WhatsApp does, Signal does, Wire does, what now?

Update: Seems like Element ALSO needs it.

WhatsApp does, Signal does

Not on GrapheneOS. Which system are you using?

Any random Matrix client. Any random XMPP client.

I do not have location permissions granted to either Signal nor WhatsApp and continue to recieve notifications from both.

Signal does not even have an option for location for me on iOS, and I get notifications.

Google Play Services, I mean. I'll edit the post.

Matrix is... really crashed and often breaks. And XMPP got me really confused trying to set it

GPS as in Google Play Services.

That's real confusing to acronymize for Google Play Services. It is already well known for another thing.

Signal does not need Google Play Services to send notifications. I'm saying this from experience, as I use it without Play Services installed, and still get message notifications. I believe Signal will use Google's push notifications if Play Services is available, but has a fallback approach if it's not.

Signal will only use fallback notification services if you uninstall and then reinstall it while Google Play Services is unavailable.

Or more precisely, Signal will only use fallback notification services if Google Play Services is unavailable at the time Signal is installed.

I just wanted to clarify that it's not necessary to install Signal once with Play Services and again without. I've never had Play Services on any of my phones, but was able to start using Signal without issue.

Use molly, a signal fork. Fully compatible with signal but you can configure how it checks for new messages. Non-google play is an explicit option

The issues are: Signal is hosted on the US. And you can't selfhost it. That kinda raises some suspicions.

Hmmm, yes, understandable. I saw another user use GPS for Google Play Services and thought it was a common thing in this community. Sorry. I edited the post.

I set up ejabberd maybe 15 or so years ago without any issues. Not sure about ... more recent software. But since we're in the containerization era I assume it has become easier.

Matrix was an experience, though. But it happily runs in my environment using the Synapse server and Cinny for desktop and Element X on mobile.

Matrix is… really crashed and often breaks.

Matrix is a protocol. It's not possible to crash it.

I did find that certain Matrix implementations had a habit of breaking when encryption was used, until about a year ago. From what I've seen, recent versions appear to have fixed it. Element X is worth a try.

Back to your original question: Matrix apparently supports whatever UnifiedPush distributor you choose, such as ntfy.

https://github.com/element-hq/element-x-android/pull/2873

https://forum.yunohost.org/t/how-to-setup-push-notification-with-synapse-and-element-or-element-x-android/36897

No, as in the websites are slow and tend to have bugs/not send messages/crash

Okay, I didn't know those were things you were concerned about :).

On the lack of self-hosting and federation, I don't like it either, but it is a deliberate choice to allow faster evolution. That post, from ten years ago, contends that federated protocols ossify too easily, while centralized can grow and adapt (relevant quote: "So while it’s nice that I’m able to host my own email, that’s also the reason why my email isn’t end-to-end encrypted, and probably never will be"). This does give me concern that Signal will not last in the long-term, but for secure communication right now, it's hard to beat.

As for US hosting, that's another thing I don't like, but they are structured to mitigate that issue. Their protocol, which has been independently audited several times, ensures neither the Signal Foundation nor any intermediaries can see user activity. They have been subpoenaed before, and have only been able to provide the date a phone number was first registered, nothing more. And since the Signal Foundation is a non-profit, they have no incentive to enshittify to turn profitable. So even under US government threat, they can't see what you're doing and have no ability nor reason to change that.

Anyway, that's why I settled on using Signal, despite its imperfections. You may be happier with Matrix; I stayed away from that because it's more work and less secure (as I understand, group chats only have message content encrypted, with metadata like users and message times being unencrypted), but its federated nature may let it outlast Signal. And there are many Matrix clients in F-Droid that don't require Google Play Services.

Matrix's websites and apps tend to crash and have bugs. I'm using Wire in the moment.

Element also seems to need it.

I set up OpenFire (https://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/openfire/) for my XMPP server, and it was very easy on my recent version of Ubuntu.
It's also easy to update when new versions come out.

I've heard good things about Prosody (https://prosody.im/), but I've not tried it myself.