[Feature]: Online Status of Users

[kevATin]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Platform

all

App version

No response

Feature

Maybe I'm overlooking it, but does SimpleX Chat not have any clear indicator when a user (in a private or group chat) is currently online or not?
I would like to have a little green indicator dot next to the user image if they are currently online and a red one if they are offline, and potentially a grey one if they wish to not share the information with you.
Could be expanded with availability profiles, like a yellow dot if the user is online but has selected that they are busy, etc.

And a "last seen" text would go well together with this.

This should of course have permissions per contact/group as well.

Is this something that will be added in the future?

[friadev]

Seems like an unnecessary privacy violation and a possible leak of metadata. There is already a request for read receipts which is not planned for privacy reasons and this is even more privacy invasive.

[kevATin]

Seems like an unnecessary privacy violation and a possible leak of metadata.

Users would have the option to disable it, for all i care it could be disabled by default.

Every feature is a possible leak of (meta)data. Some features still had/have to be added to make sure the app is actually useful.

I think the feature would be great and sharing my current status with my contacts seems like an acceptable risk to me and I doubt I'm the only one.

[randomwithnoname]

It's becoming increasingly apparent that users care about privacy from server operators but not each other, especially the younger generation. The risk of these kind of features (like typing indicators and read receipts) is there simply being the option creates peer pressure to enable them. Ultimately, I think this is quite useless for individuals as you can just send a message to see if someone's device is on if you've got genuine reason to. I think the same applies in a corporate context actually and this feature is only negative. Please give arguments against mine.

[randomwithnoname]

Seems like an unnecessary privacy violation and a possible leak of metadata. There is already a request for read receipts which is not planned for privacy reasons and this is even more privacy invasive.

It wouldn't leak anymore metadata to server operators than it currently does if implemented correctly.

[randomwithnoname]

Considering regular messages are padded to 16kb, if this is going to be for all contacts (and groups?) and it's sent as part of a regular encrypted message to contacts, the amount of bandwidth used will be 16kb × number of contacts. Problematic for certain users in today's world, fine for others. Also when super peers are introduced it'd be reduced massively for groups. Since servers aren't really trusted on SimpleX and don't identify users by accounts/IDs, the online status indicator changing to offline would have to be based on not receiving a message from contacts stating they're online for a specific amount of time since there isn't a server to tell them that their contacts have gone offline. If we're using the regular 16kb messages, that would create a lot of bandwidth over time depending on amount of contacts. As I said, problematic for some in today's world, fine for others.