Topic: Jami instead of IRC and Mumble; Gemini and RSS to resist social media
Hello all,
I have been doing extensive research on various no to low-cost, low overhead, privacy respecting, software libre communication apps and services for marginalized communities to stay connected, instead of using the usual social media which is nonfree and with algorithms that only further marginalize.
Many of them have some fatal flaw or another, so it is always difficult, like one working with Java or another needing NPM, some sounding good in theory but in practice are inaccessible, or another collecting loads of metadata, or funded by shady entities. It's not easy making things accessible for non-technical, low-income people. All the dead ends such agony. I didn't create a whole spreadsheet but I probably could.. Anyway, this has been a project over various years on and off, and finally I found some satisfying solutions that currently work well, with no unacceptable setbacks, and would like to share.
I think more people should consider trying Jami, it is a GNU app, p2p, with IP address protection enabled by default using dhtproxy. It contains a central directory as well. (You can self-host the proxy and account registration if you want.) I remember when it first came out, it was called Ring, people were very excited to see it working. Well, it still had its bugs at the time, but I can say from testing recently it is working enough to bring my whole family, friends, community, etc, onto it. And with the backing of it being a GNU project, it looks like a safe time investment.
I also think, if the Hyperbola devs would consider it, it would be a good idea to try out Jami today to see if it would serve your needs as a replacement for IRC+Mumble, but that is totally up to your preference. I of course have no part in it.
Bonus: There is another tool that also has easy adoption for those people just looking to share info on the 'web' but maybe don't like the web as it exists. Gemini offers a really simple way to share content over the web, without all the hassle and dangers of HTTP, CSS, Javascript, etc, and you can subscribe to new posts from your fav pages. It does however require technical knowledge to host your own gemini server, it is not p2p. But it's not extremely difficult to host, anyone can write gemini content (it's as easy as markdown), and this is totally optional but many people will find it easy to even construct their own gemini client. Gemini already exists in the hyperbola repos. From browsing perspective it is elegant, and I will be experimenting with hosting.
Another software that I find to be useful for overcoming some of the marginalization and oppressiveness that happens in social media is RSS/Atom/etc, correct application of these can help bring a community together across various parts of the web and beat the algorithms. Because sometimes, we must stay connected, in spite of bad habits using proprietary stuff. However, this is not an endorsement of using proprietary, only a way to navigate that situation. In the end, a community should try to get away from proprietary stuff, but this takes time. Using some conversion tools, you can generate RSS/Atom feeds for sites that don't have them.
To my knowledge, none of these services/apps have the problematic antifeatures that Hyperbola have wisely noted about various software. And of course, they are available on all platforms!
Anyway I hope that this helps, happy hacking 
