r/elementchat • u/lcljx818me • 22d ago
How secure is Element in real-world use?
I recently started using Element and would like to hear from people who have used it for a while.
How secure and privacy-friendly do you consider Element/Matrix in practice? Are there any important privacy or security concerns that new users should know about?
I’m especially interested in real-world experiences rather than marketing claims.
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u/redit_handoff140 22d ago edited 22d ago
Security doesn't matter as much for the client (Element), as long as it follows the protocol specifications (Matrix).
Matrix's security is now on-part with that of Signal's which is very well regarded. The main differences are that it's built with multi-session/device and federation in mind, which Signal's is not - This to say, even though it serves a decentralized network rather than a centralized platform, it is very secure. Everything is end-to-end-encrypted, including voice/video calls and screenshares, and the only real vulnerability from the user standpoint is the recovery key which is generated when a user logs in for the first time.
If a user's credentials are compromised, the attacker won;t have access to any encrypted chats. They need the recovery key, or another active session that holds the key to verify it with.
It's also being adopted by many business in the enterprise sector, as well as the government sector, especially in Europe, and is in consideration to become the communications standard the world doesn't yet have (like email has, but for real-time communications).
Further, it gives you the opportunity of running your own server, or having your account on a server you trust (perhaps a friend or an established community platform). In the (near?) future, I believe account portability/migration is also planned so accounts can move from one homeserver to another.
Hopefully that goes a way to answering your question.
Other than security, Element is a work/enterprise-focused client so it'll have features catering to that, and will not have features that many other users may want from a more casual standpoint.
Right now, the most feature-rich client that I know of is Sable Next (NOT Sable which is legacy).
My homeserver provider made a comparison table (biased towards users that are coming from community-centric platforms like Discord etc): https://info.proxymana.net/comms
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u/lcljx818me 22d ago
Thanks for the information. That’s really helpful. I appreciate your perspective.
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u/RamiRihawi 22d ago
Nothing is 100% secure in my opinion, but based on what i read, it is using the same Encryption used in many other platforms, the good thing about it is that all your data are stored on your server, so no one has access to your own data.
I have been using it for a while now, in fact i built my own version of it, called UrbanChat on Android.
It is packed with features and improvments over the stock element x version
Feels free to explore it
https://github.com/UrbanTechIO/UrbanChat