Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)

signal.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 649 posts

Re: Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)

#301

Post by andrepd »

adfm wrote: post #260
Waterluvian wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's another reason for iOS users to avoid Signal: It eats up Gigabytes of storage space, refuses to ever clear it, and the devs are rather resistant to accepting that it's even a problem at all: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/4916

Since there’s no server storing media, consider saving the stuff you want and dumping all the old photos and video you don’t. It’s a more secure communication tool, not an archive.

Precisely! So just give me an option to export my stuff to a password-protected archive. Make me check a "yes I'm fully aware that this means I am now responsible for the security of this information" if you want. But Signal doesn't let me do this.

Re: Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)

#302

Post by thomastjeffery »

dodgerdan wrote: post #267
thomastjeffery wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's assuming a lot of context. Your talking about a tiny icon next to the address bar in a browser. Of course people didn't always know what that was! Signal's primary feature is encrypted messaging. You don't get it without at least seeing the word "encrypted" somewhere.

Counter point most people think Telegram is e2ee secure messaging, but Telegram never said they were.

And that doesn't get clarified by UI that distinguishes between encrypted messages and SMS, because Telegram doesn't have such a thing to distinguish between.

My point is that all of this is orthogonal to whether Signal can successfully make UI show users when they are sending encrypted messages vs unencrypted SMS.

Most of the confusion you are citing is about whether an app does encryption or not, and that is a totally distinct problem domain.

Re: Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)

#304

Post by NoGravitas »

daedalus_j wrote: post #149

I've been using Signal for a long time. I have repeatedly been unable to convince iOS users to use Signal because "I don't want another app". Android users have been much more willing to give it a shot. As an android user myself, I much prefer having SMS built in because I use the search feature often to look back through all my SMS/Signal chats. I also regularly forward an SMS message to a Signal user, or vice versa…

Every friend using iOS that I've convinced to use Signal has uninstalled it. They stay registered, though, so I have to notice that my messages aren't reaching them, and re-send as SMS.

Re: Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)

#306

Post by MAGZine »

jmcphers wrote: post #203
CommitSyn wrote: post #156

Earlier 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 Google Messages app is pretty good. It's a little thing, but it's the only app that supports tapbacks from iOS -- so on the (many) group threads I'm on that have iPhone users, I can see loves/like reactions instead of a flood of texts that say "Jane Doe loved an image".

+1 google messages.

rcs support works well, the emoji reactions are good. the web ui for it is pretty alright. I use the quick responses and scheduled send from time to time. and it cleans up my 2fa codes automatically.

Also, it now sends emoji reactions over sms which is a nice little graceful degredation from sms.

Re: Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)

#307

Post by Waterluvian »

adfm wrote: post #260
Waterluvian wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's another reason for iOS users to avoid Signal: It eats up Gigabytes of storage space, refuses to ever clear it, and the devs are rather resistant to accepting that it's even a problem at all: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/4916

Since there’s no server storing media, consider saving the stuff you want and dumping all the old photos and video you don’t. It’s a more secure communication tool, not an archive.

How do I dump all the old photos and videos?

Because the in-app option to clear them all does not free the space.

Re: Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)

#308

Post by ascorbic »

matsemann wrote: post #184
eatwater123 wrote: post #10

This 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?")

Is this outcry US specific? Don't think I've sent a single SMS the last decade here in EU.

The US seems to be the only place where everyone uses iMessage, so Android users have to use SMS and suffer the bizarre shaming of the green bubble. In most countries outside the US, WhatsApp seems to be the default. SMS is just legacy 2FA messages, and various other transactional messages like parcel delivery notifications.

Re: Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)

#309

Post by maratc »

jhoechtl wrote: post #300
Krasnol wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and there I am here in Germany where nobody seems to use SMS anymore. I couldn't care less about this.

Austrians don't care too. I can't understand who and why anyone cares about SMS these day, besides receiving government emergency notifications.

Phone-based 2FA hasn't got to Austria yet?

Re: Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)

#310

Post by nicholasjarnold »

daedalus_j wrote: post #149

I've been using Signal for a long time. I have repeatedly been unable to convince iOS users to use Signal because "I don't want another app". Android users have been much more willing to give it a shot. As an android user myself, I much prefer having SMS built in because I use the search feature often to look back through all my SMS/Signal chats. I also regularly forward an SMS message to a Signal user, or vice versa…

I agree completely here. This is terrible news from my perspective too. I use Signal for _all messaging_ (e2e secure or not) for the reasons that you mention.

I've onboarded friends and family, too, ensuring them it should be set as their default messaging app and that it _just works_. Unfortunately, people in the general population seem to have pretty much zero tolerance for any friction whatsoever. If they have to use 2 apps, they'll just end up communicating with me in the clear using their "default SMS" app on their phone. That's what this is going to result it...a reduction in overall message security due to people defaulting to what's easier...which is to _not_ have to remember which app to use for which "send a message" purpose. Fuck.

I understand the argument about people in markets where SMS is expensive getting screwed sometimes when they don't realize they're sending a message over SMS. However could that not be fairly trivially solved for with some UI notification or app setting that warns you about this and allows the warning to be perm-disabled if the user doesn't care!?

I think the real reason here is this desire to transition the service into supporting usernames, which is a topic that's been discussed before (and is explicitly mentioned in the post). Right now the service is tied to your phone number. After this change I suspect it will not be or not need to be.

This is very, very unfortunate for those of us who've convinced a ton of non-technical friends and family to use TextSecure->Signal over the years...

Post reply on HN