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What Is Riot?

  • decentralised - based on Matrix
  • open source - Apache 2.0 License
  • federated
  • end to end (E2E) encrypted - still in BETA labs
  • interoperable
    • Linux
    • Windows
    • Mac
    • Android
    • Fdroid
    • iOS
    • Windows Phone
    • Webapp
  • group chat
  • voip
  • video
  • private or public
  • integrations
    • IRC
    • Slack
    • Github
    • Gitter
    • Jira
    • Travis CI
    • Atom/RSS Feeds
    • Guggy
    • OFTC
    • Snoonet
    • Twitter
    • Giphy
    • Google Image Search
  • Optional 3rd party ID
    • email
    • phone
    • Facebook
  • no single point of failure
  • no limits on features, group size, or usage of public rooms
  • use the same identity across devices

What's So Innovative About It?

Originally launching the BETA at Decentralized Web Summit in June 2016, as Vector, Riot allows you to own your own data. Of course it's decentralised. It's your bridge across a sea of communication apps.

Unlike Signal, Riot is not tied to your telephone number or the Android's 'Google Play' framework.

What's the Riot Stance on Privacy?

To quote their blog:

"We stand behind the idea that all of us should have the right to control our online data and that sharing this data is a choice. We will not contribute to the ever growing belief that simply because something is free that by default you should give up your right to privacy.!

"Vector is a fully decentralized system, allowing anyone to run their own server in order to keep control over their data, and with the ability to provide an end-to-end encrypted service coming in our next release. Privacy and data ownership is critical to us." Source

Signal requires SMS confirmation which can be intercepted in authoritarian states. Riot does not require this.

Riot's Privacy Policy

Coming Soon

  • paid hosting support
  • more integrations - Basecamp, Invision, Zeplin
  • message editing
  • reactions
  • threads
  • sharing of public encryption keys
  • stable release v1.0

Setup Riot

Riot is still in beta. It's not yet rock solid. There might be some occasionally odd behaviour. Most importantly the encryption is still in labs. Proceed with caution.

There are a clearly a big number of ways to install Riot. Installing on a phone is rather standard when it comes to apps. Being a beta, however, it's a little more testing. The documentation it's rather outstanding, but I am sharing my own version as content for decen.tech, and also for those that might like my alternative way of describing the task.

I use Linux as my everyday operating system. If you use Debian, your in luck, as there's a DEB file just for you. I use Arch Linux though. And as an added measure of personal security I have been guided to fully trust Arch User Repository (AUR). So far I've been unable to install a couple of apps as the process can be quite complex when you factor in dependancies. Riot was pretty easy in retrospect. So much so I tried installing in THREE different ways. As a self hosted webapp, as a self hosted development environment webapp, and as a desktop app. I nearly had an alternative version of the desktop app, but I don't understand Electron enough. I don't like to pretend I know something, but while edit this in the future once of I've grasped Electron. Here's how I went about it on Arch Linux using this source.

Riot Desktop App Version 1

This installation assumes you have an active version of NodeJS. Personally, I've preferred this installed via NVM. Nativefier will install a native stand-alone Electron wrapper around the web app.

  1. sudo npm install nativefier -g
  2. cd your/preferred/path/
  3. nativefier https://riot.im/app/
  4. ./riot-*your-native-env*

Riot Self Hosted Web App

This installation again relies on NodeJS.

  1. cd your/preferred/path/
  2. git clone https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web.git
  3. cd riot-web/
  4. npm install
  5. npm start
  6. In your web browser address bar navigate to http://127.0.0.1:8080/ or http://localhost:8080
  7. Periodically you should update this installation via:
  8. Navigate to the root riot-web/ directory
  9. git pull
  10. npm install
  11. npm start

Riot Self Hosted Development Environment Web App

  1. Clone and build matrix-js-sdk
  2. git clone https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-js-sdk.git
  3. pushd matrix-js-sdk
  4. git checkout develop
  5. npm install
  6. npm install source-map-loader
  7. popd
  8. Clone and build matrix-react-sdk
  9. git clone https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk.git
  10. pushd matrix-js-sdk
  11. git checkout develop
  12. npm install
  13. rm -r node_modules/matrix-js-sdk; ln -s ../../matrix-js-sdk node_modules/
  14. pushd
  15. Clone, build and start Riot
  16. git clone https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web.git
  17. cd riot-web
  18. git checkout develop
  19. npm install
  20. rm -r node_modules/matrix-js-sdk; ln -s ../../matrix-js-sdk node_modules/
  21. rm -r node_modules/matrix-react-sdk; ln -s ../../matrix-react-sdk node_modules/
  22. npm start
  23. In your browser address bar navigate to http://127.0.0.1:8080/ or http://localhost:8080/