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://inverse.chat/badge.svg?room=conversations@conference.siacs.eu"
8 alt="chat on our conference room">
9 </a>
10 <a href="https://travis-ci.org/inputmice/Conversations">
11 <img src="https://travis-ci.org/inputmice/Conversations.svg?branch=master"
12 alt="build status">
13 </a>
14</p>
15
16<p align="center">
17 <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations&referrer=utm_source%3Dgithub">
18 <img src="https://conversations.im/images/en-play-badge.png" alt="Google Play">
19 </a>
20</p>
21
22
23
24## Design principles
25
26* Be as beautiful and easy to use as possible without sacrificing security or
27 privacy
28* Rely on existing, well established protocols (XMPP)
29* Do not require a Google Account or specifically Google Cloud Messaging (GCM)
30
31## Features
32
33* End-to-end encryption with [OMEMO](http://conversations.im/omemo/) or [OpenPGP](http://openpgp.org/about/)
34* Send and receive images as well as other kind of files
35* [Encrypted audio and video calls (DTLS-SRTP)](https://help.conversations.im)
36* Share your location
37* Send voice messages
38* Indication when your contact has read your message
39* Intuitive UI that follows Android Design guidelines
40* Pictures / Avatars for your Contacts
41* Synchronizes with desktop client
42* Conferences (with support for bookmarks)
43* Address book integration
44* Multiple accounts / unified inbox
45* Very low impact on battery life
46
47
48### XMPP Features
49
50Conversations works with every XMPP server out there. However XMPP is an
51extensible protocol. These extensions are standardized as well in so called
52XEP's. Conversations supports a couple of these to make the overall user
53experience better. There is a chance that your current XMPP server does not
54support these extensions; therefore to get the most out of Conversations you
55should consider either switching to an XMPP server that does or — even better —
56run your own XMPP server for you and your friends. These XEP's are:
57
58* [XEP-0065: SOCKS5 Bytestreams](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0065.html) (or mod_proxy65). Will be used to transfer
59 files if both parties are behind a firewall (NAT).
60* [XEP-0163: Personal Eventing Protocol](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0163.html) for avatars and OMEMO.
61* [XEP-0191: Blocking command](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0191.html) lets you blacklist spammers or block contacts
62 without removing them from your roster.
63* [XEP-0198: Stream Management](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0198.html) allows XMPP to survive small network outages and
64 changes of the underlying TCP connection.
65* [XEP-0280: Message Carbons](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0280.html) which automatically syncs the messages you send to
66 your desktop client and thus allows you to switch seamlessly from your mobile
67 client to your desktop client and back within one conversation.
68* [XEP-0237: Roster Versioning](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0237.html) mainly to save bandwidth on poor mobile connections
69* [XEP-0313: Message Archive Management](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0313.html) synchronize message history with the
70 server. Catch up with messages that were sent while Conversations was
71 offline.
72* [XEP-0352: Client State Indication](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0352.html) lets the server know whether or not
73 Conversations is in the background. Allows the server to save bandwidth by
74 withholding unimportant packages.
75* [XEP-0363: HTTP File Upload](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0363.html) allows you to share files in conferences
76 and with offline contacts.
77
78## FAQ
79
80### General
81
82#### How do I install Conversations?
83
84Conversations is entirely open source and licensed under GPLv3. So if you are a
85software developer you can check out the sources from GitHub and use Gradle to
86build your apk file.
87
88The more convenient way — which not only gives you automatic updates but also
89supports the further development of Conversations — is to buy the App in the
90Google [Play Store](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations&referrer=utm_source%3Dgithub).
91
92Buying the App from the Play Store will also give you access to our [beta test](#beta).
93
94#### I don't have a Google Account but I would still like to make a donation
95
96I’m listing several options to support me financially on [my website](https://gultsch.de/donate.html). Among other things [Liberapay](https://liberapay.com/iNPUTmice/donate), [GitHub Sponsors](https://github.com/sponsors/inputmice) and bank transfer.
97
98#### How do I create an account?
99XMPP, 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.
100
101##### Domain hosting
102Using 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.
103
104Learn more about [conversations.im Jabber/XMPP domain hosting](https://account.conversations.im/domain/).
105
106##### Running your own
107If you already have a server somewhere and are willing and able to put the necessary work in you can run your own XMPP server.
108
109As of 2019 we recommend you use [ejabberd](https://ejabberd.im). The default configuration file already enables everything you need to pass the [Conversations Compliance Suite](https://compliance.conversations.im). Make sure your Linux distribution ships a fairly recent version.
110
111With a little bit of effort [Prosody](https://prosody.im) can be configured to support all necessary extensions as well. However you will have to rely on so called [Community Modules](https://modules.prosody.im/) of varying quality. Prosody can be interesting to people who like to modify their server and create / prototype own modules.
112
113Performance wise - for small deployments - both ejabberd and Prosody should be fine.
114
115#### Where can I set up a custom hostname / port
116Conversations will automatically look up the SRV records for your domain name
117which can point to any hostname port combination. If your server doesn’t provide
118those please contact your admin and have them read
119[this](http://prosody.im/doc/dns#srv_records). If your server operator is unwilling
120to fix this you can enable advanced server settings in the expert settings of
121Conversations.
122
123#### I get 'Incompatible Server'
124
125As regular user you should be picking a different server. The server you selected
126is probably insecure and/or very old.
127
128If you are a server administrator you should make sure that your server provides
129either STARTTLS or [XEP-0368: SRV records for XMPP over TLS](https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0368.html).
130
131On rare occasions this error message might also be caused by a server not providing
132a login (SASL) mechanism that Conversations is able to handle. Conversations supports
133SCRAM-SHA1, PLAIN, EXTERNAL (client certs) and DIGEST-MD5.
134
135#### I get 'Bind failure'. What does that mean?
136
137Some Bind failures are transient and resolve themselves after a reconnect.
138
139When trying to connect to OpenFire the bind failure can be a permanent problem when the domain part of the Jabber ID entered in Conversations doesn’t match the domain the OpenFire server feels responsible for. For example OpenFire is configured to use the domain `a.tld` but the Jabber ID entered is `user@b.tld` where `b.tld` also points to the same host. During bind OpenFire tries to reassign the Jabber to `user@a.tld`. Conversations doesn’t like that.
140This can be fixed by creating a new account in Conversations that uses the Jabber ID `user@a.tld`.
141
142Note: This is kind of a weird quirk in OpenFire. Most other servers would just throw a 'Server not responsible for domain' error instead of attempting to reassign the Jabber ID.
143
144Maybe you attempted to use the Jabber ID `test@b.tld` because `a.tld` doesn’t point to the correct host. In that case you might have to enable the extended connection settings in the expert settings of Conversations and set a host name.
145
146#### I get 'Stream opening error'. What does that mean?
147
148In most cases this error is caused by ejabberd advertising support for TLSv1.3 but not properly supporting it. This can happen if the OpenSSL version on the server already supports TLSv1.3 but the fast\_tls wrapper library used by ejabberd not (properly) support it. Upgrading fast\_tls and ejabberd or - theoretically - downgrading OpenSSL should fix the issue. A work around is to explicitly disable TLSv1.3 support in the ejabberd configuration. More information can be found on [this issue on the ejabberd issue tracker](https://github.com/processone/ejabberd/issues/2614).
149
150
151#### I’m getting this annoying permanent notification
152Starting with Conversations 2.3.6 Conversations releases distributed over the Google Play Store will display a permanent notification if you are running it on Android 8 and above. This is a rule that it is essentially enforced by the Google Play Store. (You won’t have the problem of a *forced* foreground notification if you are getting your app from F-Droid.)
153
154However you can disable the notification via settings of the operating system. (Not settings in Conversations.)
155
156**The battery consumption and the entire behavior of Conversations will remain the same (as good or as bad as it was before). Why is Google doing this to you? We have no idea.**
157
158##### Android <= 7.1 or Conversations from F-Droid (all Android versions)
159The foreground notification is still controlled over the expert settings within Conversations as it always has been. Whether or not you need to enable it depends on how aggressive the non-standard 'power saving' features are that your phone vendor has built into the operating system.
160
161##### Android 8.x
162Long press the permanent notification and disable that particular type of notification by moving the slider to the left. This will make the notification disappear but create another notification (this time created by the operating system itself.) that will complain about Conversations (and other apps) using battery. Starting with Android 8.1 you can disable that notification again with the same method described above.
163
164##### Android 9.0+
165Long press the permanent notification and press the info `(i)` button to get into the App info screen. In that screen touch the 'Notification' entry. In the next screen remove the checkbox for the 'Foreground service' entry.
166
167#### How do XEP-0357: Push Notifications work?
168You need to be running the Play Store version of Conversations and your server needs to support push notifications.¹ Because *Google’s Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM)* 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](https://github.com/iNPUTmice/p2) (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 FCM 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 sent 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 FCM even if your server sends this information.)
169
170In 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).
171
172If 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.
173
174You can find a detailed description of how your server, the app server and FCM are interacting with each other in the [README](https://github.com/iNPUTmice/p2/blob/master/README.md) of the Conversations App Server.
175
176 ¹ If you use the Play Store version you do **not** need to run your own app server. Your server only needs to support the server side of [XEP-0357: Push Notifications](http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0357.html) and [XEP-0198: Stream Management](https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0198.html). The prosody server modules are called *mod_cloud_notify* and *mod_smacks*. The ejabberd server modules are called *mod_push* and *mod_stream_mgmt*.
177
178
179#### But why do I need a permanent notification if I use Google Push?
180FCM (Google Push) allows an app to wake up from *Doze* which is (as the name suggests) a hibernation feature of the Android operating system that cuts the network connection and also reduces the number of times the app is allowed to wake up (to ping the server for example). The app can ask to be excluded from doze. Non push variants of the app (from F-Droid or if the server doesn’t support it) will do this on first start up. So if you get exemption from *Doze*, or if you get regular push events sent to you, Doze should not pose a threat to Conversatons working properly. But even with *Doze* the app is still open in the background (kept in memory); it is just limited in the actions it can do. Conversations needs to stay in memory to hold certain session state (online status of contacts, join status of group chats, …). However with Android 8 Google changed all of this again and now an App that wants to stay in memory needs to have a foreground service which is visible to the user via the annoying notification. But why does Conversations need to hold that state? XMPP is a statefull protocol that has a lot of per-session information; packets need to be counted, presence information needs to be held, some features like Message Carbons get activated once per session, MAM catch-up happens once, service discovery happens only once; the list goes on. When Conversations was created in early 2014 none of this was a problem because apps were just allowed to stay in memory. Basically every XMPP client out there holds that information in memory because it would be a lot more complicated trying to persist it to disk. An entire rewrite of Conversations in the year 2019 would attempt to do that and would probably succeed however it would require exactly that; a complete rewrite which is not feasible right now. That’s by the way also the reason why it is difficult to write an XMPP client on iOS. Or more broadly put this is also the reason why other protocols are designed as or migrated to stateless protocols (often based on HTTP); take for example the migration of IMAP to [JMAP](https://jmap.io/).
181
182#### Conversations doesn’t work for me. Where can I get help?
183
184You can join our conference room on [`conversations@conference.siacs.eu`](https://conversations.im/j/conversations@conference.siacs.eu).
185A lot of people in there are able to answer basic questions about the usage of
186Conversations or can provide you with tips on running your own XMPP server. If
187you found a bug or your app crashes please read the Developer / Report Bugs
188section of this document.
189
190#### I need professional support with Conversations or setting up my server
191
192I'm available for hire. Contact information can be found on [my website](https://gultsch.de).
193
194#### How does the address book integration work?
195
196The address book integration was designed to protect your privacy. Conversations
197neither uploads contacts from your address book to your server nor fills your
198address book with unnecessary contacts from your online roster. If you manually
199add a Jabber ID to your phones address book Conversations will use the name and
200the profile picture of this contact. To make the process of adding Jabber IDs to
201your address book easier you can click on the profile picture in the contact
202details within Conversations. This will start an "add to address book" intent
203with the JID as the payload. This doesn't require Conversations to have write
204permissions on your address book but also doesn't require you to copy/paste a
205JID from one app to another.
206
207#### I get 'delivery failed' on my messages
208
209If you get delivery failed on images it's probably because the recipient lost
210network connectivity during reception. In that case you can try it again at a
211later time.
212
213For text messages the answer to your question is a little bit more complex.
214When you see 'delivery failed' on text messages, it is always something that is
215being reported by the server. The most common reason for this is that the
216recipient failed to resume a connection. When a client loses connectivity for a
217short time the client usually has a five minute window to pick up that
218connection again. When the client fails to do so because the network
219connectivity is out for longer than that all messages sent to that client will
220be returned to the sender resulting in a delivery failed.
221
222Instead of returning a message to the sender both ejabberd and prosody have the
223ability to store messages in offline storage when the disconnecting client is
224the only client. In prosody this is available via an extra module called
225```mod_smacks_offline```. In ejabberd this is available via some configuration
226settings.
227
228Other less common reasons are that the message you sent didn't meet some
229criteria enforced by the server (too large, too many). Another reason could be
230that the recipient is offline and the server doesn't provide offline storage.
231
232Usually you are able to distinguish between these two groups in the fact that
233the first one happens always after some time and the second one happens almost
234instantly.
235
236#### Where can I see the status of my contacts? How can I set a status or priority?
237
238Statuses are a horrible metric. Setting them manually to a proper value rarely
239works because users are either lazy or just forget about them. Setting them
240automatically does not provide quality results either. Keyboard or mouse
241activity as indicator for example fails when the user is just looking at
242something (reading an article, watching a movie). Furthermore automatic setting
243of status always implies an impact on your privacy (are you sure you want
244everybody in your contact list to know that you have been using your computer at
2454am‽).
246
247In the past status has been used to judge the likelihood of whether or not your
248messages are being read. This is no longer necessary. With Chat Markers
249(XEP-0333, supported by Conversations since 0.4) we have the ability to **know**
250whether or not your messages are being read. Similar things can be said for
251priorities. In the past priorities have been used (by servers, not by clients!)
252to route your messages to one specific client. With carbon messages (XEP-0280,
253supported by Conversations since 0.1) this is no longer necessary. Using
254priorities to route OTR messages isn't practical either because they are not
255changeable on the fly. Metrics like last active client (the client which sent
256the last message) are much better.
257
258Unfortunately these modern replacements for legacy XMPP features are not widely
259adopted. However Conversations should be an instant messenger for the future and
260instead of making Conversations compatible with the past we should work on
261implementing new, improved technologies and getting them into other XMPP clients
262as well.
263
264Making these status and priority optional isn't a solution either because
265Conversations is trying to get rid of old behaviours and set an example for
266other clients.
267
268#### Translations
269Translations are managed on [Transifex](https://www.transifex.com/projects/p/conversations/).
270If you want to become a translator Please register on transifex, apply to join
271the translation team and then step by our group chat on
272[conversations@conference.siacs.eu](https://conversations.im/j/conversations@conference.siacs.eu)
273and introduce yourself to `iNPUTmice` so he can approve your join request.
274
275#### How do I backup / move Conversations to a new device?
276On 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.)
277
278As of version 2.4.0 an integrated Backup & Restore function will help with this, go to Settings and you’ll find a setting called Create backup. A notification will pop-up during the creation process that will announce you when it's ready. After the files, one for each account, are created, you can move the **Conversations** folder *(if you want your old media files too)* or only the **Conversations/Backup** folder *(for OMEMO keys and history only)* to your new device (or to a storage place) where a freshly installed Conversations can restore each account. Don't forget to enable the accounts after a successfull restore.
279
280This backup method will include your OMEMO keys. Due to forward secrecy you will not be able to recover messages sent and received between creating the backup and restoring it. If you have a server side archive (MAM) those messages will be retrieved but displayed as *unable to decrypt*. For technical reasons you might also lose the first message you either sent or receive after the restore; for each conversation you have. This message will then also show up as *unable to decrypt*, but this will automatically recover itself as long as both participants are on Conversations 2.3.11+. Note that this doesn’t happen if you just transfer to a new phone and no messages have been exchanged between backup and restore.
281
282In the vast, vast majority of cases you won’t have to manually delete OMEMO keys or do anything like that. Conversations only introduced the official backup feature in 2.4.0 after making sure the *OMEMO self healing* mechanism introduced in 2.3.11 works fine.
283
284**WARNING**: Be sure to know your accounts passwords or find ways to reset them **before** doing the backup as the files are encrypted using those passwords and the Restore process will ask for them.
285**WARNING**: Do not use the restore backup feature in an attempt to clone (run simultaneously) an installation. Restoring a backup is only meant for migrations or in case you’ve lost the original device.
286
287#### Conversations is missing a certain feature
288
289I'm open for new feature suggestions. You can use the [issue tracker][issues] on
290GitHub. Please take some time to browse through the issues to see if someone
291else already suggested it. Be assured that I read each and every ticket. If I
292like it I will leave it open until it's implemented. If I don't like it I will
293close it (usually with a short comment). If I don't comment on an feature
294request that's probably a good sign because this means I agree with you.
295Commenting with +1 on either open or closed issues won't change my mind, nor
296will it accelerate the development.
297
298#### You closed my feature request but I want it really really badly
299
300Just write it yourself and send me a pull request. If I like it I will happily
301merge it if I don't at least you and like minded people get to enjoy it.
302
303#### I need a feature and I need it now!
304
305I am available for hire. Find contact information on [my website](https://gultsch.de).
306
307### Security
308
309#### Why are there two end-to-end encryption methods and which one should I choose?
310
311* 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 not widely support and is currently implemented only [by a handful of clients](https://omemo.top).
312* OpenPGP (XEP-0027) is a very old encryption method that has some advantages over OMEMO but should only be used by people who know what they are doing.
313
314#### How do I use OpenPGP
315
316Before you continue reading you should note that the OpenPGP support in
317Conversations is experimental. This is not because it will make the app unstable
318but because the fundamental concepts of PGP aren't ready for widespread use.
319The way PGP works is that you trust Key IDs instead of JID's or email addresses.
320So in theory your contact list should consist of Public-Key-IDs instead of
321JID's. But of course no email or XMPP client out there implements these
322concepts. Plus PGP in the context of instant messaging has a couple of
323downsides: It is vulnerable to replay attacks and it is rather verbose.
324
325To use OpenPGP you have to install the open source app
326[OpenKeychain](http://www.openkeychain.org) and then long press on the account in
327manage accounts and choose renew PGP announcement from the contextual menu.
328
329#### OMEMO is grayed out. What do I do?
330OMEMO is only available in 1:1 chats and private (members-only, non-anonymous) group chats. Encrypting public group chats makes little to no sense since anyone (including a hypothetical attacker) can join and a user couldn’t possibily verify all participants anyway. Furthermore for a lot of public group chat it is desirable to give new comers access to the full history.
331
332#### OMEMO doesn’t work. I get a 'Something went wrong' message in the 'Trust OMEMO Fingerprints' screen.
333OMEMO 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 that the initial sender needs to have access to the published key material. This can either be achieved by having 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) or by using a server that makes the public key material accessible to anyone. In the [Compliance Tester](https://compliance.conversations.im) this is indicated by the 'OMEMO' feature. Since it is very common that the first messages are exchanged *before* adding each other to the contact list it is desirable to use servers that have 'OMEMO support'.
334
335#### How does the encryption for group chats work?
336
337##### OMEMO
338
339OMEMO encryption works only in private (members only) conferences that are non-anonymous. Non-anonymous (being able to discover the real JID of other participants) is a technical requirement to discover the key material. Members only is a sort of arbitrary requirement imposed by Conversations. (see 'OMEMO is grayed out')
340
341The server of all participants need to pass the OMEMO [Compliance Test](https://conversations.im/compliance/).
342In other words they either need to run ejabberd 18.01+ or Prosody 0.11+.
343
344(Alternatively it would also work if all participants had each other in their contact list; But that rarely is the case in larger group chats.)
345
346The owner of a conference can make a public conference private by going into the conference
347details and hit the settings button (the one with the gears) and select both *private* and
348*members only*.
349
350##### OpenPGP
351
352Every participant has to announce their OpenPGP key (see answer above).
353If you would like to send encrypted messages to a conference you have to make
354sure that you have every participant's public key in your OpenKeychain.
355Right now there is no check in Conversations to ensure that.
356You have to take care of that yourself. Go to the conference details and
357touch every key id (The hexadecimal number below a contact). This will send you
358to OpenKeychain which will assist you on adding the key. This works best in
359very small conferences with contacts you are already using OpenPGP with. This
360feature is regarded experimental. Conversations is the only client that uses
361XEP-0027 with conferences. (The XEP neither specifically allows nor disallows
362this.)
363
364#### What is Blind Trust Before Verification / why are messages marked with a red lock?
365
366Read more about the concept on https://gultsch.de/trust.html
367
368#### What happened to OTR support?
369OTR was removed because it was highly unreliable. It didn’t work with multiple devices and was never really specified to work with XMPP. The codebase was a mess (There was an HTML parser in there for crying out loud to deal with the garbage some OTR clients would send.) Verification was implemented in a non-blocking way. It would tell you if the current session was using an unknown fingerprint but it didn’t actively stopped you from sending messages until you have confirmed the new fingerprint. (Like Conversations would do now with BTBV after verification or when BTBV is turned off.) Considering the previous points there was little to no desire from my point to fix this potential security issue or clean up the code base. Another reason for the removal was that people would use it *accidentally* even to communicate between two Conversations clients because they read somewhere that OTR is good.
370
371### What clients do I use on other platforms
372There are XMPP Clients available for all major platforms.
373#### Windows / Linux
374For 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.
375#### iOS
376Unfortunately we don‘t have a recommendation for iPhones right now. There are three clients available [Siskin](https://siskin.im/), [ChatSecure](https://chatsecure.org/) and [Monal](https://monal.im/). Each with their own pros and cons.
377
378
379### Development
380
381<a name="beta"></a>
382#### Beta testing
383If you bought the App on [Google Play](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.siacs.conversations)
384you can get access to the the latest beta version by signing up using [this link](https://play.google.com/apps/testing/eu.siacs.conversations).
385
386#### How do I build Conversations
387
388##### Compiling WebRTC.
389
390WebRTC is a standard for Internet audio and video communication. libwebrtc, also used in the Google Chrome web browser, implementing the WebRTC standard.
391
392**Note:** Starting with version 2.8.0 you will need to compile libwebrtc from source because there are no fresh binary releases available to download.
393
394[Instructions](https://webrtc.github.io/webrtc-org/native-code/android/) can be found on the WebRTC website, however, there build method used by Conversations developers is slightly different.
395
396```
397mkdir -p ~/Prerequisites-for-Conversations
398cd ~/Prerequisites-for-Conversations
399git clone https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/tools/depot_tools.git
400export PATH=~/Prerequisites-for-Conversations/depot_tools:$PATH
401mkdir webrtc
402cd webrtc
403fetch --nohooks webrtc_android
404# ...wait for 20Gb of stuff...
405gclient sync
406# ...wait for more 5Gb of stuff...
407cd src
408unset _JAVA_OPTS
409./tools_webrtc/android/build_aar.py
410```
411
412It will take some time and build webrtc for all popular Android architectures.
413The result will be the file `./libwebrtc.aar`
414
415
416##### Building Conversations itself
417
418Place the resulting libwebrtc.aar in the `libs/` directory. The PlayStore release currently
419uses the stable M90 release and renamed the file name to `libwebrtc-m90.aar` put potentially you can
420reference any file name by modifying `build.gradle`. Search for `libwebrtc-m90.aar`, and replace it with `libwebrtc.aar`.
421
422
423Make sure to have ANDROID_HOME point to your Android SDK. Use the Android SDK Manager to install missing dependencies.
424
425Alternatively (and to avoid thinking about environment variables), create a file called local.properties, in the root of the Conversations build tree,
426with the following contents:
427
428```
429## This file must *NOT* be checked into Version Control Systems,
430# as it contains information specific to your local configuration.
431#
432# Location of the SDK. This is only used by Gradle.
433# For customization when using a Version Control System, please read the
434# header note.
435#Wed May 20 16:21:35 CST 2020
436ndk.dir=Path-To-Ndk
437sdk.dir=Path-To-Sdk
438```
439
440Then issue the following commands in order to build the apk.
441
442 git clone https://github.com/inputmice/Conversations.git
443 cd Conversations
444 ./gradlew assembleConversationsFreeSystemDebug
445
446There are two build flavors available. *free* and *playstore*. Unless you know what you are doing you only need *free*.
447
448You will find the apks in the `./build/outputs/apk/conversationsFreeSystem/debug/` directory.
449
450Be careful, the resulting apks will not install unless you delete your existing Conversations installation (which will delete all the messages from your phone, and if you have used OMEMO, you will not be able to restore them from the server).
451Do it at your own risk.
452
453You, though, can make your own build a "test build", that can be installed alongside the normal (F-Droid or Google Play) Conversations:
454
455In the file `build.gradle`, find the line `applicationId "eu.siacs.conversations"` , and replace it with `applicationId "my.conversations.fork"`, also below replace "Conversations" appName with "MyCFork".
456Then the resulting APK can be installed ALONGSIDE normal Conversations. And have a different name so it's not confusing
457
458WARNING: DO NOT REPLACE ANYTHING ELSE ANYWHERE ELSE, DO NOT REPLACE THIS PROJECT WIDE. JUST 2 strings in THAT specific file!
459
460[](https://travis-ci.org/inputmice/Conversations)
461
462#### How do I debug Conversations
463
464If something goes wrong Conversations usually exposes very little information in
465the UI (other than the fact that something didn't work). However with adb
466(android debug bridge) you can squeeze some more information out of Conversations.
467These information are especially useful if you are experiencing trouble with
468your connection or with file transfer.
469
470To use adb you have to connect your mobile phone to your computer with an USB cable
471and install `adb`. Most Linux systems have prebuilt packages for that tool. On
472Debian/Ubuntu for example it is called `android-tools-adb`.
473
474Furthermore you might have to enable 'USB debugging' in the Developer options of your
475phone. After that you can just execute the following on your computer:
476
477 adb -d logcat -v time -s conversations
478
479If need be there are also some Apps on the PlayStore that can be used to show the logcat
480directly on your rooted phone. (Search for logcat). However in regards to further processing
481(for example to create an issue here on Github) it is more convenient to just use your PC.
482
483#### I found a bug
484
485Please report it to our [issue tracker][issues]. If your app crashes please
486provide a stack trace. If you are experiencing misbehavior please provide
487detailed steps to reproduce. Always mention whether you are running the latest
488Play Store version or the current HEAD. If you are having problems connecting to
489your XMPP server your file transfer doesn’t work as expected please always
490include a logcat debug output with your issue (see above).
491
492[issues]: https://github.com/inputmice/Conversations/issues