I’m super into the idea of Beeper, but at the end of the day to get that level of interoperability you are trusting a third party with your login credentials to some very sensitive services that may also be tied to your financials (ie Apple ID). They state that it’s only saved once, and then encrypted so that they no longer have access, but still it’s a risk.
So far I’m not convinced it’s worth the trade off even though I really want it to be. Curious what others think?
I am super excited regardless of the risk of another middleman. I feel like I am the only one who doesn’t use an iPhone so this should shock them once I can try this out. I have an apple ID but really nothing ties to it that’s personal since I am not an apple person. I would be more concerned with whatsapp since I use that way more to communicate and probably have had a few things through the years sent that shouldn’t have. I do try to delete it right after though.
They open-sourced their code which is nice and can help researchers inspect their security, plus it’s made by reputable people: the guy who made Pebble! I don’t have a use case for Beeper personally right now, but it seems really cool and I’m excited to see where it goes.
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I like the idea of it, but if I ever go down that route I’ll probably look into self hosting the system.
I don’t use it with iMessage, but I bridged WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram and Facebook. It works quite well, but I uninstalled it after maybe 2 weeks. There are too many features (understandably) missing, like surveys in WhatsApp, these bot chat buttons in Telegram and calls in general. And having the original apps and beeper installed defeats the purpose for me personally.
I had to wait maybe 3 weeks after signing up.
There’s cavets though
First, there’s a waiting list to use it. Some people waited a year to get on.
Second, the encryption isn’t e2e when a different service is involved, they act as a middleman.
Third, for imessage in specific, you either give them your credentials or need your own device to act as the bridge.
I really can’t get over sending them my login credentials though
Self host it then.
I need a Mac for that right?
You need a Mac or Linux box with internet connectivity with a domain pointed to it (You probably could do it using dynamic DNS too.) I don’t know how much power it needs, you might be able to get away with something like a Raspberry Pi.
You can either run it on your own hardware, or host a server with something like Digital Ocean Droplet, A2 Hosting, AWS, Azure, etc.
You would have to use the Open Source Matrix clients like Element or SchildiChat instead of the actual Beeper App, but you would be able to use the Beeper bridges.
And this would require it be a Mac for iMessage functionality, no?
Probably.
Beeper is looking pretty awesome. It (and things like BlueBubbles) are allowing me to switch to android, and I love it. Can’t wait for my new phone to arrive!
Out of curiosity, which phone are you ditching Apple for?
Pixel 7 pro. Was gonna get the 7a but they are giving me 200 more dollars in my trade in if I go for the pro, making it cheater then the a.
Is this open source?
Their client apps aren’t, since they’re closed-source forks of Element, but it seems that you could self-host something similar using Matrix and Beeper’s open-source bridges: https://github.com/beeper/self-host
I do this now for services in using, overall pretty straightforward once you have a basic understanding of doing one they are all pretty easy.
why would one use this over Google Messages?
I think that there is a misunderstanding about the purpose Beeper is trying to solve. It’s about consolidating all your chat services together into one place. Google messages is SMS/MMS/RCS. Beeper or by extension the whole matrix platform with bridges can roll almost all your services together, gchat, sms, mms, RCS, Facebook, iMessage, discord, WhatsApp, signal, telegram, slack, instagram, etc.
You clearly didn’t read the full article or don’t understand everything this does.
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the waitlist is slow as hell
