Beeper Finally In Public Invite Stage! (refer.beeper.com)

submitted 10 months ago by macgyver@federation.red to c/technology@beehaw.org

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If any of y'all were curious of Beeper when it came out (a Matrix backed chat app) but weren't able to get an invite for whatever reason, then here ya go! Feel free to ask any questions about it if you got any! (No I don't work for Beeper, just like this more than Element and self-hosting)

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[-] dingus@lemmy.ml 84 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Privacy policy is vague and when pressed on if he would sell user data along with the service if he sold it, Eric Migicovsky was silent.

He sold Pebble and screwed the workers on the way out.

So how soon does he sell this when it isn't profitable enough for him? What use is a privacy policy if it can be changed by whoever he sells it to?

Also from what I understand if you aren't running your own iMessage bridge and using theirs, technically they have access to your username/password or password hash for the service.

Personal experience: Was on waitlist for over a year. Got an email for onboarding. Told to join zoom call. Zoom call notifies me it will be recorded. There was no previous notification from Beeper that they would be recording onboardings. I declined and hung up the call.

It took them days to reach out and offer a non recorded session. At that point I asked if they would answer privacy related questions and they ignored them. No response. I declined to use their service since.

Personal opinion, with all these sketchy things about Eric Migicovsky and privacy, I'd err on the side of spinning up my own Matrix server and bridges, you know, with blackjack and hookers.

[-] uninvitedguest@lemmy.ca 26 points 10 months ago

I am using the service, but there's a lot I don't like and I'm hoping to spin up my own matrix server and host their bridges on my own machine.

Beeper cannot send View once messages/media. 2.View once media that is sent on native Signal and WhatsApp are viewable forever through Beeper.
There is no way to delete chats/messages
Read receipt settings are not respected in signal & WhatsApp, and read receipts are always sent.

[-] macgyver@federation.red 9 points 10 months ago

100% agree on these complaints haha, but it's finally out of private invites so thought I'd invite some people

[-] freeman@lemmy.pub 16 points 10 months ago

Any company that I have to give my username and password for a third party service (and especially one as important as icloud/imessage) ill take a hard pass.

[-] pkulak@beehaw.org 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

What company are you talking about, and why are you saying that here? Beeper does not take or want your iCloud password.

EDIT: I’m wrong.

[-] freeman@lemmy.pub 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Beeper does want you to proxy your iCloud account through a Mac on their network for iMessage. You are logging into your iCloud account through their site. They are in effect using Mac minis in a farm to provide the service based on what I looked into (including self hosting it, but then you can’t use a beeper app, you need your own)

https://help.beeper.com/chat-networks/imessage?from_search=125277302

[-] smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 15 points 10 months ago

Unfortunetly not FOSS :/

[-] feyo@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 10 months ago

They are the ones mostly developing all the foss bridges (for Signal,Telegram etc).

Not really mad that they are keeping some of their product closed.

Still giving us selfhosting folks the tools we need.

[-] smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 10 months ago

I'm thankful for their commision to overall ecosystem, but the app itself it still propietary and should be avoided.

[-] TheOlympian@kbin.social 7 points 10 months ago

Looks like the code is dead.

"Error: Referring user has invited too many other users recently. Please try again later"

If anyone has one to spare, I'd appreciate it.

[-] TheFool@infosec.pub 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Here you go

[-] TheOlympian@kbin.social 1 points 10 months ago

Much appreciated!

[-] Naate@beehaw.org 1 points 10 months ago

Worked for me, too. Thanks friendly stranger :)

[-] BubbZ@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 months ago

Anyone got any more of them referral codes? If not, that's cool. I can wait the 8000 plus lineup lol

[-] dybber@feddit.dk 1 points 10 months ago

This one is also dead now it seems.

[-] gaytswiftfan@beehaw.org 4 points 10 months ago

within minutes of linking my Facebook I got an alert that someone signed into my account from a pixel in California 🫥

[-] const_void@lemmy.ml 3 points 10 months ago

Is there a desktop app for Linux?

[-] rhymepurple@lemmy.ml 8 points 10 months ago

Yes, there is a Linux desktop Electron app. Beeper provides the below links to download Beeper clients on Beeper's Download page.

The source code for the above clients are not available though. Beeper's self-host repo claims that the clients are closed-forks of Element's Android, iOS, Desktop, and Web apps.

However, Beeper's self-host Github repo outlines the steps required to self-host Beeper's web service, which is essentially a Synapse Matrix server, Mautrix bridges, and other bridges/bots/services to help run the Matrix Server and connect the Matrix Server to other services.

[-] const_void@lemmy.ml 4 points 10 months ago

Nice. While I'd prefer a native app, electron is better than nothing.

[-] rhymepurple@lemmy.ml 3 points 10 months ago

Agreed. It would also be nice if they provided the source code, especially since its just a fork of an opensource project. Hopefully Beeper is at least up-streaming new features, bug fixes, etc.

[-] simon_greenwood@lemmy.fedisonic.cloud 3 points 10 months ago

I got an invitation the other week and I'm using it for things that are fiddly to maintain a bridge with self hosted Synapse and Mautrix, which I also use. I was having a look at the phone app and just noticed that it's mostly reskinned Element. I'd be interested in hearing what their phase 2 is though and perhaps more how it's going to affect individuals.

[-] lotanis@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 10 months ago

What do you mean by Phase 2?

There's some stuff about the roadmap for most of this year: https://blog.beeper.com/p/state-of-the-app-spring-2023

[-] simon_greenwood@lemmy.fedisonic.cloud 1 points 10 months ago

As in the Underpants Gnomes - what does it do to make a profit? I've since seen they're going to charge $10 a month, which is fine, but from my point of view I run Matrix with the same bridges all ready so don't need it. However, if they're going to make multiple chat applications work in one app with privacy then it's worth supporting.

[-] cobra89@beehaw.org 3 points 10 months ago

If someone else has another invite code I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks :)

[-] marco@beehaw.org 1 points 10 months ago

Don't bother installing, unless you find a new invite code.

[-] drkt@feddit.dk 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Is this another half-solution for Discord or is it against Discord TOS and can get you banned? Either it only works in group chats or it's against their TOS. Which is it?

[-] sam@lemmy.ca 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I'm pretty sure beeper is against TOS if they're using the Matrix bridge I think they're using.

[-] derin@lemmy.beru.co 4 points 10 months ago

Beeper is using its own bridge.

[-] gamey@feddit.rocks 2 points 10 months ago

Still a third party client, Discord doesn't enforce it properly (or at least when I still used it) so it probably won't happen but they could definitely ban you for it.

[-] derin@lemmy.beru.co 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Fair point, yeah.

[-] Lobo6780@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago

I just started using it and this one app already changed my life, whole family friends in one app, whatsapp fb messenger discord twitter imessage on android, greatest idea i ever seen.