Jami could be a skype replacement if only accessibility was cross-platform: Jami is a fully peer to peer chat application that supports text and video, but is only #accessible on mobile: stuff.interfree.ca/2025/05/08/jami.html
in reply to 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

No, Delta does not need a central server. One can use any #chatmail or classic e-mail server. Moreover, there is a P2P-system in-built, see delta.chat/en/2024-11-20-webxd…
in reply to Delta Chat

@delta@clv0@pixelate I’m pretty uncomfortable with how delta still sends all messages via a central server, and how it makes email protocols do things they were never intended to do. History shows this always leads to suboptimal designs. Technology like dht is well set up to allow for messaging without any gatekeepers or middlemen. Never the less, thanks for caring about accessibility! Blind folks need to be able to use what our friends use, whatever that turns out to be.
in reply to 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

virtually all internet protocols are used today in a way they were not designed for. HTTP was meant to transfer static HTML files (also CSS), nowadays it's driving all the web applications which were not considered or designed for, earlier on. As to P2P, DHTs have "central" root servers because otherwise newcomers can not start discovering anything. Delta's P2P-networking doesn't have any root server but the root is the group chat ;)
in reply to Delta Chat

@delta@pixelate@clv0 Yeah, I would consider the modern web one of those non-optimal designs resulting from extending protocols in ways they weren't intended. Now we get cookies and javascript and no privacy. And DHT has a bootstrap server, yes. But it's easily changed. And even if it goes down, existing nodes can still connect and route messages. And everything doesn't go through the root server. If I'm sending my friend sitting in my living room with me a 3 gig file, I'd rather that not go through a mail server, fast or otherwise. And it has all the problems of Mastodon: if you get banned from your mail server, now you have to update your chat address. DHT doesn't have that issue, either.
in reply to 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

> History shows this always leads to suboptimal designs

I am trying to wrap my head around hearing this in the same thread you recommend #Jami which the times I have tried I was never sure if my messages would ever arrive, some messages stuck in pending forever in a limbo for days even after subsequent messages to that contact were delivered.

Don't get me wrong I like Jami so much that I have it installed even having literally ZERO contacts/chats in it

@delta @clv0 @pixelate

This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

@pixelate @clv0 @delta

> Technology like dht is well set up to allow for messaging without any gatekeepers or middlemen.

DHT is a really bad single point of failure. All it takes is a bad actor to flood it with fake data and the entire system falls apart for everyone under the load.

edit: here's a very recent paper showing a PoC defeating the current mitigation strategies

arxiv.org/abs/2505.01139

> When evaluated against the most recent known mitigation, it successfully denies access to the target content in approximately 80% of lookup attempts.

This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

@pixelate @clv0 @delta yes but those are not being attacked by a government to censor dissidents. It's not important enough; it's not a threat to the status quo.

As soon as you give them a reason to do so, they will, and it will fall over.

edit: they can also block traffic to the DHT bootstrap servers which adds additional complications

This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to feld

@feld@pixelate@clv0@delta I think the RIAA and MPAA would disagree. The large multinationals are, at this point, unfortunately both bigger and better resourced than governments. And if our only plan to decentralize is "let good people (TM) run the servers for you or learn selfhosting", we're just never going to get anywhere.
in reply to 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

@pixelate @clv0 @delta

> And if our only plan to decentralize is "let good people (TM) run the servers for you or learn selfhosting", we're just never going to get anywhere.

That's why DeltaChat works the way it does. If you're a dissident in Russia, they can (and do) block Signal. They can and do successfully block services that rely on Tor.

But the Kremlin can't block all email without destroying their own ability to operate. So while they can block/censor private email servers, they will never shutdown providers important to their own economy like Yandex. So you can use DeltaChat with Yandex to successfully setup E2EE communication channels.

Email is basically a "utility" that has to be available for governments, economies, and the internet to be useful. That's why DeltaChat is leveraging it.

in reply to feld

@feld@pixelate@clv0@delta I doubt delta's encrypted messages look anything like normal emails. In a case like this, just using delta chat at all would be enough to get you arrested. And that's not even getting started on the spam filtering and message modification done by...pretty much every single mailserver, these days. It's also not possible to encrypt the metadata (who you talked too and when) if you're basing on email. And again, that's enough to get you arrested.
in reply to 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

@🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @Billy @Hunter Jozwiak On linux QT uses at-spi2 for accessibility on windows it used to use IAccessible2 and it's transitioning to UIA. It's different to GTK.

Back on topic I was trying out Jami a few months ago on android. The app seemed quite accessible however I had connectivity issues. On linux the app had more accessibility issues. Latelly jami have introduced so called open dht proxies that have reportedly improved connectivity for mobile apps though however I haven't played with jami with this inprovement in place.

These days I'm really excited about deltachat as I have recognized how much accessible the deltachat apps became latelly.

The fact messages are end to end encrypted as much as possible, chatmail does elliminate what makes email slow incl. spam / virus filtering, ability to migrate to a different chatmail relay is being considered / worked on.

Not to mention simple colaboration webxdc apps with p2p connectivity e.g. for handling file transfers, possibly audio calls in the future and other real time data.

So it is decentralized, it's federated, it's secure, it attempts to be lightweight as much as possible and as compared by other attempts it really turns to be that. Creating a profile, adding multiple devices, exchanging contact data is easy. Apps are very similar and simple at the same time on each platform. I believe it might be easy to use even for non tech savvy users.

Here is the blog post that is verry accurate and describes all of this in more details.

blog.feld.me/posts/2025/03/del…

in reply to 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

Update: without any outreach, advocacy, or prompting on my part, I received an email from one of the #Jami developers letting me know that they're aware of the #accessibility issues with the desktop application and are working on fixing them. I have updated my original post with the text of the email: stuff.interfree.ca/2025/05/08/jami.html#a11y
in reply to Cleverson

@Cleverson @Devin Prater :blind: @🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 Frankly, we had an attempt to test and use this about a year ago.
At that time I was also excited.
I'd be interested if you can say the accessibility of jami has improved since that time...

fedi.ml/display/421c36a5-1265-…


I am just testing @Jami with a #screenreader on both linux desktop and android for #accessibility.
Initial setup is accessible on both the platforms.
Listing conversations I can't really say as I only have single contact.
Audio calling is working fine. I am impressed that the call setup took just a moment. On android controls like microphone toggle, speaker / earpiece toggle and hangup button are working fine.
I am unable to find out in call controls with the keyboard on linux.
On both desktop and android I can write messages.
On android I can read messages, find and execute additional actions in the popup menu.
On the desktop I can't read incoming and outgoing messages with a screen reader. I haven't discovered on how to copy them.

In conclusion comparing this to the tox chat the Jami is more accessible with a screen reader. Perhaps I will be able to figure out how to handle the calls with a keyboard shortcuts however the fact message text is not readable with a screen reader on desktop linux and perhaps other platforms sounds dissapointing. The idea and decentralized nature of this communication app sounds really amazing.


⇧