XMPP (formerly known as Jabber) is a messaging protocol similar to Skype, Facebook Messenger and the late Windows Live Messenger.\nWhat makes XMPP so special is that unlike these other protocols, it supports what the XMPP community calls federation.\nPeople on servers that support federation are able to communicate with people on other servers, even if they are managed by a completely different company.
\nFederation solves one of the biggest problems that other messaging systems face: you can't be forced to use a certain app because most of your friends use it.\nWhen a new service turns out to be better, you can simply create an account there and take your contacts with you.\nEven though your contacts stay with the old service provider, thanks to XMPP federation you can continue to talk to them as usual.\n(Well, they would have to add your new account to the contacts list, but after that it simply works.)
\nSounds familiar? E-mail works the same way!
\nIt looked like XMPP would become the next big messaging protocol.\nEven big players like Google, Microsoft and Facebook used XMPP for some or all of their messaging applications.\nOver the last few years this trend came to a halt as some of the bigger communities dropped support.\nGoogle replaced Google Talk (which supported federated XMPP) with Google Hangouts, using a proprietary protocol.\nAround the same time, Facebook shut down the XMPP interface to their chat network.
\nWhile hundreds (if not thousands) of XMPP networks remain, the total number of users is very small.\nMost people are using large proprietary platforms like Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger or iMessage.\nThis has removed the major use case for XMPP: a chat protocol is useless if there is nobody to communicate with.
\nMy personal XMPP server was no different.\nI was the only user and my contact list shrank to only 2 friends.\nNot to mention the fact that I usually connected them through other means.\nLogs revealed that my server was communicating with other servers more than I actually sent useful messages.\nIt has begun, computers are talking!
\nAs XMPP is an open protocol there's a pretty big choice when it comes to applications.\nI've been using Gajim and Pidgin on Linux, Conversations on Android and the built-in Messages app on macOS.\nDue to lack of contacts these apps weren't used much, but running pretty much all the time.\nEspecially on mobile this becomes a problem: XMPP is another connection to keep alive, eating my already tormented battery.\nTherefore I sometimes disabled these apps when I needed battery power for other things.
\nI still think XMPP is, by far, the best chat protocol we have today.\nBut sometimes (or most of the time?) technology is not enough.\nPeople have to actually use the protocol for it to be successful.\nIt's hard to stop using something that you want to become the next big thing.\nBut the time has come to see that XMPP is not that thing.\nI have shut down my XMPP server.
\nOne day, people will understand that federation is necessary.
\n","url":"https://vic.demuzere.be/articles/shutting-down-my-xmpp-server/","date_published":"2016-09-25T17:38:00Z","date_modified":"2024-11-11T17:38:51Z","language":"en"},{"id":"https://vic.demuzere.be/articles/trackerless-social-sharing/","content_html":"We seem to live in the golden age of social media: Sharing every useless article you've read with the world is important. Most visitors are of the lazy kind, though, so we need to make this as easy as possible. Fortunately, social media sites provide us with widgets to do exactly that! Phew, we're done here, right? ..right?
\nThe problem with these widgets is that we also allow social media companies to follow our visitors. The primary source of revenue for these companies is advertising. Knowing which sites their members visit is a valuable asset. But we don't want evil corporations to spy on our visitors, do we? The solution for this problem was invented in 1993, and is called a hyperlink. It was designed to send people from one page to the next.
\nNot convinced yet? Well, this probably means you don't value your visitors enough. But there is another reason: Social sharing widgets slow down your website. Every widget has to be loaded from an external website, causing a new HTTP request. Hyperlinks just sit there, waiting to be clicked!
\nLast but not least, social sharing hyperlinks can be styled as you wish. Widgets are a pain in the ass to integrate in your website. Most websites simply have them all together in a box. Choose your own social media icon for your links, or use my Social media vectors.
\nhttps://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=URL
Facebook:
\nhttps://facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=URL
Google+:
\nhttps://plus.google.com/share?url=URL
Linkedin:
\nhttps://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=URL&title=TITLE
Reddit:
\nhttps://www.reddit.com/submit?url=URL