Has anyone used briar ?

I've been using it for comms with some friends and family when we're out of conventional network range. It works great, the pairing process is a bit of a barrier for securitu-muggles, but it works perfectly.

My only annoyance is that I can't run the mailbox program on a regular Linux/docker server.

It's great, it does exactly what it says it does. Including using slot of battery power.

I even used it while traveling with friends. We couldn't have our seats together in the airplane and the capability to chat and shitpost over bluetooth securely was kinda nice without annoying everyone.

My biggest annoyance is the inability to migrate a profile and the existing chats across devices, even though that's good security-wise.

https://www.messenger-matrix.de/messenger-matrix-en.html

^^ Good comparison with other IMs.

Briar was nice for chatting when you only have Bluetooth connectivity. Messaging otherwise is subpar

Until they rework Forums and Groups, it's going to be dead in the water from a usability perspective. Both Forums and Groups work with threads and not messages. And when messages are added as replies, the contents of the group chat bloat up in unpredictable ways, until it becomes more or less unusable.

Solid choice as long as you don't mind the trade offs. If you are actually going to use it setup a mailbox.

Honestly Briar feels more like a social media app that a encrypted messager.

I wish I could, but desktop application is limited in functionality and I don't know how to make the mobile app function properly (Waydroid doesn't allow bluetooth use). I don't have a mobile device I can make as private as my desktop, so I would not want to have my chats there.

i use element for briar, with element you can have a federated discord

edit: i meant matrix