This is extremely frustrating and lowers the chances of me ever adopting a similar non-default texting app again. This will hurt Signal and as well as poison the well for future developers.
Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)
211–220 of 649 posts
Re: Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, this is an idiotic decision that makes me question the decisions being made as a whole by Signal. Does anyone have recommendations for a good default SMS app on Android?
The provide a fairly clear rationale beyond the ideological concern: users don't know/see who is on SMS and who isn't, and are being hit with high fees, and they are concerned that users may believe they have privacy when they do not. These are reasonable issues and concerns, so I don't follow why you would question all of the other decisions they make.
so put SMS in different tab and let users turn on/off this feature in settings, done, problem solved, but I understand giving users options nowadays ain't trendy
Re: Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)
#213This is really going to mess with some highly stressed out, low digital literacy people in my life. I guess I'll need to help them move to something else - is there any other basic SMS app on Android that a) looks like it's from a legitimate developer, and b) doesn't skim your message content for ad personalization?
Re: Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)
#214This is an awful decision. I've converted some friends and family to Signal over the past years (it took a while) and it is now their default messaging app on their phones. This is going to confuse them and is going to make it difficult for me to keep convincing them that Signal is the route to use. ("Why do I need 3 apps (Android Messages, Signal, Whatsapp) to talk to people?")
Should offering both service and its client app be regulated?
Re: Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
The downside is that they will opportunistically send your messages via Signal. If the recipient chooses to not have SIgnal installed any longer, then your messages go into a black hole. This became much more of a problem for me after they rolled out their shitcoin; suddenly my techie friends were just not responding to messages, and Signal as my main SMS app was not falling back to SMS for these folks.
> The downside is that they will opportunistically send your messages via Signal. If the recipient chooses to not have SIgnal installed any longer, then your messages go into a black hole. The user cannot just log out of Signal and have the app on other people's devices automatically fall back on SMS the way it works with iMessage?
A lot of people will just delete an app and think there were no side-effects. There was an article here a few weeks ago about people not cancelling in-app subscriptions after deleting an app. Apple will remind you after it deletes it, Google does not.
Logging out might not even be enough, depending on the logic on Signal’s side. Do they use active devices, or just that an account exists?
Re: Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
Signal has clear UI cues and redundant messaging telling you what actions are insecure.
Google did a security research around ssl and a crazy percentage of people think the lock icon is actually a handbag icon. The rest of the research highlighted how most users aren’t able to make informed choices, most people lack the technical basis to make those choices.
So what's the overlap of "people who care enough about e2ee for it to matter whether a message they're sending is encrypted or not" and "people who think the lock icon next to the send button in the encrypted messenging app they downloaded is a handbag"
I'm willing to wager it's not as big as you're trying to imply.
Re: Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)
#217The feature is the reason why it is easy to convert older people to use signal: You can keep your SMS workflow and have only one messaging app...
Re: Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)
#218Personally I never used Signal to send SMS and the possibility to fat finger the mode and send SMS instead was always a downside to me.
same
Re: Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, this is an idiotic decision that makes me question the decisions being made as a whole by Signal. Does anyone have recommendations for a good default SMS app on Android?
I've been using QKSMS on Android 12 and haven't had any problems in about a year of use. I think its on Google Play as well. https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=com.moez.QKSMS
Last commit was a year ago. Do you know if it is still being developed?
Re: Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)
#220Can anyone recommend a good SMS Android app?
None will do RCS so you basically have to use Googles