
127cd Conversations
128git submodule update --init --recursive
129ant clean
130ant debug
131```