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####How does the address book integration work?
88The address bock integration was designed to protect your privacy. Conversations
89neither uploads contacts from your address book to your server nor fills your
90address book with unnecessary contacts from your online roster. If you manually
91add a Jabber ID to your phones address book Conversations will use the name and
92the profile picture of this contact. To make the process of adding Jabber IDs to
93your address book easier you can click on the profile picture in the contact
94detais within Conversations. This will start an add to address book intent with the jabber ID
95as payload. This doesn’t require Conversations to have write permissions on your
96address book but also doesn’t require you to copy past Jabber ID from one app to
97another.
98####Where can I see the status of my contacts? How can I set a status or priority
99Status are a horrible metric. Setting them manually to a proper value rarly
100works because users are either lazy or just forget about them. Setting them
101automatically does not provide quality results either. Keyboard or mouse
102activity as indicator for example fails when the users is just looking at
103something (reading an article, watching a movie). Furthermore automatic setting
104of status always implies an impact on your privacy. (Are you sure you want
105everybody in your contact list to know that you have been using your computer at
1064am?!)
107In the past status has been used to judge the likelihood of whether or not your
108messages are being read. This is no longer necessary. With Chat Markers
109(XEP-0333, supported by Conversations since 0.4) we have the ability to **know**
110whether or not your messages are being read.
111Similar things can be said for priorites. In the past priorties have been used
112(By servers, not by clients!) to route your messages to one specific client.
113With carbon messages (XEP-0280, supported by Conversations since 0.1) this is no
114longer necessary. Using priorities to route OTR messages isn't pratical either
115because they are not changeable on the fly. Metrics like last active client
116(the client which sent the last message) are much better.
117Unfortunatly these modern replacement for lagecay XMPP featurs are not widely
118adopted. However Conversations should be an instant messanger for the future and
119instead of making Conversations compatible with the past we should work on
120implementing new, improved technologies into other XMPP clients as well.
121###Security
122####Why are there two end-to-end encryption methods and which one should I choose?
123In 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.
124However PGP can be in some cases (carbonated messages to multiple clients) be
125more flexible.
126####How do I use openPGP
127Before you continue reading you should notice that the openPGP support in
128Conversations is marked as experimental. This is not because it will make the app
129unstable but because the fundamental concepts of PGP aren't ready for a
130widespread 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.
131
132To 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.
133####How does the encryption for conferences work?
134For conferences the only supported encryption method is OpenPGP. (OTR does not
135work with multiple participents.) Every participant has to announce their
136OpenPGP key. (See answer above). If you would like to send encrypted messages to
137a conference you have to make sure that you have every participants public key
138in your OpenKeychain. Right now there is no check in Conversations to ensure
139that. You have to take care of that yourself. Go to the conference details and
140touch every key id (The hexadecimal number below a contact). This will send you
141to OpenKeychain which will assist you on adding the key.
142This works best in very small conferences with contacts you are already using
143OpenPGP with. This feature is regarded experimental. Conversations is the only
144client that uses XEP-0027 with confercenes. (The XEP neither specifically allows
145nor disallows this.)
146###Development
147####How do I build Conversations
148Make sure to have ANDROID_HOME point to your Android SDK
149```
150git clone https://github.com/siacs/Conversations.git
151cd Conversations
152git submodule update --init --recursive
153ant clean
154ant debug
155```