HPR2169: How I connect to the awesome #oggcastplanet on mobile

On HPR #2162 I mentioned that I'm connecting to freenode IRC using Riot and Matrix. Here I explain a bit of background to why, what Matrix is, and why you should use it too.

Quick-quick version

Just go to https://riot.im/app/#/room/#freenode_#oggcastplanet:matrix.org, click Join and you're on the channel! If you register a user there (or maybe on another instance, like @lambadalambda's https://matrix.heldscal.la/), you can then log in with the same username and password in the Android app and see all your joined channels there.

Correction to audio: Riot is on F-Droid. For some reason I couldn't find it at the time, even though it's clearly there, so I'm currently using the version from the Google Play Store. I hear that battery use may be an issue if you're independent from the evil GOOG.

Alternatives

Other ways of connecting to IRC over flaky or intermittent connections without losing context:

• ZNC
• In particular, check out this pretty elaborate ZNC-on-ZNC setup to solve the issue with having multiple devices that all want an independent scrollback buffer. I was just about considering setting up something like this when I discovered the Matrix bridge instead.
• One colleague of mine uses Quassel and loves it.
• Another colleague uses irssi ConnectBot or something similar and can't understand why anybody would want anything else.

Criticism

• Matrix is a big fat NIH, why not just use XMPP? (short pump.io discussion)

Fodder for further HPR episodes

• Man there are a lot of Slack alternatives out there. (pump.io post)

Comments

More Information...