Why has the chat application disappeared from the google store?

  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

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May 9, 2021
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#41
I'm going through an unbelievably hard time in life right now and the chat app has always been a light for me. I'm really sad to see it gone. It was the most connection I've had to the body of Christ. I hope the situation can be taken seriously and the app brought back. A lot of us need it for more then fun. :'(
Yes, I Loved the Fellowship the the Community that we had there, but God willing, it will come back. I also loved growing in the Knowledge of the Lord there. If anyone wants to text I was Shawn_Lopes_Hugs on the app, if anyone wants to join Twitter, I’m there; “@LetJesusGuideUs” that’s my name there. Tell you are from the the Chat App, & I’d Love to get back together and form (God Willing) another place where we can all chat together again! God bless, and keep Reading the Bible in Context, don’t follow the World but Follow Jesus, Amen.
 

Subhumanoidal

Well-known member
Sep 17, 2018
4,049
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#42
Yes, I Loved the Fellowship the the Community that we had there, but God willing, it will come back. I also loved growing in the Knowledge of the Lord there. If anyone wants to text I was Shawn_Lopes_Hugs on the app, if anyone wants to join Twitter, I’m there; “@LetJesusGuideUs” that’s my name there. Tell you are from the the Chat App, & I’d Love to get back together and form (God Willing) another place where we can all chat together again! God bless, and keep Reading the Bible in Context, don’t follow the World but Follow Jesus, Amen.
People who use the forums and people who use chat are a largely separate group of a people. There are a few that use both, but mostly it's two sets of people. So necro-ing threads to tell others to meet you off site likely isn't going to get you much response.
 
Aug 5, 2023
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#43

Subhumanoidal

Well-known member
Sep 17, 2018
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#44
3-25-22 is the last date The Way Back Machine recorded the presence of something at the link for the Chat app in the Google play store.
https://web.archive.org/web/2022032...m/store/apps/details?id=com.christianchat.app

The Google Play Store said as of 3-25-22, the app had not been updated since 6-15-18.

That’s five years since this thing has been updated? What’s going on? That’s half of a decade.

View attachment 254635
We knew it had been removed from Google play. We've also known for many years there's been no updates. So none of all this was necessary.

There's been no official word on the chat apps in years. They stopped working right one day, links disappeared and that's all that's been known. The site owner doesn't really communicate anymore.
 

elear

New member
Oct 31, 2020
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#45
That's sad. There are multiple possible ways to integrate a chat room with the website. I was researching something called 'Element', which is basically a free and open-source alternative to Discord. I could probably run a chat room for this site based on that and integrate it with the domain, if I had access. I used to chat here years ago, in fact almost 20 years ago (using a different account), and I kept coming back to try using the chat feature. Unfortunately for me, once they removed the web-based chat, it was difficult for me because I use Linux. I ended up trying to run the Windows version in W.I.N.E., but if I remember correctly, it needed some Adobe Air dependencies that did not work well in W.I.N.E.

I know you have no reason to believe me or trust my qualifications, RoboOp, but if you ever see this, I would be glad to try setting up a chat room here.
 

Magenta

Senior Member
Jul 3, 2015
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#46
I know you have no reason to believe me or trust my qualifications, RoboOp,
but if you ever see this, I would be glad to try setting up a chat room here.
If you want to alert someone in a post, you must put the @ right before their name, @elear

Or post on his profile page, though I doubt anything will be done about it.

If the last chat update was June 15, 2018, that was pretty much immediately following our platform change.

The chat rooms always seemed to require more mods than the forums ever had. Perhaps that itself is a clue.
 

Mem

Senior Member
Sep 23, 2014
7,121
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#47
The chat rooms always seemed to require more mods than the forums ever had. Perhaps that itself is a clue.
Surely, these were a perpetual pain in the @ to moderate.
 

Magenta

Senior Member
Jul 3, 2015
59,813
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#48
Surely, these were a perpetual pain in the @ to moderate.
And fairly constant complaints because if three people did not like you,
even if they were not mods, they could give you the old heave-ho.
 

Mem

Senior Member
Sep 23, 2014
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#49
And fairly constant complaints because if three people did not like you,
even if they were not mods, they could give you the old heave-ho.
Oh yea, I almost forgot about, dun dun duuunnn... the ban button. How fun would that be in here? :LOL:
 

Magenta

Senior Member
Jul 3, 2015
59,813
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#50
Oh yea, I almost forgot about, dun dun duuunnn... the ban button. How fun would that be in here? :LOL:
That never happened to me, and maybe it was not a feature when I spent a couple of weeks in
there right after the platform change before I took a three-month hiatus... but when it did happen
to people, man, were they upset about it! Because of course it never seemed fair. Any who, after
two weeks, I'd heard enough of people loving the sound of their own voice, and I took my leave.


Never to return to the chat rooms proper. But even with this platform change, some kind of instant chat
became available in the forums, but so many complained about it, Robo disabled it. It was very intrusive.
 

Mem

Senior Member
Sep 23, 2014
7,121
2,151
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#52
That never happened to me, and maybe it was not a feature when I spent a couple of weeks in
there right after the platform change before I took a three-month hiatus... but when it did happen
to people, man, were they upset about it! Because of course it never seemed fair. Any who, after
two weeks, I'd heard enough of people loving the sound of their own voice, and I took my leave.


Never to return to the chat rooms proper. But even with this platform change, some kind of instant chat
became available in the forums, but so many complained about it, Robo disabled it. It was very intrusive.
I remember when I first started, when you came in it was a guest with no posting capability until you signed in, but you could listen to (eavesdrop on) the lounge, I think it was. It was a bit of a distraction from reading any of the threads though, if that was why one came to the site in the first place.
 

Mem

Senior Member
Sep 23, 2014
7,121
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#53
More fun than the red x's I'm guessing.
I might've used it once. Ok, maybe twice. :cautious: but it wasn't fun (that chat was fun, I mean, not the ban button) considering everyone supposedly has to be adults, or at least a reasonable facsimile, to participate.
 

elear

New member
Oct 31, 2020
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#54
I run a Discord "server" for a Minecraft server that I run, with about 130 members. I wrote a bot with a language filter, and I don't find moderation to be that onerous. In fact, recently people have been applying to be moderators, and we (there are two other moderators) keep declining because we don't need any more. Maybe it's more difficult for a Christian site?

I dislike Discord, though. It's not really private, and while it's called a "server", it's really more like a Docker instance or something like that. You don't have full control over it (no access to the underlying system). That's why, even though I'm a member of some Christian chats on Discord, I wouldn't recommend using Discord for this (or in general).

I tried switching it to Internet Relay Chat. I.R.C. definitely more difficult to set up properly, but it's well-documented and it works. However, everyone was already embedded in Discord, sadly, so no one really used it. I think Element is a more up-to-date option for I.R.C. with some extra features like chat persistence.

I loved the chat here, though. Forums are nice for discussions, but chat rooms are much better for information conversations and meeting people.
 
May 15, 2024
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#55
A long time ago google used to have the hangouts as a text and video chat, but now they embedded the chat in the gmail, which in my opinion is much more convenient.

Here is a link from google support on how to enable the chat:
https://support.google.com/chat/answer/7653601
 
May 15, 2024
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#56
I apologize I wrote above about the google chat, I am not sure if you guys were talking about the christian chat or the google chat.
 

Subhumanoidal

Well-known member
Sep 17, 2018
4,049
3,154
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#57
I apologize I wrote above about the google chat, I am not sure if you guys were talking about the christian chat or the google chat.
The site used to have its own chat app. It was in the play store. But it disappeared out of there years ago. It's mostly defunct now.