"i am ninja"/"instant messaging ninja" is an instance of Synapse, a Matrix homeserver.
Matrix itself is just a protocol, so what can you do with that and what is the job of a homeserver?
The obvious use case is a messenger. Except in contrast to most other popular messengers, you are not locked in to a specific app or provider.
A provider is basically an entity providing you Matrix related services. The most important service is a homeserver, because this component hosts all user data like messages and files uploads. So when you want to start using matrix you at least need a homeserver.
Feel free to register on this homeserver and install a client to try it out :)
Matrix is a decentralized and federated communication protocol. But what does this mean?
You probably already know what a decentralization and federation is from email, where every user can be at different providers (it's decentralized) but still can send emails to one another (they federate with each other).
This is possible due to open and interoperable protocols. In the case of email it's SMTP for the servers and IMAP/POP3 for client access.
You can use basically any email server software and email client software and they are all interoperable with one another.
Matrix handles this a little bit differently by providing a unified specification for all components within the Matrix ecosystem like servers, clients and message formats,
but otherwise it also provides this interoperability on a more modern and secure technological basis.
Thanks to this it's possible to select the provider and client/app which you trust most and are most comfortable with.
In contrast to that are centralized solutions. These are e.g. messengers with only one provider. These solutions are often based on some proprietary protocols and thus it's often not possible to create own implementations or imporove it with additional functionality.
Because there is only one provider it's also not possible to host your own servers. So in case the provider gets sold to another company or has an outage the whole ecosystem is affected at once, while decentralized systems are built to resist partial outages and no single provider has complete authority over the whole network.
When you are new to Matrix you probably want to start with the Element clients, as they are feature complete, reliable and are available for all major platforms. But please feel free to try other clients.
Currently public registration is closed on this homeserver. If you want an account please contact lub directly.
If you have any problems with the content of this instance, please contact lub or abuse@imninja.net to resolve the problem.