ONYX 1.3-beta — reactions, blocking, and notification privacy
A follow-up to my previous post. The last post got a decent amount of feedback — some might call it small, but every response genuinely matters and it was great to see people’s reactions to the project.
New beta is out today. I would like to share some changes.
ONYX — what’s new
Message reactions — you can now react to messages. Basic, but frequently requested.
User blocking — block list and the ability to block users. Should have been there from the start, honestly.
Hide content in notifications — notifications now show “New message” instead of the actual content. Relevant if you do not want your decrypted messages to be stored in the device cache.
PIN and biometric prompt when switching accounts — switching between accounts now requires authentication. Prevents someone with physical access to your phone from jumping between accounts freely. This only works if you have PIN or biometric unlocking enabled in settings.
Relog notification — the app now notifies you when your session token is about to expire.
Video download progress — progress indicator when receiving videos from the server.
ONYX Server
The self-hosted server software also got an update — reaction support has been added, along with a handful of bug fixes.
Bugs and issues — reach out to @support directly in ONYX.
Messages are stored on the server only until the recipient comes online. Once they connect, a 30-second timer starts — after that the message is permanently deleted from the server. There’s no copy left server-side after that point. Since private chats use E2EE, the server only ever sees ciphertext anyway. After delivery, messages exist only locally on both devices. If you want no local record either, you can delete the conversation manually from within the app.
Thank you for clearing that up for me.