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Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)

signal.org

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Re: Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)

#431

Post by chopin »

anigbrowl wrote: post #395
cassonmars wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing so comes at a cost to privacy — by signal having a hosting server, even if the contents are E2EE, retrieving and storing these contents creates a metadata trail. I actually go over these drawbacks and tradeoffs in a recent blog post: https://cassieheart.substack.com/p/notes-on-e2ee

Who said anything about a hosting server? Why isn't there a simple option to export a conversation to local storage , encrypted or unencrypted, along with a warning that 'your conversation is now leaving the secure Signal zone.'

It's not only your conversation but the one of others too. I like that it's hard to move it elsewhere.

Re: Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)

#432

Post by forgotmypw17 »

alerighi wrote: post #331
chungy wrote: post #4

I completely disagree and am disappointed in this decision. One app on my phone to handle all my messages is easier than making a context switch per-contact. I also think it'll hurt the value proposition when getting people to join signal. Not overcomplicating the messaging scenario was a big winner to do that.

> all my messages is easier than making a context switch per-contact A user already has: - WhatsApp - Telegram - Facebook Messanger - Instagram that has direct messages - the good old email, or better, many of them - Microsoft Teams for company communications - Discord for communications with group of friends - the old SMS (that I didn't even know that in some parts of the world were still used, since I receive them…

Yes, adding another app is a big deal. It is cognitive load, which may be negligible for some, but a lot for others.

Personally, I use only two of those apps you listed for messaging, and for all the others, I say, "Sorry, I don't use that one."

Re: Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)

#433

Post by alerighi »

chungy wrote: post #401
alerighi wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all my messages is easier than making a context switch per-contact A user already has: - WhatsApp - Telegram - Facebook Messanger - Instagram that has direct messages - the good old email, or better, many of them - Microsoft Teams for company communications - Discord for communications with group of friends - the old SMS (that I didn't even know that in some parts of the world were still used, since I receive them…

Does anyone actually have all those? I certainly don't. I have Signal, Element, Telegram and I even think that's excessive. I can at least manage it, most RL contacts I know would not.

Well, not all of them, but usually you expect a young person to have all of them. Except Microsoft Teams, the company may use other media, and Discord.

Hell, even my aunt that doesn't know nothing about technology has WhatsApp and had me install Telegram because the church opened a channel on it!

Re: Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)

#434

Post by lucideer »

rlpb wrote: post #341
lucideer wrote: post #153

This is bizarre. If this were an in-depth announcement with a long and well-structured technical justification attached, I could understand. Though I suspect I'd likely disagree with the decision, I could probably accept it as a simple different of opinion if the arguments were evidently well-thought-through and considered. This blog-post is so lightweight. There's no technical analysis. There's barely any justificat…

> Definitely the end of my Signal usage anyway. It's my main SMS app: my primary motivator is SMS UX, the ability to securely message a tiny subset of my friends is a very nice but ultimately non-vital bonus. I think this is the crux of it. Your primary motivator may be for a better SMS UX. But Signal's primary motivator is to provide universal secure messaging, but your typical use of Signal doesn't do that. So it's…

> your typical use of Signal doesn't do that

All centralised & protocol-locked messaging apps are subject to network effect. People moving away from Signal doesn't help the goal of universal secure messaging, regardless of whether those people are you or I.

That said, it seems they're between a rock & a hard place here since Google are defacto deprecating support for 3rd-party SMS apps.

Re: Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)

#437

Post by brenns10 »

mitchellpkt wrote: post #70

This seems to be a "bug or feature" situation where the answer depends on the user profile. The ability for messages to leave the Signal app in plaintext SMS is a "feature" for users whose top needs include a single-app UX, and a "bug" for users whose top needs include an app that is foolproof E2EE (so users don't have to consciously pay attention to which conversations are Signal-native vs SMS). Maybe SMS support co…

I agree with your perspective - for me Signal is yet another (more secure) internet messaging app on my phone, and I'm happy that way. I wouldn't want it to have anything to do with SMS, no more than I want FB messenger to start handling my SMS (which it does offer at installation time). Plus, having used Signal since the TextSecure days, I saw the SMS feature the same way the announcement seems to characterize it: as old tech debt waiting to get dropped. After all, I don't think Signal for iOS ever had SMS ability.

And to your main point, I hadn't even considered before seeing this comment thread that anybody felt differently, let alone so strongly. Really illustrates how differently people think about the same app.

Re: Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)

#438

Post by dangus »

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? I’m looking for a “delete all messages over X days old” option.

Not “delete all my chats/delete an entire thread.”

Re: Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)

#439

Post by greysonp »

h4waii wrote: post #176

It was obvious this was going to happen when they refused to implement RCS. So instead of working on RCS, we got mobilecoin, stickers, gif search, and now yank out legacy SMS support so more "features" can be developed? As an early adopter of TextSecure, through CyanogenMod integration, to Signal and everything in between, I have the t-shirts and all -- I am done with Signal.

There is no public RCS API on Android. Only OEMs can create RCS clients.

Re: Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)

#440

Post by aeturnum »

alerighi wrote: post #331
chungy wrote: post #4

I completely disagree and am disappointed in this decision. One app on my phone to handle all my messages is easier than making a context switch per-contact. I also think it'll hurt the value proposition when getting people to join signal. Not overcomplicating the messaging scenario was a big winner to do that.

> all my messages is easier than making a context switch per-contact A user already has: - WhatsApp - Telegram - Facebook Messanger - Instagram that has direct messages - the good old email, or better, many of them - Microsoft Teams for company communications - Discord for communications with group of friends - the old SMS (that I didn't even know that in some parts of the world were still used, since I receive them…

You're right that there are many messengers available and Signal will, at best, be one of many that people juggle based on who they are contacting.

That's why it was a huge advantage that, on Android, Signal could replace a SMS client. You weren't adding _yet another_ messenger to the list, you were replacing the SMS client with one that could send secure messages. That made "switching" to Signal (which, ofc, was not a switch at all for my friends who use SMS) much easier for me. I could continue texting my friends and seamlessly switch to secure messaging if they ever got signal.

Contrast this with my friends who kept their old SMS client who reliably forget to check / use signal and generally tend to go back to texting me in a few weeks. Even if you send 0 signal messages for a long time, by switching you SMS client you are already setup to receive them and will habitually open an app that supports E2E encryption.

For example - Facebook Messenger also supports sending and receiving SMS messages - likely because they've done the research and found it drives adoption.

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