4d2 dot org Matrix Quick Start Guide
Updated 15 April 2025

Here are some quick tips for newcomers to the 4d2 dot org Matrix homeserver.

Getting Started

To sign up for a free Matrix account, go to our Element instance and click the option to register. You must use our web instance of Element to sign up for a new account - you won't be able to sign up from another Element instance or from a desktop client.

Our Matrix server name is matrix.4d2.org. The server portion of your Matrix ID (MXID) is 4d2.org, e.g. @sarah:4d2.org. You can use any Matrix client you like to connect to the server once you have an account. For an easy option, you can use our locally-hosted (and frequently updated) instance of either Element or Cinny.

Registration Restrictions

We want everyone to be able to use our services, but some restrictions are in place to prevent abuse.

You must provide and verify an email address to register. Disposable addresses aren't allowed. Having an email address on file will allow you to reset your password if you forget it. It will also allow us to contact you outside of Matrix if your account is restricted for any reason. If you need to change your email address, you can do so via the Settings in Element.

Registration via Tor and VPN services is not allowed, and new accounts created through Tor or VPNs will be automatically blocked from communicating with other users. Once you have registered and logged into your new account, you're welcome to log out and reconnect via Tor or your VPN service of choice. If these restrictions prevent you from registering (e.g. you are behind a restrictive national firewall), contact us and we'll help register your account manually.

If you accidentally registered via Tor or a VPN and your new account has been blocked, contact us to have the block removed.

Onboarding Large Groups

If you have a large group of users (20+ accounts) who will be moving to our Matrix server as a unit, or if you represent a group with special circumstances that make our Tor/VPN restrictions problematic, please register an individual Matrix account with us or another server, and then contact us on Matrix for assistance. We can help expedite your onboarding. We can also help vetted groups bypass our Tor/VPN restrictions.

Bridges

Bridges are available to bring your third-party chats into this Matrix server, making all your contacts accessible through one app. To set up bridging, start a chat with the appropriate bridge bot and say "help" -- you'll get a help message with a list of commands, which vary slightly from one third party product to another. The bridge bots are:
You should be aware that all bridges are unofficial and developed without the cooperation of the third-party services involved. Some, like Signal and Google Messages, use officially supported methods to link with the third-party service; others are much more like hacks and may trigger security alerts or even account restrictions on the other service. We support these bridges on a best-effort basis and can't promise that they will work consistently, or exactly the way you want. If bridging to third-party services is your top priority, you should consider using a paid Matrix service with commercial support for bridges, like Beeper.

The healthily paranoid should also keep in mind that bridging breaks end-to-end encryption in products that use it, like Signal. Though your chats may be E2E encrypted within the other app, and within our Matrix server, the encryption is broken in between. Most bridged chats actually aren't E2E encrypted on the Matrix side for this reason - it wouldn't add any security, and it would create the illusion of security where it doesn't exist. So don't panic, but remember that by using bridges, you're effectively adding an additional set of potential eyes (ours) to your conversations on these services. We don't read your messages, but we'd tell you that even if we did, wouldn't we?

Clients

Two web-based clients are available here at 4d2 dot org - Element, which is full-featured and more or less the "reference client", and Cinny, which is lighter and can be a bit more responsive. Popular mobile apps include Element (Android | iOS), SchildiChat (Android), and FluffyChat (Android | iOS) - check your app store for downloads. If you'd like a desktop client, the desktop version of Element and Nheko are popular. You can find many other clients on the Matrix.org Foundation's list of clients.

Voice and Video Chat

There are 3 different ways you can start a voice and/or video chat on this server. First, you can use the voice or video icon in a 1-to-1 Direct Message (in Element) to begin an end-to-end encrypted two-party voice or video chat. We also host an instance of Jitsi that allows you to host multi-party voice and video chats (similar to Zoom, Skype, MS Teams, etc.) anonymously and without registration. If you are using Element or a compatible client and are in a room with more than 2 members, you can press the same voice or video button, and Jitsi will seamlessly create and handle a group call behind the scenes.

Whenever possible, 1-to-1 voice/video calls via Element will use our server to set up a direct encrypted connection between you and the other party, meaning we will not handle any of your actual call traffic. When this is not possible for one party or the other due to restrictive NAT or a firewall, we will act as a proxy for that party (see the Wikipedia page for the TURN protocol for more information on this). When making group calls (not 1-to-1), the server needs to handle your traffic itself, and the performance you experience will be impacted by your distance from our server in the Northwestern USA, whether you are behind a VPN, etc.

Public Rooms

Anyone can create a public room. When you've created a room that you're happy with, post in #support:4d2.org to have us list it in the server's public room directory. This will advertise it to other users and newcomers. Please feel free to create rooms for any topic that interests you! When we list your public room in our directory, we'll also add our Abuse Management Bot as an admin. It communicates with bots on other servers to maintain a shared list of banned users, and it will automatically bounce known spammers if they try to join your room.

Social rooms run personally by the server admins, like #coffeeshop:4d2.org, tend to lean pretty strongly left-libertarian / anarchist, because those are the admins' personal political views. They moderate these rooms in an effort to keep the conversation kind and tolerant. Moderation of other public rooms is entirely at the discretion of the admins of those rooms, unless something violates our ToS. Which brings us to...

Policies

We trust our users by default, and we strive for speech that is both free and free of harm. Our rules are spelled out in detail in our Terms of Service, and they're pretty common-sense: no piracy, no hate speech, no doxxing, no illegal content. On these, we're completely inflexible. For any other issues that occur, we prefer warnings and grown-up dialogue whenever possible. If you see content that you think should be removed, use the report function in your client to report it. If you see another 4d2.org user behaving in a way that violates our ToS, please report them to us using this form.

Other 4d2 dot org Services

If you're enjoying our Matrix server, you may also enjoy our Lemmy or PeerTube instances, our simple file sharing service, our Mastodon instance, our CryptPad collaboration tools, or our ad-free link shortener. See our home page for complete details of all our public services. Details on how to donate to support our services are also available there.


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