[vertex-four]

Right now, in practice, Matrix is "a better IRC". It provides bouncer-like functionality by default, federation across the whole network so you only have one identity vs having to register with each server on which there's a community you want to talk to, file sharing, voice/video chat, proper message formatting, and more.

Encryption currently works on Riot Web, iOS and Android, certain bugs excluded - but it's missing a lot of UX work. (Among other things, you have to manually verify each and every device the people you talk to use, there's no way for them to say "these are all my devices, if you trust me, you trust them" yet. You also lose chat history at present if you switch devices or log out.) If you're able to work around the UX, the underlying protocol is fine and has been audited, with certain tradeoffs discussed in the report.

[acqq]

Thank you. This is exactly what I wanted to read: clear explanation what works and surely not "it's not stable." What are the current encryption-related bugs, that is, what is their worst consequence?

I surely don't have a problem with the manual verification.

[vertex-four]

The current bugs are basically that occasionally, you can't decrypt a message. Supposedly this has actually been fixed (and wasn't a security issue), but I've seen it once or twice since. And as I say, you lose your chat history if you log out or bring in a new device. This is an important bug to fix, but it requires some UX work.

[Arathorn]

We are still chasing down the final unknown session ID bugs actually, although many have been fixed. The other big issue is to warn when unverified devices are added to a room. We are working on them all currently.