«Jami» is a SIP-compliant peer-to-peer distribution and SIP-based instant messenger
The release of the new version of the Jami decentralized communication platform, distributed under the codename «Vilagfa», It comes with countless bug fixes and improvements to existing features, but the biggest innovation in this release is the small group Swarm.
For those who are unfamiliar with the project, they should know that Jami aims to create a P2P communications system that allows both the communication of large groups and the making of individual calls with a high level of confidentiality and security. Jami, formerly known as Ring and SFLphone, is part of the GNU projects.
Unlike traditional communication clients, Jami is able to transmit messages without resorting to external servers through the organization of a direct connection between users using end-to-end encryption (end-to-end, the keys are present only on the client side) and authentication based on X.509 certificates.
Main novelties of Jami «Vilagfa»
In this new version that is presented, as we mentioned at the beginning, the main novelty is that development of the group communications system continued swarm (Swarms).
The interesting thing about that swarms, is that allows the creation of fully distributed P2P chats, whose communication history is stored jointly on all user devices in a synchronized manner. While previously only two members were allowed in the swarm, the new version of Swarms now allows small group chats of up to 8 people (there are plans to increase the allowed number of members in future versions and add support for public chats).
Another change that stands out in the new version is that I know a new button has been added to create group chats and the ability to configure chat options has been provided. After creating a group chat, you can add new members to it and remove existing ones.
There are three categories of participants: guests (added to the group, but not yet connected to the chat), connected and administrators.
Each member can send invitations to other people, but only the administrator can remove from the group (for now there can only be one administrator, but in future versions there will be a flexible system of access rights and the possibility of appointing several administrators).
In addition to this, it also stands out in this new version of Jami "Vilagfa" that a new panel with information about the chat, such as the list of participants, the list of sent documents and the configuration.
On the other hand, one-on-one conversations already have many features and some of them have been updated to work in multi-member conversations, as well as if a file is transmitted in a conversation. Any member who has the file can submit it. This allows participants to receive files even if the original sender is not online.
Of the other changes that stand out from the new version of Jami "Vilagfa":
- Added various types of flags about reading a message and writing.
- Added an interface to search for messages in chats.
- Added support for setting reactions using emoji characters.
- Added an option to show information about the current location.
- Experimental support for a group chat accompanying a video conference has been added to the desktop client.
- Support for multiple administrators and multiple permission levels is planned in the future.
Finally, it should be mentioned that Jami, previously known as Ring and SFLphone, is a GNU project and has the GPLv3 license ysIf you are interested in knowing more about it, you can consult the details in the following link.
For those interested in being able to obtain the new version, you should know that the binaries are prepared for different systems, such as Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, SUSE, RHEL, Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and Android TV and various options are being developed for interfaces based on Qt, GTK, and Electron.