Slack and Microsoft Teams are popular work chat apps, but which is better for your privacy and security? Here’s what to know about the cost to your private data
TLDR: they’re both bad, but it might be interesting to know what each one does
they should, especially as a smaller business, as data leaks could run into GDPR problems. my ex-employer, for example, handled all customer data in plaintext and never delete data for people who were no longer customers. he also insisted on using non-secured channels for business related information/secrets. and zero backup systems. malware ripe for the taking lol. had one system crash and he went mental but refused to accept a backup solution. absolutely no understanding of IT and deaf to any recommendations because of fear that he’d be unable to replace me with a cheaper employee once i was done setting everything up.
three years later, three employees later, and the cheaper replacements were unable to do anything anyway and it’s all broken now. but i’m sure in his mind it’s all my fault.
so yes, they don’t, either due to incompetence or to cut corners. but they definitely should.
Because they care more about reliability, accessibility, and the ecosystem (don’t discount the many many slack bots). Privacy is on the bottom of their list of concerns.
Channels are kind of like specialized convos. Like a community or subreddit, in a way. I see that matrix has chat, just didn’t see anything about what other functionality comes with. Maybe I missed it on matrix.org
Thank you. I’m skimming through the site rn. Not quite clear on the steps to create an “instance” for a group
e.g., do you first get Element?
Edit: found this page: https://matrix.org/try-matrix/ that makes it a little clearer. If creating a secure forum is important for a team, do you have to create your own server?
Own server is always the most private, but you can use any instance and should be fine. Its e2ee, so you should have a way better setup as with slack or Microsoft
Jitsi isn’t really a Slack alternative. Instead, it’s more of a Zoom alternative.
However, Matrix is a great Slack alternative. Slack channels are similar to Matrix rooms, which can be organized into Matrix spaces. Matrix supports threads, replies, attachments, and formatted text like markdown or HTML. Slack’s snippet functionality is not as great on Matrix and Slack’s integrations with other services are likely easier to setup. There is likely a bunch of other pros/cons to Slack/Matrix depending on your use cases. The caveat is that you’ll need to use a Matrix client and Matrix homeserver that support the Matrix functionality that you want.
This is where I get confused, looking at Matrix. I see that it’s used for a bunch of stuff and there are various clients in their ecosystem. But say you want to create something like Slack for a group of people numbering @12, what exactly do you need to pick, you know? Is there simple guide somewhere for that?
If you want something that’s more like Slack you should check out Mattermost. It’s got a few other features like a Notion-like project management and a checklist feature. But like Matrix/Element it’s open source and can be self hosted if you don’t want to use their cloud product.
+1 to Mattermost. It’s like having an open source Slack which can be self-hosted. There are a number of companies that use it including NASA and Samsung.
Matrix or Jitsi when it comes to privacy. Microsoft vs. Slack is the totally wrong approach when it comes to privacy.
Why would your employer care about your privacy at work?
they should, especially as a smaller business, as data leaks could run into GDPR problems. my ex-employer, for example, handled all customer data in plaintext and never delete data for people who were no longer customers. he also insisted on using non-secured channels for business related information/secrets. and zero backup systems. malware ripe for the taking lol. had one system crash and he went mental but refused to accept a backup solution. absolutely no understanding of IT and deaf to any recommendations because of fear that he’d be unable to replace me with a cheaper employee once i was done setting everything up.
three years later, three employees later, and the cheaper replacements were unable to do anything anyway and it’s all broken now. but i’m sure in his mind it’s all my fault.
so yes, they don’t, either due to incompetence or to cut corners. but they definitely should.
I honestly don’t know why any medium sized company would use a proprietary chat service.
Your company should want private data on a service they control.
Because they care more about reliability, accessibility, and the ecosystem (don’t discount the many many slack bots). Privacy is on the bottom of their list of concerns.
Neither offers something like slack, though. Is that true? with channels and all that stuff
Matrix has channels. Or what are you referring to? I did nor use slack since many years
Channels are kind of like specialized convos. Like a community or subreddit, in a way. I see that matrix has chat, just didn’t see anything about what other functionality comes with. Maybe I missed it on matrix.org
Yes matrix has that, rooms and also spaces
Thank you. I’m skimming through the site rn. Not quite clear on the steps to create an “instance” for a group
e.g., do you first get Element?
Edit: found this page: https://matrix.org/try-matrix/ that makes it a little clearer. If creating a secure forum is important for a team, do you have to create your own server?
Own server is always the most private, but you can use any instance and should be fine. Its e2ee, so you should have a way better setup as with slack or Microsoft
Jitsi isn’t really a Slack alternative. Instead, it’s more of a Zoom alternative.
However, Matrix is a great Slack alternative. Slack channels are similar to Matrix rooms, which can be organized into Matrix spaces. Matrix supports threads, replies, attachments, and formatted text like markdown or HTML. Slack’s snippet functionality is not as great on Matrix and Slack’s integrations with other services are likely easier to setup. There is likely a bunch of other pros/cons to Slack/Matrix depending on your use cases. The caveat is that you’ll need to use a Matrix client and Matrix homeserver that support the Matrix functionality that you want.
This is where I get confused, looking at Matrix. I see that it’s used for a bunch of stuff and there are various clients in their ecosystem. But say you want to create something like Slack for a group of people numbering @12, what exactly do you need to pick, you know? Is there simple guide somewhere for that?
Edit: it’s a little clearer here https://matrix.org/try-matrix/
You just use Element, the official client. It isn’t an exact Slack clone but it’s absolutely great.
If you want something that’s more like Slack you should check out Mattermost. It’s got a few other features like a Notion-like project management and a checklist feature. But like Matrix/Element it’s open source and can be self hosted if you don’t want to use their cloud product.
+1 to Mattermost. It’s like having an open source Slack which can be self-hosted. There are a number of companies that use it including NASA and Samsung.