1<h1 align="center">Conversations</h1>
2
3<p align="center">Conversations: the very last word in instant messaging</p>
4
5<p align="center">
6 <a href="https://conversations.im/j/conversations@conference.siacs.eu">
7 <img src="https://camo.githubusercontent.com/a839cc0a3d4dac7ec82237381b165dd144365b6d/68747470733a2f2f74696e7975726c2e636f6d2f6a6f696e7468656d7563"
8 alt="chat on our conference room">
9 </a>
10 <a href="https://travis-ci.org/siacs/Conversations">
11 <img src="https://travis-ci.org/siacs/Conversations.svg?branch=development"
12 alt="build status">
13 </a>
14 <a href="https://bountysource.com/teams/siacs">
15 <img src="https://img.shields.io/bountysource/team/siacs/activity.svg"
16 alt="Bountysource">
17 </a>
18</p>
19
20<p align="center">
21 <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations&referrer=utm_source%3Dgithub">
22 <img src="https://conversations.im/images/en-play-badge.png"
23 alt="Google Play">
24 </a>
25 <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WD35AAC/">
26 <img src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/AmazonMobileApps/amazon-apps-store-us-black.png"
27 alt="Amazon App Store">
28 </a>
29</p>
30
31
32
33## Design principles
34
35* Be as beautiful and easy to use as possible without sacrificing security or
36 privacy
37* Rely on existing, well established protocols (XMPP)
38* Do not require a Google Account or specifically Google Cloud Messaging (GCM)
39* Require as few permissions as possible
40
41## Features
42
43* End-to-end encryption with [OMEMO](http://conversations.im/omemo/), [OTR](https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/), or [OpenPGP](http://openpgp.org/about/)
44* Send and receive images as well as other kind of files
45* Share your location via an external [plug-in](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations.sharelocation&referrer=utm_source%3Dgithub)
46* Indication when your contact has read your message
47* Intuitive UI that follows Android Design guidelines
48* Pictures / Avatars for your Contacts
49* Syncs with desktop client
50* Conferences (with support for bookmarks)
51* Address book integration
52* Multiple accounts / unified inbox
53* Very low impact on battery life
54
55
56### XMPP Features
57
58Conversations works with every XMPP server out there. However XMPP is an
59extensible protocol. These extensions are standardized as well in so called
60XEP's. Conversations supports a couple of these to make the overall user
61experience better. There is a chance that your current XMPP server does not
62support these extensions; therefore to get the most out of Conversations you
63should consider either switching to an XMPP server that does or — even better —
64run your own XMPP server for you and your friends. These XEP's are:
65
66* [XEP-0065: SOCKS5 Bytestreams](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0065.html) (or mod_proxy65). Will be used to transfer
67 files if both parties are behind a firewall (NAT).
68* [XEP-0163: Personal Eventing Protocol](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0163.html) for avatars and OMEMO.
69* [XEP-0191: Blocking command](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0191.html) lets you blacklist spammers or block contacts
70 without removing them from your roster.
71* [XEP-0198: Stream Management](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0198.html) allows XMPP to survive small network outages and
72 changes of the underlying TCP connection.
73* [XEP-0280: Message Carbons](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0280.html) which automatically syncs the messages you send to
74 your desktop client and thus allows you to switch seamlessly from your mobile
75 client to your desktop client and back within one conversation.
76* [XEP-0237: Roster Versioning](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0237.html) mainly to save bandwidth on poor mobile connections
77* [XEP-0313: Message Archive Management](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0313.html) synchronize message history with the
78 server. Catch up with messages that were sent while Conversations was
79 offline.
80* [XEP-0352: Client State Indication](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0352.html) lets the server know whether or not
81 Conversations is in the background. Allows the server to save bandwidth by
82 withholding unimportant packages.
83* [XEP-0363: HTTP File Upload](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0363.html) allows you to share files in conferences
84 and with offline contacts.
85
86## Team
87
88#### Head of Development
89
90* [Daniel Gultsch](https://github.com/inputmice)
91
92#### Code Contributions
93
94(In order of appearance)
95
96* [Rene Treffer](https://github.com/rtreffer) ([PRs](https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3Artreffer+is%3Amerged))
97* [Andreas Straub](https://github.com/strb) ([PRs](https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3Astrb+is%3Amerged))
98* [Alethea Butler](https://github.com/alethea) ([PRs](https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3Aalethea+is%3Amerged))
99* [M. Dietrich](https://github.com/emdete) ([PRs](https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3Aemdete+is%3Amerged))
100* [betheg](https://github.com/betheg) ([PRs](https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3Abetheg+is%3Amerged))
101* [Sam Whited](https://github.com/SamWhited) ([PRs](https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3ASamWhited+is%3Amerged))
102* [BrianBlade](https://github.com/BrianBlade) ([PRs](https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+author%3ABrianBlade+is%3Amerged))
103
104#### Logo
105* [Ilia Rostovtsev](https://github.com/qooob) (Progress)
106* [Diego Turtulici](http://efesto.eigenlab.org/~diesys) (Original)
107* [fiaxh](https://github.com/fiaxh) (OMEMO)
108
109#### Translations
110Translations are managed on [Transifex](https://www.transifex.com/projects/p/conversations/)
111
112## FAQ
113
114### General
115
116#### How do I install Conversations?
117
118Conversations is entirely open source and licensed under GPLv3. So if you are a
119software developer you can check out the sources from GitHub and use Gradle to
120build your apk file.
121
122The more convenient way — which not only gives you automatic updates but also
123supports the further development of Conversations — is to buy the App in the
124Google [Play Store](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations&referrer=utm_source%3Dgithub).
125
126Buying the App from the Play Store will also give you access to our [beta test](#beta).
127
128#### I don't have a Google Account but I would still like to make a contribution
129
130I accept donations over PayPal, Bitcoin and Flattr. For donations via PayPal you
131can use the email address `donate@siacs.eu` or the button below.
132
133[](https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=CW3SYT3KG5PDL)
134
135**Disclaimer:** I'm not a huge fan of PayPal and their business policies. For
136larger contributions please get in touch with me beforehand and we can talk
137about bank transfer (SEPA).
138
139My Bitcoin Address is: `1NxSU1YxYzJVDpX1rcESAA3NJki7kRgeeu`
140
141
142[](https://flattr.com/submit/auto?user_id=inputmice&url=http%3A%2F%2Fconversations.siacs.eu&title=Conversations&tags=github&category=software)
143
144#### How do I create an account?
145XMPP, 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.
146
147##### Domain hosting
148Using your own domain not only gives you a more recognizable Jabber ID, it also gives you the flexibility to migrate your account between different XMPP providers. This is a good compromise between the responsibilities of having to operate your own server and the downsides of being dependent on a single provider.
149
150Learn more about [conversations.im Jabber/XMPP domain hosting](https://account.conversations.im/domain/).
151
152##### Running your own
153If you already have a server somewhere and are willing and able to put the necessary work in, one alternative-in the spirit of federation-is to run your own. We recommend either [Prosody](https://prosody.im/) or [ejabberd](https://www.ejabberd.im/). Both of which have their own strengths. Ejabberd is slightly more mature nowadays but Prosody is arguably easier to set up.
154
155For Prosody you need a couple of so called [community modules](https://modules.prosody.im/) most of which are maintained by the same people that develop Prosody.
156
157If you pick ejabberd make sure you use the latest version. Linux Distributions might bundle some very old versions of it.
158
159#### Where can I set up a custom hostname / port
160Conversations will automatically look up the SRV records for your domain name
161which can point to any hostname port combination. If your server doesn’t provide
162those please contact your admin and have them read
163[this](http://prosody.im/doc/dns#srv_records). If your server operator is unwilling
164to fix this you can enable advanced server settings in the expert settings of
165Conversations.
166
167#### I get 'Incompatible Server'
168
169As regular user you should be picking a different server. The server you selected
170is probably insecure and/or very old.
171
172If you are a server administrator you should make sure that your server provides
173STARTTLS. XMPP over TLS (on a different port) is not sufficient.
174
175On rare occasions this error message might also be caused by a server not providing
176a login (SASL) mechanism that Conversations is able to handle. Conversations supports
177SCRAM-SHA1, PLAIN, EXTERNAL (client certs) and DIGEST-MD5.
178
179#### How do XEP-0357: Push Notifications work?
180You 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.)
181
182In 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).
183
184If 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.
185
186 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.
187
188#### Conversations doesn't work for me. Where can I get help?
189
190You can join our conference room on `conversations@conference.siacs.eu`.
191A lot of people in there are able to answer basic questions about the usage of
192Conversations or can provide you with tips on running your own XMPP server. If
193you found a bug or your app crashes please read the Developer / Report Bugs
194section of this document.
195
196#### I need professional support with Conversations or setting up my server
197
198I'm available for hire. Contact me at `inputmice@siacs.eu`.
199
200#### How does the address book integration work?
201
202The address book integration was designed to protect your privacy. Conversations
203neither uploads contacts from your address book to your server nor fills your
204address book with unnecessary contacts from your online roster. If you manually
205add a Jabber ID to your phones address book Conversations will use the name and
206the profile picture of this contact. To make the process of adding Jabber IDs to
207your address book easier you can click on the profile picture in the contact
208details within Conversations. This will start an "add to address book" intent
209with the JID as the payload. This doesn't require Conversations to have write
210permissions on your address book but also doesn't require you to copy/paste a
211JID from one app to another.
212
213#### I get 'delivery failed' on my messages
214
215If you get delivery failed on images it's probably because the recipient lost
216network connectivity during reception. In that case you can try it again at a
217later time.
218
219For text messages the answer to your question is a little bit more complex.
220When you see 'delivery failed' on text messages, it is always something that is
221being reported by the server. The most common reason for this is that the
222recipient failed to resume a connection. When a client loses connectivity for a
223short time the client usually has a five minute window to pick up that
224connection again. When the client fails to do so because the network
225connectivity is out for longer than that all messages sent to that client will
226be returned to the sender resulting in a delivery failed.
227
228Instead of returning a message to the sender both ejabberd and prosody have the
229ability to store messages in offline storage when the disconnecting client is
230the only client. In prosody this is available via an extra module called
231```mod_smacks_offline```. In ejabberd this is available via some configuration
232settings.
233
234Other less common reasons are that the message you sent didn't meet some
235criteria enforced by the server (too large, too many). Another reason could be
236that the recipient is offline and the server doesn't provide offline storage.
237
238Usually you are able to distinguish between these two groups in the fact that
239the first one happens always after some time and the second one happens almost
240instantly.
241
242#### Where can I see the status of my contacts? How can I set a status or priority?
243
244Statuses are a horrible metric. Setting them manually to a proper value rarely
245works because users are either lazy or just forget about them. Setting them
246automatically does not provide quality results either. Keyboard or mouse
247activity as indicator for example fails when the user is just looking at
248something (reading an article, watching a movie). Furthermore automatic setting
249of status always implies an impact on your privacy (are you sure you want
250everybody in your contact list to know that you have been using your computer at
2514am‽).
252
253In the past status has been used to judge the likelihood of whether or not your
254messages are being read. This is no longer necessary. With Chat Markers
255(XEP-0333, supported by Conversations since 0.4) we have the ability to **know**
256whether or not your messages are being read. Similar things can be said for
257priorities. In the past priorities have been used (by servers, not by clients!)
258to route your messages to one specific client. With carbon messages (XEP-0280,
259supported by Conversations since 0.1) this is no longer necessary. Using
260priorities to route OTR messages isn't practical either because they are not
261changeable on the fly. Metrics like last active client (the client which sent
262the last message) are much better.
263
264Unfortunately these modern replacements for legacy XMPP features are not widely
265adopted. However Conversations should be an instant messenger for the future and
266instead of making Conversations compatible with the past we should work on
267implementing new, improved technologies and getting them into other XMPP clients
268as well.
269
270Making these status and priority optional isn't a solution either because
271Conversations is trying to get rid of old behaviours and set an example for
272other clients.
273
274#### How do I backup / move Conversations to a new device?
275On the one hand Conversations supports Message Archive Management to keep a server side history of your messages so when migrating to a new device that device can display your entire history. However that does not work if you enable OMEMO due to its forward secrecy. (Read [The State of Mobile XMPP in 2016](https://gultsch.de/xmpp_2016.html) especially the section on encryption.)
276
277If you migrate to a new device and would still like to keep your history please use a third party backup tool like [oandbackup](https://github.com/jensstein/oandbackup) or ```adb backup``` from your computer. It is important that your deactivate your account before backup and activate it only after a successful restore. Otherwise OMEMO might not work afterwards.
278
279#### Conversations is missing a certain feature
280
281I'm open for new feature suggestions. You can use the [issue tracker][issues] on
282GitHub. Please take some time to browse through the issues to see if someone
283else already suggested it. Be assured that I read each and every ticket. If I
284like it I will leave it open until it's implemented. If I don't like it I will
285close it (usually with a short comment). If I don't comment on an feature
286request that's probably a good sign because this means I agree with you.
287Commenting with +1 on either open or closed issues won't change my mind, nor
288will it accelerate the development.
289
290#### You closed my feature request but I want it really really badly
291
292Just write it yourself and send me a pull request. If I like it I will happily
293merge it if I don't at least you and like minded people get to enjoy it.
294
295#### I need a feature and I need it now!
296
297I am available for hire. Contact me via XMPP: `inputmice@siacs.eu`
298
299### Security
300
301#### Why are there three end-to-end encryption methods and which one should I choose?
302
303* OTR is a legacy encryption method. It works out of the box with most contacts as long as they are online.
304* 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.
305* 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.
306
307#### How do I use OpenPGP
308
309Before you continue reading you should note that the OpenPGP support in
310Conversations is experimental. This is not because it will make the app unstable
311but because the fundamental concepts of PGP aren't ready for widespread use.
312The way PGP works is that you trust Key IDs instead of JID's or email addresses.
313So in theory your contact list should consist of Public-Key-IDs instead of
314JID's. But of course no email or XMPP client out there implements these
315concepts. Plus PGP in the context of instant messaging has a couple of
316downsides: It is vulnerable to replay attacks, it is rather verbose, and
317decrypting and encrypting takes longer than OTR. It is however asynchronous and
318works well with message carbons.
319
320To use OpenPGP you have to install the open source app
321[OpenKeychain](http://www.openkeychain.org) and then long press on the account in
322manage accounts and choose renew PGP announcement from the contextual menu.
323
324#### OMEMO is grayed out. What do I do?
325OMEMO has two requirements: Your server and the server of your contact need to support PEP. Both of you can verify that individually by opening your account details and selecting ```Server info``` from the menu. The appearing table should list PEP as available. The second requirement is mutual presence subscription. You can verify that by opening the contact details and see if both check boxes *Send presence updates* and *Receive presence updates* are checked.
326
327#### How does the encryption for conferences work?
328
329For conferences only OMEMO and OpenPGP are supported as encryption method. (OTR
330does not work with multiple participants).
331
332##### OMEMO
333
334OMEMO encryption works only in private (members only) conferences that are non-anonymous.
335You need to have presence subscription with every member of the conference.
336You can verify that by going into the conference details, long press every member and start
337a conversation with them. (Or select 'contact details' if they are already in your contact
338list)
339
340The owner of a conference can make a public conference private by going into the conference
341details and hit the settings button (the one with the gears) and select both *private* and
342*members only*.
343
344If OMEMO is grayed out long pressing the lock icon will reveal some quick hints on why OMEMO
345is disabled.
346
347##### OpenPGP
348
349Every participant has to announce their OpenPGP key (see answer above).
350If you would like to send encrypted messages to a conference you have to make
351sure that you have every participant's public key in your OpenKeychain.
352Right now there is no check in Conversations to ensure that.
353You have to take care of that yourself. Go to the conference details and
354touch every key id (The hexadecimal number below a contact). This will send you
355to OpenKeychain which will assist you on adding the key. This works best in
356very small conferences with contacts you are already using OpenPGP with. This
357feature is regarded experimental. Conversations is the only client that uses
358XEP-0027 with conferences. (The XEP neither specifically allows nor disallows
359this.)
360
361#### Why is Conversations not end-to-end encrypted by default
362We briefly had OMEMO as the default E2EE but it turned out to be a usability nightmare and thus we reverted that. You can find more information in [the commit message](https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/commit/035d0c79572d5981c53d1bff7f30b484c6542f17) of that change.
363
364Quick reminder that Conversations **always** uses TLS to connect to your server. It won‘t even connect to a server without TLS.
365
366#### What is Blind Trust Before Verification / why are messages marked with a red lock?
367
368Read more about the concept on https://gultsch.de/trust.html
369
370### What clients do I use on other platforms
371There are XMPP Clients available for all major platforms.
372#### Windows / Linux
373For your desktop computer we recommend that you use [Gajim](https://gajim.org). You need to install the plugins `OMEMO`, `HTTP Upload` and `URL image preview` to get the best compatibility with Conversations. Plugins can be installed from within the app.
374#### iOS
375Unfortunately we don‘t have a recommendation for iPhones right now. There are two clients available [ChatSecure](https://chatsecure.org/) and [Monal](https://monal.im/). Both with their own pros and cons.
376
377
378### Development
379
380<a name="beta"></a>
381#### Beta testing
382If you bought the App on [Google Play](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations)
383you can get access to the latest beta version by joining the
384[Conversations Beta Testers](https://plus.google.com/communities/107649347599361240873)
385community on Google+ and then using [this link](https://play.google.com/apps/testing/eu.siacs.conversations)
386to sign up for the beta test.
387
388#### How do I build Conversations
389
390Make sure to have ANDROID_HOME point to your Android SDK. Use the Android SDK Manager to install missing dependencies.
391
392 git clone https://github.com/siacs/Conversations.git
393 cd Conversations
394 ./gradlew assembleFreeDebug
395
396There are two build flavors available. *free* and *playstore*. Unless you know what you are doing you only need *free*.
397
398
399[](https://travis-ci.org/siacs/Conversations)
400
401#### How do I update/add external libraries?
402
403If the library you want to update is in Maven Central or JCenter (or has its own
404Maven repo), add it or update its version in `build.gradle`. If the library is
405in the `libs/` directory, you can update it using a subtree merge by doing the
406following (using `minidns` as an example):
407
408 git remote add minidns https://github.com/rtreffer/minidns.git
409 git fetch minidns
410 git merge -s subtree minidns master
411
412To add a new dependency to the `libs/` directory (replacing "name", "branch" and
413"url" as necessary):
414
415 git remote add name url
416 git merge -s ours --no-commit name/branch
417 git read-tree --prefix=libs/name -u name/branch
418 git commit -m "Subtree merged in name"
419
420#### How do I debug Conversations
421
422If something goes wrong Conversations usually exposes very little information in
423the UI (other than the fact that something didn't work). However with adb
424(android debug bridge) you can squeeze some more information out of Conversations.
425These information are especially useful if you are experiencing trouble with
426your connection or with file transfer.
427
428To use adb you have to connect your mobile phone to your computer with an USB cable
429and install `adb`. Most Linux systems have prebuilt packages for that tool. On
430Debian/Ubuntu for example it is called `android-tools-adb`.
431
432Furthermore you might have to enable 'USB debugging' in the Developer options of your
433phone. After that you can just execute the following on your computer:
434
435 adb -d logcat -v time -s conversations
436
437If need be there are also some Apps on the PlayStore that can be used to show the logcat
438directly on your rooted phone. (Search for logcat). However in regards to further processing
439(for example to create an issue here on Github) it is more convenient to just use your PC.
440
441#### I found a bug
442
443Please report it to our [issue tracker][issues]. If your app crashes please
444provide a stack trace. If you are experiencing misbehavior please provide
445detailed steps to reproduce. Always mention whether you are running the latest
446Play Store version or the current HEAD. If you are having problems connecting to
447your XMPP server your file transfer doesn’t work as expected please always
448include a logcat debug output with your issue (see above).
449
450[issues]: https://github.com/siacs/Conversations/issues