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Experimental Private Chat Server

Posted: 11 Jan 2015 19:44
by Allan
I like to "waste" time experimenting with various technologies :D

modiifed used to have a chat room. Barely anyone ever used it, and when we moved to a new server and upgraded the forums a couple of years ago, we lost the feature entirely because I didn't care to spend the time to carry it over. This was mildly disappointing, but not a big deal.

Lately I've been wanting to set up our very own secure "Jabber" (XMPP) server. I'm not anticipating that this will get a lot of use, but it was fun to experiment with, and yesterday I successfully got a server up and running. It's not web-based as the old one used to be (yet). This will limit the amount of folks who use it, as it involves a bit of setup on your end. It's not difficult at all, but perhaps the less tech savvy of you might find it so.

I do not have registration open to the public, so you need to actually ask me to create an account for you. Email me (hi@allankenneth.com) or PM me, or just reply on this thread.

Once I've created an account for you, you'll need a client like Adium (Mac only) or Pidgin (Windows/cross platform). There are quite a few other options. Search for "jabber client" in your favourite search engine for alternatives, or check out this list.

The server is modified.in and you need to use SSL. With Adium, the settings look something like:

Image

Once you're connected you should be able to privately and securely chat with anyone else who is signed up.

Why would anyone use this instead of gChat/AIM/Skype et al? Because. For fun. Because forget centralized corporate power. None of readily available options are encrypted by default, and gChats OTR (off the record) isn't even actually OTR :roll:

This is an experiment. I'll be adding some features if I can/want to. Maybe it'll just go away. I'm doubting that anyone is even going to care :) Prove me wrong?

Re: Experimental Private Chat Server

Posted: 01 Dec 2017 00:30
by janis
Please let me know if this is still running.

Re: Experimental Private Chat Server

Posted: 16 Dec 2017 13:26
by Psilocybe
Janis, even at the peak of modified's popularity chat was barely used at all (as Allan said). Fast forward 10 years, modified is dead and this chat feature requires raw setup by the user. Who's gonna do that, just to sit in a chatroom alone? I guarantee you, absolutely nobody is using chat, nor will they ever.