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
48###Translations
49* [Sergio Cárdenas](https://github.com/kruks23) (Spanish)
50* [Benoit Bouvarel](https://github.com/BenoitBouvarel) (French)
51* [Daniel Gultsch](https://github.com/iNPUTmice) (German)
52* [Aitor Beriain](https://github.com/beriain) (Basque)
53
54##FAQ
55###General
56####How do I install Conversations?
57Conversations is entirely open source and licensed under GPLv3. So if you are a
58software developer you can check out the sources from github and use ant to
59build your apk file.
60
61The more convenient way - which not only gives you automatic updates but also
62supports the further development of Conversations - is to buy the App in the Google
63[Play Store](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations).
64
65
66####How do I create an account?
67XMPP like email for example is a federated protocol which means that there is
68not one company you can create your 'official xmpp account' with but there are
69hundreds or even thousands of provider out there. To find one use a web search
70engine of your choice. Or maybe your univeristy has one. Or you can run your own.
71Or ask a friend to run one. Once you found one you can use Conversations to
72create an account. Just select 'register new account on server' within the
73create account dialog.
74####How does the address book integration work?
75The address bock integration was designed to protect your privacy. Conversations
76neither uploads contacts from your address book to your server nor fills your
77address book with unnecessary contacts from your online roster. If you manually
78add a Jabber ID to your phones address book Conversations will use the name and
79the profile picture of this contact. To make the process of adding Jabber IDs to
80your address book easier you can click on the profile picture in the contact
81detais within Conversations. This will start an add to address book intent with the jabber ID
82as payload. This doesn’t require Conversations to have write permissions on your
83address book but also doesn’t require you to copy past Jabber ID from one app to
84another.
85####How can I change my status
86You can set an account offline by long pressing on it and select temporarily
87disable account from the context menu. Other statuses like away, DND and N/A are
88not supported for simplicity reasons. Users tend to forget their status, other
89users ignore them and setting the status automatically would mean too much of an
90impact on privacy.
91###Security
92####Why are there to end-to-end encryption methods and which one should I choose?
93In 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.
94However PGP can be in some cases (carbonated messages to multiple clients) be
95more flexible.
96####How do I use openPGP
97Before you continue reading you should notice that the openPGP support in
98Conversations is marked as experimental. This is not because it will make the app
99unstable but because the fundamental concepts of PGP aren't ready for a
100widespread 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.
101
102To 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.
103###Development
104####How do I build Conversations
105Make sure to have ANDROID_HOME point to your Android SDK
106```
107git clone https://github.com/siacs/Conversations.git
108cd Conversations
109git submodule update --init --recursive
110ant clean
111ant debug
112```