Dev

Last week Session user config went into active internal testing on all platforms, which revealed a number of issues. For example the size of user configuration messages for users with many contacts was too large, so the team applied compression on user configuration messages via libsession which greatly reduced the size of config messages. The Session team is also actively working on the push notification migration adding new endpoints to the push notification server to make the migration process easier. The Lokinet team made additional improvements to the localhost speed of libquic streams, however they are still searching for a bug/implementation issue which causes a relative slow down in networked streams. 

Oxen

Oxen core 

• Update readme build instructions (Thanks to community contributor martin-braun)

Oxen Encoding 

• Add std::string building to bt producers

Session

Session Android

• Upgrade existing PN strategy by utilising new push notifications endpoints 

• Ongoing work on user configuration updates as bugs are found in internal testing

Session iOS

• Upgrade existing PN strategy by utilising new push notifications endpoints

• Ongoing work on user configuration updates as bugs are found in internal testing

• Continue adding unit tests and fixes for disappearing message bugs

Session Desktop

• Update logic for leaving conversations and groups

• Ongoing work on user configuration updates as bugs are found in internal testing 

Session Community Server (PySOGS)

• Add additional information to moderation readme (Thanks to community contributor ChillyKitty)

Session Push notification server 

• Add new endpoints which make registration when migrating

Libsession

• Ongoing work on automated doc generation

• Add compression for user contacts

Lokinet

• Ongoing optimisations for lib-quic

• Stream speed over localhost reaching ~600MB/s, Lower speeds over networked connections, investigating causes.

Marketing

Things are ticking along in marketing at the moment as we continue to flesh out the new branding direction for Oxen. Things are progressing well, and we will hopefully have more information to share with you soon. I know we are asking for a lot of patience here, but the results will be well and truly worthwhile. 

While things are still progressing behind the scenes for Oxen, Session is full steam ahead. This week we launched the SessionPhone™ giveaway — you can see here that it has been quite effective. As of the time of writing, it has over 4,000 likes and 150,000 views — record numbers for the Session account. We’re hoping to get some more cross-brand collaboration moving here as well, and there will be follow-up content coming from the creation of the phone as well (Chris is very excited to show off his skills loading GrapheneOS onto a new phone). So far this has proven to be some wonderful idea validation, and we will likely do other similar promotions across our brands in the future as well. 

We’ve also scheduled the next episode of the Session Tapes, coming next week, and Cam and Alex have started prepping for it already. In other Session video news, Alex recorded a lightning video about Wickr Me—which is shutting down at the end of the year—urging Wickr users to consider Session as an alternative. Ex-Wickr users will be a key target for Session and an important acquisition opportunity for the remainder of ‘23. 

We also hosted a Lokinet Live Stream with Jason, Alex, and Tom. You can check out the video here!

Wes and Cam have been hammering away on our Q3 social strategies, including collaboration partners and editorial planning — Q2 saw great growth for Session and Oxen on social media and we want to keep that momentum up heading into the back half of the year. 

Last but not least, Alex put together a new member pack for incoming members of the OPTF.