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Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)

• Ninjinka 4y ago
  This is beyond stupid. This is the only way I was able to convince friends to use Signal. Heck, it's one of the only reasons I used it myself. Didn't have to juggle two apps.
• Jenny_Wengerd0 4y ago
• DGAP 4y ago
  OK, then I'm going to stop using Signal after 6 years of use.
• miduil 4y ago
  > We have now reached the point where SMS support no longer makes sense That is hard to swallow, being able to quickly send a message through SMS to the same receiver in emergency situations* was quite handy. *like when you're at a protest and the tower is overloaded, or you're on a remote location and you see that the Signal message doesn't get through because of lack of 3G/LTE connectivity.
  • thesis 4y ago
    Just a guess, but this likely has something to do with 10DLC and/or Toll Free Verification and all of the complexities that are being pushed by the carriers for users to register their numbers and even pay to use if you want to use 10DLC.
    • Nextgrid 4y ago
      I believe "SMS support" just means Signal can act as your SMS client using your existing modem & SIM card (something possible on Android), so from the carrier and phone network perspective there is no difference between this and using the stock SMS app.
• prettyStandard 4y ago
  I am disappointed in this. I was hoping to onboard more people onto signal, and this is a barrier to that.
• chungy 4y ago
  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.
  • fyvhbhn 4y ago
    You couldn't have one messenger for all contacts before, except you forced everyone to either signal or sms
    • monetus 4y ago
      Signal could SMS anyone in your regular contacts app; the fallback option in tfa is what doesn't force people. Now, it will.
  • alerighi 4y ago
    > 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 only for 2 factor codes, notifications about my card transactions, and spam) Adding another app is that a big deal? By the way I don't use Signal, but not for the reason of not having another app on the phone, just because I don't know anyone that has it and actively use it.
    • chungy 4y ago
      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.
      • alerighi 4y ago
• agilob 4y ago
  >Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon) Literally the only reason I recommend others and use Signal myself? Seriously, Signal doesn't have the userbase to drop SMS support. All my Signal contacts use WhatsApp or Telegram that I already have installed. I use signal mostly as a SMS app, secondly as E2E communication. It will be easier to uninstall Signal.
  • PenguinCoder 4y ago
    Seriously. I don't want to use another locked in messenger app, that everyone else must use or I won't get their messages. I use signal because it's secure, but also because it's low friction and seamless into SMS if the other user doesn't have signal. This is another step in the wrong direction for Signal.
  • zalebz 4y ago
    The complete lack of awareness of this decision is astounding, the userbase is about to disappear. Those of us that convinced non-technical friends and family to use Signal are now expected to explain to them how to juggle 2 messaging apps? yeah it's not happening, the uninstall rate is going to be huge and there will be no recovery of those users
• geewee 4y ago
  This feels like a slap in the face. I get the privacy ramifications, but one of the really strong aspects of Signal to me was to go all-in on privacy when needed, and default to something sensible when it wasn't. I'll definitely need to reconsider whether or not to continue my monthly donation, and I don't like that at all.
• mgbmtl 4y ago
  I for one welcome the change, because my phone does not have an SMS plan (data only) and the "send by SMS" is a bit confusing. A messaging app should have one clear behavior per interface. This was "maybe secure, maybe not". I have an SMS app for that (well, VoIP-sms, because I'm weird).
  • stirfish 4y ago
    > "send by SMS" is a bit confusing Can you say more about what's confusing about this for you?
    • mgbmtl 4y ago
      I don't like explaining to people that "yes it can do sms, and signal is sort of sms but not really" etc. and the workflow when adding someone is different (waiting for approval or not).
      • Xelynega 4y ago
        You sound misguided if you're trying to explain the details of signal to get them to use it. All they need to understand to use the app is "its sms", any e2ee they benefit from as a result are completely in the background.
  • 3836293648 4y ago
    How does your phone even work if you cannot at least receive SMS?
    • dopa42365 4y ago
      Receiving SMS is free in [nearly everywhere]. Not that anyone really uses SMS anymore in [nearly everywhere].
• johntrain 4y ago
  Can anyone recommend a good SMS Android app?
  • mehlmao 4y ago
    I've used ChompSMS (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.p1.chompsms https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.p1.chompsm...) for the past 10 years or so, side-by-side with Signal. I prefer keeping secure messaging and insecure messaging separate.
    • johntrain 4y ago
      Thanks!
  • jacobsenscott 4y ago
    I like the default messages app.
  • neogodless 4y ago
    Personally like TextraSMS. Has a free ad-supported version, but I paid to remove ads when it was on sale several years ago (maybe $1). 4.4 stars. I believe it's $3 or $5 to remove ads now. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.textra https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.textra
  • NoGravitas 4y ago
    Further — can anyone recommend a good Open Source SMS Android app? The only ones I can find are AOSP Messaging and Simple SMS Messenger, both of which are "Okay".
    • m4lvin 4y ago
      QKSMS is so good I almost forgot that I am using it. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.moez.QKSMS/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.moez.QKSMS/
      • 4y ago
• eatwater123 4y ago
  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?")
  • JasonFruit 4y ago
    I also deplore this. I hope it's communicated well to users who aren't readers of Signal's blog. I have relatives who use Signal, and they rely on its fallback-to-SMS feature, possibly without fully understanding it. I'll make sure they understand and are aware of this change, but others may be in the same position.
    • xcdzvyn 4y ago
      I fear Signal will follow their recent trend of ignoring unanimous user-base complaints a la Mobilecoin, fdroid, and third-party clients.
      • fyvhbhn 4y ago
        ... phone number use, lack of interoperability, keeping server source closed when it fits
      • autoexec 4y ago
        That ship sailed a long time ago. Signal's userbase overwhelmingly objected to having their sensitive information permanently stored in the cloud too, but signal ignored them. https://community.signalusers.org/t/dont-want-pin-dont-want-anything-stored-in-cloud/14057/231 https://community.signalusers.org/t/dont-want-pin-dont-want-... Even when security concerns were brought up: https://community.signalusers.org/t/proper-secure-value-security-pins-are-too-easy-to-brute-force-sgx-is-not-reliable-enough/15096 https://community.signalusers.org/t/proper-secure-value-secu...
  • garciansmith 4y ago
• dark_glass 4y ago
  This change will have fewer people use Signal. One reason I was able to convince friends and family to start using it is because it is so seamless. I fear that with this change, Signal for most users will simply become unused, resulting in less e2e encrypted messaging overall.
• crimsoneer 4y ago
  This seems very silly, and will probably lead to me dropping signal?
• joemazerino 4y ago
  I do not like this decision. Using Signal as a main SMS provider makes it easier for me to collect all of my messages in one place. Now I have to, YET AGAIN, download an SMS app for use while keeping Signal active. I'm glad privacy is becoming mainstream but dislike lowering the bar for adoption to where it profoundly affects users.
  • calvinmorrison 4y ago
    It makes me yearn for the days with Pidgin where I had IRC, Google Chat (XMPP back then), AOL and whatever else chat protocols all running through the same client. That's what is nice about signals implementation is it stands. It supports acting as the SMS default app on android and defaults to signal when it can.
    • LinuxBender 4y ago
      One thing I liked about those multi-protocol clients is that some of them supported the OTR libraries for E2EE encrypted messages regardless of platform used. A couple of the implementations would automatically handshake with others to see if they supported OTR.
    • lapinot 4y ago
      > That's what is nice about signals implementation is it stands. Sure they handle SMS, but the real problem here is that Signal is just another walled garden: they have an overtly negative stance towards alternative clients, while also having very bad support for anything besides android/ios: they have a bad desktop client and they don't have a nice library. Altogether this means that Signal is overtly and willingly against things like Pidgin / multi-protocol clients or overlay, which is what the users want (ie not caring about protocols). Signal doesn't want to deal with SMS anymore, which from an engineering and high-stakes security pov is a completely valid decision. Yet if it had clean and open local API or a simple and portable client library, or had a stable server API, then someone else could provide multi-protocol clients, tailored to each platform in a secure and stable way.
    • erohead 4y ago
• brewdad 4y ago
  SMS support is literally how I got my family to switch to Signal in the first place. None of the non-techies want to switch apps or have to send the same message out multiple times in order to reach their friends and family. Having an app that provides privacy when able and still works for those not yet onboard was a godsend.
• alrs 4y ago
  What dicks. I'm not looking forward to playing tech support for all the non-technical people I convinced to use Signal. Thanks for confirming everyone's suspicions about my weird-nerd chat client.
  • plsbenice34 4y ago
    Exactly my reaction, made me feel sick
  • zalebz 4y ago
    ditto. just cancelled my monthly $ubscription too
• bragr 4y ago
  Personally 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.
  • Melatonic 4y ago
    same
  • endorphine 4y ago
    Same here. I would not like for SMS to be mixed with my secure messages. I see this as a feature.
    • brational 4y ago
      Given the bizarre backlash here from people that think sms comms are ok I reckon I’ll start a monthly contribution.
      • dnebdal 4y ago
        Oh no, the "did you remember to lock the door to the auditorium" messages I send to my boss may be unencrypted. The humanity. What do you purists use to talk to all the random people around you? Do you reply "I'm sorry, it's too insecure for me to answer that, you'll have to install Signal first" messages when more distant colleagues ask you if you're at your desk right now? Do you teach your grandmother to use WhatsApp so her birthday greetings won't be intercepted by the NSA? (Admittedly, the email situation at work being utter trash may be coloring my opinion here.)
        • brational 4y ago
          Whatever they prefer. Whatsapp, imessage, or regular sms (when it makes sense). Or slack honestly. I have friends and family all over the world I only push for Signal where necessary and I want it to be good for that. This one app nonsense is asinine. You’ll never get global adoption of one thing.
        • 4y ago
• KerryJones 4y ago
  ... and there's the reason I will likely stop using Signal? Signal was always one of those "win-win" apps, get more security when it's available and I don't have to worry about adding to the giant bucket of messaging apps. They were a paragon of putting the user first and I was a strong supporter... but now... Why not Telegram? Or anything else? I don't need the security, it was nice-to-have. Having to switch between Signal and other apps is a heavy amount of friction.
  • jacooper 4y ago
    Correction, you dont need the privacy* Telegram is absolutely the worst when it comes to privacy, it has access to everything you do and say. If you want a master app, have a lot at matrix.org with bridges.
    • jhasse 4y ago
      That's false: Telegram doesn't have access to secret chats.
      • barbazoo 4y ago
        Don't they store the decryption keys?
        • ComodoHacker 4y ago
          It's end-to-end, clients store the keys.
        • orangepurple 4y ago
          Server does not store the keys for secret chats
          • barbazoo 4y ago
            I see, that's the 1 on 1 chats that are explicitly configured as secret. So by default for 1 on 1 chats and for all group chats the keys are stored on the server.
• annadane 4y ago
  Is this Moxie's decision?
  • glogla 4y ago
    Very likely. Moxie was always horrible.
• dheera 4y ago
  I support this decision, I don't use SMS and I'm in support of everything that kills SMS. Next step: Please stop using phone numbers as a user ID. I have lots of throwaway phone numbers, but many people don't want to leak their phone number to every single person they want to have an encrypted conversation with.
  • garciansmith 4y ago
    Yeah, I'll just tell the gas company, electric company, internet provider, my bank, my elderly neighbor who can barely use a phone and I taught how to text, every restaurant I order online from, the plumber I just texted literally an hour ago due to a pipe leaking to just... not use SMS. I'm sure they'll listen. I assume you live in a place where SMS isn't necessary? In the U.S. it is.
    • bobmaxup 4y ago
      I think the parent was stating that it doesn't have to be that way, and that things could be better without SMS and 10DLC.
    • dheera 4y ago
      > gas company, electric company, Mine don't need SMS > internet provider, Also doesn't need SMS for me > my bank, F them, I use a throwaway Twilio number for this > my elderly neighbor who can barely use a phone and I taught how to text, I tell them to either e-mail me or stick a handwritten note on my door. E-mail is WAY easier to use for elderly people in my experience. You get nice big keyboards, big fonts, big screens, and it works on any device you own, not just one. But if they disagree they can still handwrite a note to me > every restaurant I order online from, I use a fake number for these. They don't need my number any more than I need their wait staff's phone numbers. Never been a problem. I just go pick up and say my name, no SMS bullshit. > the plumber I just texted literally an hour ago I don't text plumbers, I e-mail or call them
      • garciansmith 4y ago
        > gas company, electric company, Especially when there are issues that's how mine send updates. To say nothing about companies that require 2FA through text! > bank I can't use VOIP numbers with them, not sure about Twilio. > my elderly neighbor who can barely use a phone and I taught how to text You make the assumption that they even have a computer: they do not. They do normally just knock on my door, but they want to send and receive pictures to their family and other people who do not live close by. > every restaurant I order online from I want to know when my order is ready. > the plumber I just texted literally an hour ago He asked for a picture of the leak and to text it to him. He's reliable and has done good work before, I'm not going to switch just because he doesn't use email. My point in all of this is that in the U.S. SMS is ubiquitous. As much as I would love to leave it behind, there are just so many situations where you need SMS.
• smlavine 4y ago
  Very disappointing and upsetting. I use Signal as my primary SMS/MMS app on my phone, and use a few Signal chats as well with people. This is going to be really annoying. I'm probably going to just stop using Signal altogether to be honest. Most people in my social circle use Snapchat or iMessage for "texting", for reference.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• Daunk 4y ago
  I feel like all these messaging applications eventually mess up somehow. The one I keep coming back to is Telegram.
  • dodgerdan 4y ago
    You do realise Telegram isn’t secure (non-e2ee), is Russian owned and is based in the Middle East. Enjoy whatever privacy that provides.
    • Daunk 4y ago
      Mmm... You can use end-to-end encryption with Telegram if security is your main concern. I don't see how it being "Russian owned" is of any concern, but if you feel like privacy is an issue then you're free to claim their $300,000 prize at stake or just take part of their ongoing bug bounty programme and be rewarded by spotting flaws.
      • PenguinCoder 4y ago
        Don't need to rely on a vulnerability or flaw, when you own/have the keys to the kingdom as it stands.
    • Georgelemental 4y ago
      Based in the Middle East instead of Russia, because the founders specifically care about avoiding Russian government censorship
      • dodgerdan 4y ago
        And they picked a country known for its poor rule of law, constitutional protections and respect for privacy.
• tmikaeld 4y ago
  I've converted a lot of people to Signal and I'm 100% sure that they will abandon it, they only want 1 messenger app.
• oezi 4y ago
  Why doesn't anybody fork the Signal clients? There are so many bad design decision in the clients (for instance no message backup on iOS or no way to save all media to storage automatically) that I don't understand why people accept the Signal Foundation's stewardship of the client code.
  • Aissen 4y ago
    There are forked clients, but usually you can't use Signal's server infrastructure, so you need to roll your own, and now it brings another set of problems.
  • xcdzvyn 4y ago
    You're not allowed to: https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issuecomment-217211165 https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...
  • NoGravitas 4y ago
    Because while both the server and the client are Open Source, the server doesn't federate. If you want to be able to communicate with anyone, you have to use the official server instance. And the official server instance doesn't allow unofficial clients (though some clients seem to get away with it for a while).
  • _emacsomancer_ 4y ago
    Molly[1], a fork of Signal, seems to work fine. I've used it for a long time and never had any issues with it (and it connects to Signal fine). But for security reasons one of their changes was dropping SMS, so switching to it won't do you any good there. [1]: https://github.com/mollyim/mollyim-android https://github.com/mollyim/mollyim-android
• ortusdux 4y ago
  One Signal feature that I always wanted, and will apparently never get, was the ability to send the same message via SMS & data, and have the duplicate cancel out on the other end. Service is spotty in my region, and I routinely have either cellular or data connectivity.
  • nstbayless 4y ago
    I initially downloaded Signal assuming it had that feature. Then they removed encrypted SMS entirely: https://signal.org/blog/goodbye-encrypted-sms/ https://signal.org/blog/goodbye-encrypted-sms/ -- I almost uninstalled the app then.
• _jsnk 4y ago
  I'm very upset by this decision. I've been using Signal as my SMS app for a very long time. Messages that I would have sent via SMS currently will automatically get sent via Signal if the person I'm sending to has started using Signal without my knowledge. This has happened in several instances where I was pleasantly surprised to see a friend had started using Signal. Now that I'm forced into a separate SMS app, this will no longer be a possibility. I certainly won't be firing up Signal to see if a contact has joined before sending them an SMS.
  • roter 4y ago
    This. Now you have to remember who is in Signal and who isn't. All because apparently the double-check mark for messages between Signal users and the unlocked icon for SMS messages is too hard to comprehend. SMH.
  • fluidcruft 4y ago
    Exactly. Dumbest idea ever. Apparently Signal thinks they can recruit all of us as their sales force.
  • giskou 4y ago
    I have been receiving notifications that a person in my contact list is now using Signal for years. Apart from that, your use case has another possible issue. If a person stops using Signal, your messages will go to the void until Signal actually removes the user and your client switches back to SMS. This has caused a lot of confusion for some of my friends when I switched my signal account to a different phone number. I think it's more reliable to use Signal for Signal.
  • bxparks 4y ago
    If I understand this, if I use SMS, I can send to everyone. If I use Signal, I can send to Signal users only. But I don't remember who's on Signal, and who's not. So I guess I will stop using Signal.
    • usrusr 4y ago
      If I want to message someone I open the contact and click on one of the messengers that are listed for the phone number. Why would I leave the memorizing to my brain?
• bjt2n3904 4y ago
  Oof. As an Android user, this sucks. Though I have my frustrations with Signal (cellphone number, address book hashing, centralization, the cryptocurrency stuff, removing storage encryption) -- it's still the only app I trust. Even more than the stock Samsung messaging app. I don't want to trust another, and I don't want to have to bifurcate my messaging flow. All of my family use iOS though, so this is already their use case. I understand less code is more secure, and a unified codebase between devices is good -- heck. This might even lead to no more phone number requirement. But this still stinks for my use case. FWIW though, I was more upset about the cryptocurrency thing.
• Jayschwa 4y ago
  I am unhappy with this change, but I can cope with it. I'm more concerned with my tech-challenged family members who don't understand the distinction between different messaging services or have any understanding of security. Until now, Signal has been good for them because they only need to deal with one application and they get some added security among our group. After this change, I fear they'll just use the SMS app exclusively (out of inertia) and Signal will collect dust.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• NoGravitas 4y ago
  > If you do use Signal as your default SMS app on Android, you will need to select a new default SMS app on your phone. If you want to keep them, you’ll also need to export your SMS messages from Signal into that new app. This messaging seems a little tone-deaf, given that there is no way to export SMS messages from Signal. Apparently it's possible, using a third-party piece of software, to decrypt your backups and extract the messages, but that's not exactly a reasonable thing to expect people to do. One of the reasons I liked Signal was because it was easy to get normal people to start using it, because they could just set it up as their SMS app, and continue life as normal, just getting the benefits of encryption for any of their contacts that were also using Signal. Now there's not notably any reason to use Signal as opposed to, say, Matrix.
  • fitblipper 4y ago
    They are enabling the ability to export SMS from signal now: https://community.signalusers.org/t/beta-feedback-for-the-upcoming-android-5-52-release/47714/126 https://community.signalusers.org/t/beta-feedback-for-the-up...
    • saghm 4y ago
      The phrase "one step forward, two steps back" comes to mind
    • roter 4y ago
      Confirmed. Turned on the beta program and exported ~1000 text messages over to Google Messages. Settings->Chats->SMS and MMS->Export. Involves changing the default app for SMS between Signal and Google Messages.
      • 1MachineElf 4y ago
        I can't fathom the cognitive dissonance of Signal community leaders actually suggesting their Android users to migrate to Google Messages. We're going from a best-in-class privacy app to an app best known for it's vendor's data hoarding. All because they think we should have the same sub-par SMS UX that iOS users are subjected to...
• fuddle 4y ago
  To be honest I never knew this feature existed.
• fuddle 4y ago
  To be honest, I never knew this feature existed.
• KingOfCoders 4y ago
  Why oh why do you want to drive me away? Signal was and is the only messenger I use (one exception: WA with my mom). First this wallet thing, now no SMS? Why not try to figure out a way to use encrypted SMS?
• throwawayben 4y ago
  The comments here are so bizarre to me. I think this must be a USA thing. I had no idea signal even supported SMS, nor do I know anybody who uses SMS
  • toastercat 4y ago
    It is a US thing. The majority of folks in the US still use SMS for text chat. The alternative is buying into a proprietary platform like WhatsApp, but not everyone you talk to is going to be on WhatsApp/FB Messenger/iMessage, etc, so you end up having 5 different chat apps installed on your phone at any time. SMS has been the only real ubiquitous one despite all its flaws.
  • roer 4y ago
    I don't live in the US, and SMS support has been essential in convincing people from my parents' generation to give signal a try. I personally also like not ever having to open my phone's stock message app when I once in a while do get an SMS
  • Symbiote 4y ago
    I don't send many SMSs, but I receive them: package delivery notifications, automatic appointment reminders, a message to say my car has been repaired, 2FA codes. I found it useful to have all these messages in a single place, although this change probably won't inconvenience me too much. However, I don't see any benefit.
  • Kiro 4y ago
    Where do you live where people do not use SMS? In most countries I've been to and lived in in Europe SMS was very much used.
    • athrun 4y ago
      Europe is a big place, but indeed I'd say in most of EU using SMS to communicate between people is a bit old school. I'd say most people have moved to WhatsApp (or equivalent). SMS is typically used for notifications-style messaging (or spam), so the impact of this change is probably minimal for a lot of people there. Even chat-bot/support style messaging in the B2C space are moving to WhatsApp (or equivalent).
• gerty 4y ago
  I've been a user for nearly 10 years and still only a few people in my circles uses Signal. If they go through with this, Signal is as good as dead.
  • dodgerdan 4y ago
    Well for what it’s worth it sounds like you weren’t really using Signal for secure messaging anyway… so not much of a loss.
    • roer 4y ago
      Well, isn't the point that more people using signal strengthens the privacy/security of everyone? I would be sad if I wanted to send a message to gerty, and I find out he stopped using signal because of this. It's not like I wouldn't still want to message him, right? Convenience is extremely powerful in getting the layman to adopt this kind of tech, and I feel like it should be prioritized.
    • Xelynega 4y ago
      This kind of thinking is exactly what's killing signal. Why would you want to gatekeep the security of others instead of making t as accessible as possible? To me this feels like signal not understanding that their intended userbase and their actual userbase are very different, as I can't imagine the number of people that use signal solely for it's e2ee is comparable to the number of people that use it as their sms app.
      • dodgerdan 4y ago
        “Killing Signal”? They don’t publish their user numbers, but they were having outages due to massive user growth a few years ago.
        • guerrilla 4y ago
          That was when hundreds of thousabds of peopld abandoned WhatsApp, shi h us what will happen to Signal if they do this.
• red_trumpet 4y ago
  > [W]e [...] grew from a small project to the most widely used private messaging service on the planet. Really? More used than WhatsApp, Telegram or iMessage?
• newfonewhodis 4y ago
  This is terrible. Most of my social network is not yet on Signal, but using a single app for all my communication makes my life so much easier. Signal was always promised as the one-app that everyone could use even if their network was not using Signal. Is anyone NOT inside Signal happy about this decision? Please comment if so, and why.
  • scatters 4y ago
    The people in my network who aren't using Signal are on WhatsApp or Telegram, and Signal can't handle those. But then, I live in Europe.
• CraftThatBlock 4y ago
  This was one of the core features of using Signal for me. I wish they had implemented RCS and more features for SMS instead of removing it. I'm very disappointed with this feature. As a side note, I'm on the beta, and recently got "Signal Stories". This immensely annoyed me, and had to dig through to remove it (since it wasn't obvious). After the whole crypto thing and these decisions, it might be time to find another secure messaging app.
  • gophin 4y ago
    Are there any Android apps that support RCS other than Google Messages? I'm not sure exactly what is exposed in the framework API regarding RCS, and how it compares to the relative ease of receiving SMS and MMS messages.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  • pitaj 4y ago
    They can't implement RCS, because there's no Android API for it.
    • pornel 4y ago
      Because it's a carrier-owned upsell feature. It's nuts that people even consider a non-Internet protocol that applications can't implement, and users have to get permission to use — from the same carriers that charge for bytes of crappy size-limited MMS messages in the same ballpark as delivery of physical letters.
      • ece 4y ago
        SMS is carrier owned and had an API. What you're saying doesn't surprise me, but I guess an RCS client written by Google and can't talk to iPhones isn't exactly an upsell.
        • 4y ago
• seneca 4y ago
  This is going to seriously harm their user base. I've used signal for years, but will have to drop it with change. People aren't interested in maintaining several different messaging apps.
  • dodgerdan 4y ago
    I’ll bet that user’s sending plaintext sms’s thinking they were secure end to end encrypted messages did much more harm.
  • IsNotNull 4y ago
    Most people already use multiple messaging apps. Facebook Messenger, Instagram, default SMS app, etc. Basically no-one does all of that in one app, so using Signal for Signal messages is normal for those people.
• xingped 4y ago
  It's already bad enough that I would never be able to convince family today to switch to Signal due to the removal of SMS history importing and now you want to remove the ability to send/receive SMS via Signal too? Good job guaranteeing you just cratered any additional growth of your userbase. I've always wondered how companies become so blind to what their userbase actually wants and needs (looking at the majority of the rest of the comments here that seem to echo my sentiment as well) that we end up in situations like this. I guess "you die a hero or live long enough to become the villain" applies to apps too.
• chrisfosterelli 4y ago
  One bright side of this is that Android's (Google's) Messages app has been pushing hard on RCS (the intended successor to SMS) and by default now does auto-upgrade to end-to-end encryption with any other messages users. If you're using signal, you don't get that auto-upgrade, so for conversations with anyone using a "default" google phone setup you were actually getting less net security on your comms compared to using the default SMS app. I noticed this when I got a new phone and hadn't yet enabled signal to handle SMS and opted to stay with it because of how many conversations I had that were auto-E2E, where before they'd just been text messages. I still prefer signal for the people I know use it though. In short you can still use the signal (protocol at least) on messages, so I can understand why signal would do this.
  • seneca 4y ago
    Given that it's Google, are you sure they do true end to end encryption. I would be shocked if they don't have access to the contents of your messages.
    • londons_explore 4y ago
      They do the same as Whatsapp. Ie. it is proper end to end encryption. Encryption keys can be verified manually. But there is no way to know the app doesn't secretly send the key to the server (although a disassembly of the app could catch them red handed if this were the case). The big loophole is: * The messages can be forced to be sent unencrypted if one or other end of the connection doesn't have data connectivity. * The conversation backups are cleartext, so if either you or the other party has backups enabled, the e2e encryption is kinda pointless.
  • NoGravitas 4y ago
    Does AOSP Messaging do RCS? I am assuming not.
    • h4waii 4y ago
      No, AOSP Messages does not support RCS. It seems Google is going to let it die to move people to Google Messages.
• rvz 4y ago
  Great for security on Android. > The most important reason for us to remove SMS support from Android is that plaintext SMS messages are inherently insecure. They leak sensitive metadata and place your data in the hands of telecommunications companies. With privacy and security at the heart of what we do, letting a deeply insecure messaging protocol have a place in the Signal interface is inconsistent with our values and with what people expect when they open Signal. They do have a point though. SMS is insecure, unencrypted and leaks highly sensitive metadata anyway and it needed to go from Signal. You already have the system SMS app for this to use.
• tasubotadas 4y ago
  Who even use sms these days?
  • yamtaddle 4y ago
    In the US? Old people (so, probably some members of your family), spammers, and ~100% of businesses that communicate via any kind of IM service instead of or in addition to phone and email.
  • aidenn0 4y ago
    My teenage daughters exclusively use iMessage which uses SMS for anyone without an iPhone.
• dodgerdan 4y ago
  SMS and security are simply incompatible. And either you fall into one of two groups 1. You know sms is insecure and this is a insecure method of communication 2. You think sms sent via signal is secure because it’s a “secure messenger”. It’s clear that HN users will fall into group 1, but the vast majority of people would fall into group 2. So for me this is an overall security win.
  • monetus 4y ago
    The network effect of signal not being a hub for SMS and e2ee will mean less people using e2ee, IMO.
    • dodgerdan 4y ago
      A few years ago I would have agreed, but right now Signal is doing just fine taking users from WhatsApp (FB TOS changes + ads + social group analysis)and Telegram (sketchy non-e2ee, Russian owned, based in the middle east).
      • monetus 4y ago
        Weird, I am in the southeast U.S. and telegram is eating signal's lunch in the social networks here.
        • dodgerdan 4y ago
          It’s a big pie, they’re also fairly different. And to be honest it’s only a matter of time before Telegram has a (public) security incident that drives much more people to E2EE messaging.
          • monetus 4y ago
            I'm curious how long it will be before that public incident - they rolled their own cryptography right? With that, I would imagine that if it hasn't been pwned yet, then there would be a disproportionate amount of people trying to break it.
• omgmajk 4y ago
  This is sooo bad. It doesn't matter what reason they give, this is the only reason I can get some people to use Signal and it's the main reason I found it interesting in the first place.
• mitchellpkt 4y ago
  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 could be an opt-in feature, to accommodate both groups? From my perspective (and I am NOT speaking for anybody else) this is an improvement. I already have multiple messaging apps installed, and when I click send on a Signal message I expect it to go end-to-end encrypted or not go at all. But I am not the only user profile.
  • tomcam 4y ago
    None of the naysayers has addressed your point (and those of TFA) rationally, as you have.
    • Xelynega 4y ago
      UX elements already exist to tell the user whether they're encrypted or not, removing the ability to send unencrypted shrinks their userbase while ensuring the apps adoption plummets. There, points addressed. Can we move on?
      • tomcam 4y ago
        No, and thank you for asking. No one addressed what to me is the main point, which is that Signal is handling complaints from people who were being charged for SMS and didn't know that would happen. People these days are often not at all civil when dealing with support issues like this, and for that reason alone I could imagine I'd drop SMS.
  • chungy 4y ago
    > Maybe SMS support could be an opt-in feature, to accommodate both groups? It already is opt-in.
  • leni536 4y ago
• unhammer 4y ago
  That sucks. The data fee argument makes no sense – you could just have a setting or warning or something for those who live in places where you have to pay for sms (I know every setting introduces complexity, but I that's got to be nothing compared to the level of engineering needed for all those other fancy features in Signal).
  • MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
    It's completely backwards for me. When I'm out of data for a month, SMSs still work. I've had to press and hold the send button to revert to SMS on many occasions.
    • codethief 4y ago
      What's even worse is that for you (and I) removal of SMS support will mean that out message history will suddenly be inconsistent as existing SMS messages will be removed.
      • codethief 4y ago
        I take that back: https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-blog-removing-sms-support-from-signal-android-soon/47954/18 https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-blog-removing-sms...
  • stirfish 4y ago
    I agree with this - I already get a little popup telling me a message to a 6-digit number might cost me money. Just reuse that pop-up or something.
• josteink 4y ago
  I remember back when I had Android, how amazed I was that I could just make Signal the new default messaging app, and don’t worry about who were Signal-users and who weren’t. It made it amazingly easy to get started yourself, and also convert others. Why on earth would they decide to give up that advantage?
• gal_anonym 4y ago
  I'm happy with the change, SMS to should be sent through native SMS app, while Signal is just another chat client. Never understood why they have decided to overtake the default SMS app.
• toastercat 4y ago
  Unfortunately, at least in the U.S., most inter-OS text-messaging is still done via SMS. Signal was godsend in this field because I can slowly convince my network to switch to Signal (and this in turn had a recursive network effect as then they would do similarly). This change will mean Signal will become another bucket on my phone (along with WhatsApp) where I can talk to only a select few of my contacts.
• stirfish 4y ago
  I feel like I somehow caused this mess by becoming a monthly donor. It feels like I just got my friends to put letters in envelopes instead of only using postcards. Now we all have to drive to two different post offices - one for letters and one for cards - because the original office will stop delivering cards. Everyone is just going to go back to using postcards. >Dropping support for SMS messaging also frees up our capacity to build new features (yes, like usernames) that will ensure Signal is fresh and relevant into the future I don't buy this.
• Pr0ject217 4y ago
  > "Letting a deeply insecure messaging protocol have a place in the Signal interface is inconsistent with our values and with what people expect when they open Signal" > "We’ve heard repeatedly from people who’ve been hit with high messaging fees after assuming that the SMS messages they were sending were Signal messages" > "We can only do so much on the design side to prevent such misunderstandings" It sounds like they are trying to protect users from themselves.
  • roter 4y ago
    Indeed. Double-check icon indicates Signal messages. Unlocked icon indicates non-Signal. My 85-year-old mother understands this.
• jacooper 4y ago
  I think this will only affect US users, because nobody uses SMS outside the US. And switching between apps is the expected thing to do when trying to push people to another platform, I have telegram, signal, whatsapp and Element on my phone, this is why the new digital markets act is going to be revolutionary, especially with bridge friendly platforms like matrix.org.
  • makeitdouble 4y ago
    I hear this a lot but this is way too caricatural. For one, commercial services will go through SMS to contact you. Delivery people asking if my mailbox can fit parcels won’t be through Whatsapp or Messenger. Then you’ll also want to compartmentalize and limit how some people can reach you. That means if you’re already giving them your phone number, you don’t want them on the other messaging services as well. Life is complicated, and there will be endless use cases for the baseline, default messaging platform.
  • frankjr 4y ago
    > I think this will only affect US users, because nobody uses SMS outside the US This is not true at all, at least for Czechia. The number is going down but it's still in billions (for a country with population of ~10.5M). Quoting from the official annual report: > In the number of SMS messages sent from mobile networks in 2018, CTU estimates - in the context of the increasing popularity of OTT messengers (e.g., WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Viber, etc.) - a slight decrease relative to 2017, approximately by 2% to 8.21 billion SMS messages. https://www.ctu.eu/sites/default/files/obsah/stranky/284221/soubory/vz-2018en-komplet-sig.pdf https://www.ctu.eu/sites/default/files/obsah/stranky/284221/...
  • plsbenice34 4y ago
    I have never been to the US but lived in multiple countries and they all used SMS. May I ask where you live that doesnt use SMS?
• Melatonic 4y ago
  I never used SMS through Signal and I will not miss this in the slightest.
• jbb67 4y ago
  I use signal as my SMS program and a few people who have signal. if I can't use it as my SMS program I'm not going to keep using it for the handful of people who have signal and will likely just go back to SMS for everyone. oh well
• aabajian 4y ago
  Alright, it's fine for a company to remove features, if they are honest about why they are doing so. It's obvious none of the reasons given are due to user complaints. The truth is, they are removing SMS because they don't own the SMS platform (e.g. it's not a walled-garden like WhatsApp). Would it kill them to just be honest? Yes, it's less secure, but no end-user is saying, "Please remove SMS as it's not secure."
  • cptroot 4y ago
    I don't think that's true? There are clearly users who are annoyed at being able to send insecure and possibly expensive SMS messages in their secure messaging app.
    • Xelynega 4y ago
      Then don't enable the default-off setting to allow the app to send SMS?
• Markoff 4y ago
  hahaha, that was literally the only reason why at least consider signal over other IM, now they lost it they have literally zero benefit over Element or Telegram since you will need dedicated SMS app in phone anyway personally I jumped the boat when they made app unusable with PIN code nag screen, which they backpedaled from after uproar but it was already too late for me and my extended family where I pushed Signal, there were message delivery issues, horrible downtime in Europe because US admin was taking sleep, but the unavoidable nag screen was the last drop, the later news about shady crypto and other stuff just convinced me this app ain't worth a dime, which this SMS announcement just confirmed if you wanna alternative IM app use Element (Matrix), unlike Signal it doesn't require phone number, it use decentralized network and you can choose from whatever app you like, never understood why IT skilled people pushed Signal after Element became already quite user friendly
• 0xJRS 4y ago
  RIP Signal
• londons_explore 4y ago
  I think the real rationale for this change is signal believes this will push user adoption. If User A (who uses the signal app) regularly communicates with User B (who doesn't), then this change might encourage User A to ask User B to join signal. It makes a stronger network effect, and will increase viral growth. However, I think the Signal team is misguided, and in fact they will just lose users who don't want one more app to manage.
  • richbell 4y ago
    > If User A (who uses the signal app) regularly communicates with User B (who doesn't), then this change might encourage User A to ask User B to join signal. It makes a stronger network effect, and will increase viral growth. Conversely, the inconvenience of having multiple messaging apps could cause User A to stop using Signal. Look at what happened with Hangouts when they dropped SMS support.
    • nilespotter 4y ago
      Hi, I'm User A!
  • somehnacct3757 4y ago
    I switched years ago figuring it's just like my SMS app but sometimes I'll have more secure convos with other adopters. There was no buy-in cost. Now that it's just some random chat app with its own protocol I could not be more allergic to their brand. Hopefully they didn't need my user type for their flywheel.
• inktype 4y ago
• PenguinCoder 4y ago
  > supports plain SMS/MMS to function as a unified messenger So this is now a lie. This decision absolutely goes against how users actually use the software. Tone deaf and insulting. More cases of Signal saying "we know better than you. You're using it wrong. Do what we say.
  • mdaniel 4y ago
    It was a lie before, too, as their MMS support is a raging dumpster fire and when their code pukes, it just silently eats the error message, leaving one to wonder why the message wasn't sent (or received!) This announcement totally squares with my experience trying multiple times to fix their MMS implementation. It was at that point that I stopped using Signal for SMS, since I knew it wasn't important to them
• captainmuon 4y ago
  I get their reasoning that SMS is insecure and you don't want to accidentially send an SMS. I use Signal mostly for "confidential" things, but every now and then for the occasional person who contacts me there. So Signal is my "secure" app, Whatsapp my "family" app, and so on. It's really weird if a family member shows up in my secure activism chat app. It would make more sense if there was one codebase that supported all apps. And then I could make a "silo" for each use case. I would make one icon for activism, one for work, one for friends. The first one must use E2EE, the second one must use my company's Rocketchat, etc.. It's a pity Signal doesn't allow third party clients. I really hope somebody makes a rouge multi protocoll app, like Pidgin used to be. I bet a dedicated small team could make it in a year.
  • h4waii 4y ago
    Beeper is working on it. We'll see how it turns out. Matrix Bridges might also be a good option.
    • callahad 4y ago
      Those are kind of the same thing, though (Beeper is all Matrix + open source bridges under the hood)
• mcamaj 4y ago
  I started using Signal in 2013, I am afraid that I will be forced to stop using it in 2023. Please change your direction!!! No one wants to use yet another messaging app. Just adding my voice in case some at Signal is reading these.
• branon 4y ago
  SMS/MMS needs to die at this point. I am glad to see Signal take a hard line here even though it will cause some headache for users, of which I am one, though I do not use it to send outgoing SMS/MMS. These protocols are insecure, not private, and fundamentally incompatible with Signal's mission. Supporting them at all, while highly convenient, is a queer oxymoron for an app like Signal. We have to rip the bandaid off eventually.
  • kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
    It needs to die when a federated replacement is available by default on all phones.
  • daedalus_j 4y ago
    The theory is good, but when my non-technical schoolteacher neighbor wants to use her iPhone to tell me that my package was delivered to her house incorrectly she's going to pop open her iMessage app and look up my phone number, and that's going to come to me as an SMS. There's no chance I'm going to get her to install Signal, she doesn't need it, her circle is almost all blue-bubble iPhone users who don't value anything Signal adds over what iMessages gives them. This doesn't kill SMS/MMS. Not even a little tiny bit. All it does is make MY life more irritating because I have multiple apps that I have to deal with now. The way to kill it is to make something better that people WANT to use, that offers the extra value to make it worth the effort.
  • dnebdal 4y ago
    What do you suggest as a replacement for SMS? The replacement has to be supported by every device everywhere (including feature phones), should not require any deals with a FAANG company, and should still work when your data plan runs out. Being unencrypted is completely unimportant for 99+% of the uses I still have for SMS, but those uses are still important.
• stirfish 4y ago
  I left some feedback asking them to reconsider. https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/requests/new https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/requests/new
  • akamoonknight 4y ago
    Thanks, I'm sure Signal devs to some extent look at HN, but was looking for a way to concretely let them know about the potential damage I see this causing.
• _dhruva 4y ago
  Apple does not seem to think this is a problem. Their default Message app supporting both SMS/text and iMessage. They have an opt-in to send via SMS if iMessage fails and this gives it more reliability too.
  • fluidcruft 4y ago
    It would actually be pretty funny if Apple enabled/defaulted end-to-end encryption in iMessage used that to bash Google's green vs blue messages whining.
• fluidcruft 4y ago
  How do you know if your contacts use Signal and know to use that app instead of SMS/Messages or whatever? With the SMS integration it was pretty easy because it would just switch over if the other person had Signal or if/when they signed up in the future. What's the workflow now? Manually ask them on SMS if they use Signal? Just try it and see if it works? This sounds like one of those "Don't Worry! Rejoice! We're breaking your things!" announcements that hasn't even thought about how people use Signal IRL. I'm going to stop my monthly subscription to Signal Foundation.
  • fluidcruft 4y ago
    Edit: after reading the explanation in the community forum linked here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33181636 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33181636 I have instead come around to support this move 200% and have instead doubled my monthly subscription. The explanation at the blog post is an abomination, however. Leave SMS and all its shitty successors for Apple and Google and carriers to kill/maintain.
    • velosol 4y ago
      Holy crap you weren't kidding! The blog post needs to be shelved and redone as every listed reason feels post hoc while the reasons listed at that link ([1] for anyone who dislikes friction) are grounded in reality and show Signal being proactive. [1]: https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-blog-removing-sms-support-from-signal-android-soon/47954/57 https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-blog-removing-sms...
      • wardedVibe 4y ago
        Its more understandable, but its still a major headache for those of us not forced into google's RCS walled garden.
        • fluidcruft 4y ago
          What about the issue it mentions of replies to SMS coming over RCS and never arriving in SMS apps? I'm inclined to agree with the assessment that all 3rd-party SMS on Android are toast. Eventually only the device's/carrier's stock messanger will be reliable.
• throw7 4y ago
  Bad move. They should be expanding support to include RCS (which can support e2ee, although I don't know if it's at the provider level or at client level).
• daedalus_j 4y ago
  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'm already starting to feel like those iOS users who told me "I don't want another app"... Signal seems to be trying to move further and further from "my preferred way to chat with people" and closer to the chat equivalent of "that protonmail account I only log in to when I need secrecy". I obviously love having security on messages in transit, but I also like being able to keep my message history around and search my conversations for something that happened a year ago. It seems like Signal is on a trajectory to turn everything into disappearing messages. Are they the "safe for activists" communication app, or the "let's try to make as many as possible safer by default" app? Feels like they don't know. And on top of it all the messaging is just frustrating. "we've taken away an incredibly useful and heavily used feature so we have development resource to better implement shitcoins and such" is such an irritating defense of the decision that I disabled my monthly donation.
  • CommitSyn 4y ago
    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?
    • wslack 4y ago
      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.
      • roer 4y ago
        There are surely ways around this that don't limit the functionality of the application
• ecuaflo 4y ago
  im surprised by all the tech readers here saying this is bad. do y’all not care about privacy? the main reason is sms compromises that
• lucideer 4y ago
  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 justification. Yes we know SMS is insecure and yes - it seems plainly obvious that having them in the same UI could pose UX challenges & user confusion issues. So improve the UX and clarify the distinction. Did anyone in Signal consider the userbase or the advantages of this feature at all? 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. Having a separate app for those people isn't worth my while (they're on other platforms I use more). The migration off it will be an unwelcome pain...
  • agloeregrets 4y ago
    The answer is this: They dont want to add RCS support or spend the time to do it. It's all bullshit top to bottom.
    • Melatonic 4y ago
      Google also restricts their specific flavor of RCS (or at least they did awhile ago). I wanted to keep using Textra SMS but they never let Textra into RCS land.
    • lucideer 4y ago
      If they said that up top I think many more people would be accepting of it.
    • greysonp 4y ago
      There are no public RCS API's. No one (besides an OEM) can make an RCS app.
    • ajvs 4y ago
      Google doesn't allow 3rd-party apps to access the RCS API.
• hypeatei 4y ago
  Wow, I use this feature so I only have one messaging app to worry about. It was seamless and I didn't see much of an issue with it. I guess Signal is going to become that app that is only opened once a month or so. No more donations from me.
• Kapura 4y ago
  this is effectively going to remove signal as my messaging app of choice. i understand that messages that are not signal messages are not secure, but it is not going to be possible to convince anybody i know to download a special app if they want to talk to me. they will just send SMS, and I will have to respond via SMS, and it wont involve the signal app. i hope they reconsider this decision; i have been using the product since textsecure and I would hate to stop doing so because they no longer support out-of-network communication.
• soulofmischief 4y ago
  > We have now reached the point where SMS support no longer makes sense. What a laughable, out of touch suggestion. Did anyone at Signal actually ask the community what they thought about removing SMS support? Seriously, this decision is going to kill Signal app. It will halt the majority of growth as evangelists such as myself can no longer recommend it with a straight face. Signal is supposed to enhance the messaging experience, not replace it. I think Signal thinks they can take on the WhatsApp market, completely misunderstanding why that market didn't choose Signal in the first place. The products serve two completely different user needs, and are highly geographically segregated. What the heck is going on over at Signal Foundation?
  • Dma54rhs 4y ago
    Maybe their target market us not US that hasn't moved away from sms. I don't know the numbers but this could be an argument for themselves.
  • IsNotNull 4y ago
    Personally I think supporting SMS is what's "out of touch". It's a legacy system that a huge chunk of their users won't have ever used in the app except possibly accidentally.
    • jdiff 4y ago
      It's no more legacy than FM Radio. Been around since the 30s, is undeniably ancient, but it's not legacy. SMS is not going anywhere in many parts of the world, it's actively supported and actively used.
    • soulofmischief 4y ago
      Care to back up that conjecture with data? It's absurdly short-sighted to call SMS legacy.
• andwaal 4y ago
  If anyone want a privacy focused all in one app I cannot recommend Beeper enough. I have been using it as my main app for SMS, messenger, WhatsApp and LinkedIn for half a year now and have only positiv experiences. Some bugs still, but amazing support and continuous fixes. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25848278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25848278
• throw10920 4y ago
  > The most important reason for us to remove SMS support from Android is that plaintext SMS messages are inherently insecure. This is an incredibly bad reason to remove SMS support. Sure, the fact "plaintext SMS messages are inherently insecure" is true, but the implication is not "remove SMS support". Most people are motivated strongly by convenience. Signal is convenient because of its use as a drop-in replacement for your existing SMS client, so people use it, which increases their personal privacy and security. Removing SMS support will directly and substantially reduce Signal usage, and therefore both of those things. The solution to "SMS is insecure" is pretty obviously "make a warning message telling users that", which also solves their second problem: > This brings us to our second reason: we’ve heard repeatedly from people who’ve been hit with high messaging fees after assuming that the SMS messages they were sending were Signal messages, only to find out that they were using SMS, and being charged by their telecom provider. ...and the third problem: > Third, there are serious UX and design implications to inviting SMS messages to live beside Signal messages in the Signal interface. This is ridiculous. You're not making a paid product where if your app doesn't look perfect people won't use it - you're making a messaging app, and slightly ugly workarounds are perfectly OK. > It’s important that people don’t mistake SMS messages sent or received via the Signal interface as secure and private when in fact they are not. THEN DESIGN THE APP THAT WAY. IT'S NOT THAT HARD. This post is a travesty, and the reasoning contained inside is completely insane. Wikipedia says that Moxie is still on the Signal Board of Directors, but I find it hard to believe that he would let something this crazy go through.
  • codethief 4y ago
    > Wikipedia says that Moxie is still on the Signal Board of Directors, but I find it hard to believe that he would let something this crazy go through. IIRC I read (some years ago) that Moxie wasn't really convinced that SMS support should stay in Signal-Android, either.
    • velosol 4y ago
      He was definitely against the encryption-over-SMS feature of TextSecure as Android and smartphones more broadly grew in marketshare. He also wrote the blog post on how it doesn't matter if you have multiple messaging apps (or federation between them) because the notification area of your phone is the modern federation engine. I may be paraphrasing a bit heavily but the post is at [1]. I agree I can see him being at least OK with removing SMS but it seems at odds with what I felt was his overall view of "get the most people the most security we can" and by extension increasing the number of people using secure messaging services to normalize it so simply using encryption isn't seen as an outlier. The latter part is closer to moot now more than ever before with WhatsApp being E2E by default and Apple having huge marketshare in some markets with iMessage. [1]: https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/ https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/
• ravenstine 4y ago
  Cue the "actually we didn't mean that" follow-up to this.
  • teuobk 4y ago
    Thing is, now they've shown a willingness to make this change, so from here on out people will be worried about them trying it again at some point. The only way they have a hope of putting this genie back in the bottle is to provide a loud, strong, clear mea culpa, stating that they were categorically wrong to propose dropping SMS support, plus a strong promise that they will continue supporting SMS for the life of the product. Maybe something along the lines of, "if we ever propose dropping SMS integration again, you can consider that a warrant-canary type of alert".
    • johnchristopher 4y ago
      > "if we ever propose dropping SMS integration again, you can consider that a warrant-canary type of alert". Dropping an insecure messaging system is far from being a warrant-canary type of alert, though.
• lettergram 4y ago
  First, I detest this. As an iOS user it’s annoying to have another messaging app and I’m sure many android users will stop using signal. One day I converted my whole extended family to signal by just installing signal on their android phones. Done, no change for them in their user flow. That said, I also want to use signal without my phone. Things like usernames would be great. That said, part of me thinks that’s an engineering problem, not a UX problem. Why are engineering problems being pushed into the UX requirements?
• h4waii 4y ago
  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.
  • greysonp 4y ago
    There is no public RCS API on Android. Only OEMs can create RCS clients.
  • aidenn0 4y ago
    They didn't refuse to implement RCS; Android doesn't provide APIs for RCS.
  • aembleton 4y ago
    Don't you have any group chats on Signal that you want to stay part of?
• tannhaeuser 4y ago
  > The most important reason for us to remove SMS support from Android is that plaintext SMS messages are inherently insecure. They leak sensitive metadata and place your data in the hands of telecommunications companies. Ok I get that on Android the situation is such that, as a message provider, you don't give away "metadata" ie who is texting whom, keeping that data either for yourself or the highest bidder. WhatsApp, too, fuss about e2e encryption while conveniently not talking about the value of "metadata" for ad targeting and even want to aggressively grab and upload your contacts at every turn (despite it being illegal in EU to share PII without explicit and documented and revocable consent of all individual phone number holders stored in your phone book). But why does this change come only on Android? Would it be suicidal for signal to drop SMS/MMS when the default messaging app (iMessage) does fall back to SMS/MMS on iOS as is well known?
• alexmuro 4y ago
  This will directly lead to me no longer using signal. What are other people switching to for their default sms client on android?
• guerrilla 4y ago
  Absolutely not. Nobody wants to have to use a second app, especially after having it this way forever. Where's the change.org petetion? I will be recommending against using Signal for any reason whatsoever to unless this decision changes. If it goes through, I'll move myself and everyone to something else. The options for e2e encryption are many today and I already have to have a bunch of these apps, so Signal becomes pointless. If they do this, they'll do worse later. Better to get out now at the "first" red flag.
• 0xbadc0de5 4y ago
  Terrible decision. You don't improve the average person's security posture by increasing the barrier-to-entry of encrypted messaging - and removing SMS support is doing exactly that. Signal -is- was great BECAUSE it made the transition from SMS to Signal so seamless. Aside: Funny how quickly the wheels fall off as soon as Moxie leaves. (https://signal.org/blog/new-year-new-ceo/ https://signal.org/blog/new-year-new-ceo/)
• jeremysalwen 4y ago
  In addition to what everyone else here is saying (this is the most mind-bogglingly stupid idea you could imagine, which will instantly kill the adoption of Signal in the US) I want to point out that the purported reasons for removing this feature would be completely solved by hiding SMS behind a setting. If you want to be EVEN MORE paranoid you could periodically warn users if this setting is enabled, just like they periodically bug you about your pin. The only explanation I can have for this decision is that the real reasons for it have nothing to do with those given.
• roer 4y ago
  How can I best send my feedback to the signal team about this? Is it feasible to fork the app?
  • stirfish 4y ago
    I don't know the _best_ way to leave feedback, but here's a feedback form: https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/requests/new https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/requests/new
• alexnewman 4y ago
  Amazing decisión signal. I always hated this combination as it confused me constantly. I’ve been coding for 30 years and I’m a published author in security… and it still confused me.
• MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
  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.
• yazboo 4y ago
  This 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?
• Haemm0r 4y ago
  The 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...
• pluc 4y ago
  The integration is Abysmal with a capital A. If I get a SMS in Signal and I reply with Signal, it sends a Signal message - not a SMS.
• plsbenice34 4y ago
  Terrible, made my stomach sink. I got non-technical people to use Signal. They were happy for years but now they are going to be very upset by this and the problems will flow down to me.
• errantmind 4y ago
  I know it is harsh to say, but whoever approved this should probably be sacked. This is really obviously a poor decision with respect to preserving/growing the userbase and will actually decrease privacy overall when fewer people are using Signal.
• faeriechangling 4y ago
  What an awful move. Make a different app if you want to remove SMS access.
• monroewalker 4y ago
  I set Signal as my default messaging app until I was texted while my phone was off and the messages never showed up later. Could certainly have been a problem with my mobile service provider (Xfinity Mobile), but it's not an issue I've ever had before and seemed like an especially unsurprising result of using something other than the default messaging app. Curious if anyone else has had a similar experience
• spcebar 4y ago
  You can send feedback to support@signal.org. I don't know if it will do any good, but I sent them my respectful two cents.
• mderazon 4y ago
  Outside I think mostly the US, SMS is basically only used for spam and 2fa messages. I can't remember the last time I communicated with someone via SMS to be honest. To hear that people use it in group chats is mind boggling to me.
  • Krasnol 4y ago
    I'm with you. Totally confused about the outcry and use cases. Sounds like the 90s over here.
    • endorphine 4y ago
      Same here. I'm pretty sure by now this is a local thing.
    • dzikimarian 4y ago
      US is iPhone-land. iPhone users default to iMessage and "don't want another app", so SMS is still going strong, as it's only bridge between ecosystems. Rest of the world is more diverse, so iPhone users don't get to force their default on everyone (as it's crappy if you don't have an iPhone). Also Google constantly fails to build vaiable, cross platform alternative. Therefore everyone is used to having a few apps. Basically situation in US is what you get if you allow entire nation to be put in walled garden. Also it's absurd, that instant messaging, that had zero meaningful innovation over last 20 years, still isn't over open protocol and we tolerate that's used by corporations to pressure customers into their ecosystems.
    • YeBanKo 4y ago
      So how do text then?
  • Kiro 4y ago
    Where do you live?
    • mderazon 4y ago
      Europe (Portugal)
• AdmiralAsshat 4y ago
  I'm surprised at how much backlash there is to this. I've had Signal since shortly after it renamed itself from TextSecure to Signal, and I never bothered using it as the default SMS/Messaging app, because back then it was a bad SMS app. It felt like it paled in comparison to what the default Android Messages app could do. I didn't want to get the false impression, either, that my chats were encrypted when they really weren't, just because they shows up in Signal. So I kept the two separate. I assumed pretty much everyone else did the same. And yeah, there's the occasional oddity when someone texts me over SMS instead of using Signal when I know for a fact that they have both, but most of the people doing it are using iPhones, so I have to assume it's the same experience for them as well.
  • johnchristopher 4y ago
    Same. What's weird is that in the numerous Matrix vs Signal comments that populate Signal and Matrix submissions you rarely find SMS support as an Signal advantage over Element/Matrix. Most people I know didn't like Signal taking over the SMS when they accidentally opted in.
  • endorphine 4y ago
    Same here. I'm really surprised by the reactions, but I guess it's a locality thing.
• wakeupcall 4y ago
  Combining signal and sms to have a single messaging app is a big reason as of why I keep using it. But like many recent developments, I'm just left dumbfounded by their high-level decision making. I've stopped recommending signal to tech persons for a while. I don't want yet another messaging app either. Matrix is serving me well.
• zppln 4y ago
  > There are three big reasons why we’re removing SMS support for the Android app now: prioritizing security and privacy, ensuring people aren’t hit with unexpected messaging bills, and creating a clear and intelligible user experience for anyone sending messages on Signal. Pretty weak reasoning to me. Just do what Apple does and color sms messages some other color or whatever. Problem solved. This is gonna make me drop Signal. I use it as my default sms app and have been very happy with it, but most of my conversations (although most actual messages are Signal) are still over sms so it'll have to go. I can't be bothered to roll a bunch of different apps. Still, I'm grateful for the work the Signal team has done over the years. Sad to see us part ways!
  • nstbayless 4y ago
    Signal already colours SMS and encrypted messages differently. Unecrypted (SMS) messages are grey; encrypted messages are blue.
    • zppln 4y ago
      Hm, not in my app (Android)? Unencrypted messages have an open padlock next to them, whereas encrypted ones have double checkmarks. But no difference in color, even in conversations that contain both.
• EGreg 4y ago
  Wait. Doesn't Signal use SMS to confirm your account? I think the only one that's totally anonymous is Wickr
  • timbit42 4y ago
    Briar runs over Tor.
• mancerayder 4y ago
  In the long list of SMS alternatives below, can someone tell me what's wrong with the default Android SMS? I use Signal and regular SMS, why would I install a second SMS option for non-Signal ?
• fortylove 4y ago
  Signal consistently has been a poor UX for me. Sure it's super secure and that's nice. But I don't really care about the security of the convo with my aging parents. I care that they can easily respond to me. I'm happy we have an available secure chat for people that need/want it, but I'm more than happy to keep it relegated to niche uses until it gets more user friendly.
• S0und 4y ago
  Why do I have the feeling that every person who complains about this as something of a deal breaker are from the US? This is so weird, the rest of the world moved on SMS 10-15 years ago.
  • nilespotter 4y ago
    To what? Facebook owned WhatsApp?
  • Flimm 4y ago
    But aren't iPhones popular in the US? Signal on iOS never supported SMS to begin with.
• ghastmaster 4y ago
  > After much discussion, we determined that we can no longer continue to invest in accommodating SMS in the Android app while also dedicating the resources we need to make Signal the best messenger out there. I did not need emoji's, groups, gifs and all the other neat stuff that signal has introduced throughout the years(to varying degrees of success). I had been using it, while none of my friends were. What I did need was a single messenger to handle sms/mms with the default being secure when security was available. I have multiple friends now using it and sadly will revert back to a 100% insecure messenger for my phone for 99% of my messages. The new one will do everything better than signal does except security, so it will have some benefits. I will be on the lookout for a replacement. I hope signal continues to bring security for entities that need it through the future. I have not looked at tox in a while. I'll check that out again.
  • brational 4y ago
    That’s sort of the problem though. The sms was/is never secure.
• DavidVoid 4y ago
  Well that's probably going to suck for everyone who convinced their non-technical parents to switch to Signal. "My bad, this easy SMS client I got you to switch to is going to stop supporting SMS, and we're going to have to export all your old texts or they'll be gone forever."
• jessfyi 4y ago
  The idea that they can't improve the UI/UX to better inform to the people who repeatedly, accidentally send insecure messages/sms (ignoring the existing words "Unsecured SMS" in the chat field, the unlocked lock near messages, the unlocked lock next to the phone, or the giant banner that occasionally drops down that tells you the % of secure messages you can be sending if you pester a contact into grabbing signal) as one of the reasons for this change is frankly bullshit. Changing the Send button's icon to "SMS" or a color/border change ala iMessage are ideas off the top of my head and I'm sure they've got designers significantly more talented than I am that can think of better ones. We've seen very little iteration there that's indicated the significance of that problem...and frankly if they highlighted this as a tactic vs endless spam texts more people would be receptive to this news. As it stands I think this is going to significantly reduce their number of casual users. In fact I'm willing to bet that the cohort of users who are used as justification are the least likely to convince their contacts to switch to Signal. Don't get me wrong, their real desire to increase the amount of people sending secure messages via Signal alone + resource mgmt in the face of a recession are valid. But acting as a unified messenger (with better link unfurling, threaded replies, and reactions after Google killed Allo vs the default messenger that spent years getting them) was the trojan horse onto many of my friends' and colleagues' phones. Now that there's parity I can see more people just opting into the default messenger/FB Messenger + Whatsapp combo because more people exist there and we're all just lazy.
• vabmit 4y ago
  Someone will fork or clone Signal and distribute an app that continues to support SMS and MMS. I would drop Signal for that app, even if I had to pay for it.
• ea550ff70a 4y ago
  This sucks. I get the decision from a development pov but from a user pov it's awful. Having 2 apps for texting is not great and ultimately only creates friction.
• akudlacek 4y ago
  I cast my vote by dropping my measly $3 a month donation.
• 7steps2much 4y ago
  Till now I kep't signal around despite the fact that I wasn't really getting that many messages on the app. Now I am faced with a decision: * Do I keep signal around, for that one to two messages a month I receive? * Or do I get rid of it, forcing my contacts back on Whatsapp/regular SMS? To be perfectly honest, I am thinking about just gettting rid of it. No need to keep yet another communication channel around when I can't get rid of the other ones anyways. :(
• _23sd 4y ago
  How is it a serious UX/design problem? iMessage just makes SMS messages green and it's so effective at conveying the difference that people claim it creates social stigma against Android users.
• alvarezbjm-hn 4y ago
  Privacy being the primary goal of the app, they should remove the phone as username tenet. This is almost as bad as it can get for privacy, e2ee or not. "We have now reached the point where SMS support no longer makes sense." They should have let the users decide that
• jeroenhd 4y ago
  I like the Signal app for my SMS messages. Almost nobody I regularly talk to uses Signal so I mostly use it for this purpose. I might as well remove it and get rid of yet another app listening for cloud notifications and draining my battery. Maybe I'll grab the source code, rip out all the Signal parts, and just use that.
• neogodless 4y ago
  Cannot tell if it was previously linked here, but this seems of interest. https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-blog-removing-sms-support-from-signal-android-soon/47954/56 https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-blog-removing-sms... No doubt they are in a tough spot. Some users will not accept this feature omission. But if what they claim is accurate, the insecure nature of SMS, along with Google's hoarding of their internal RCS APIs makes it tough to be a messaging provider on Android.
• mercacona 4y ago
  Signal developer giving some extra context to the news: https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-blog-removing-sms-support-from-signal-android-soon/47954/57 https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-blog-removing-sms... > So I guess the TL;DR is: SMS is on it’s way out in general, and in a world where Signal supports SMS, all of SMS’s shortcomings are often attributed to Signal itself, all while confusing people into thinking their SMS’s are secure.
  • zalebz 4y ago
    I'd start polishing up that resume. I was responsible for roughly a dozen Signal converts. They will all be uninstalling when this takes effect. It seems like everyone else in this thread is saying the same. Prepare for a mass exodus of users. None of us want to be responsible for training/tech support for how to use 2 messaging apps for non-technical users
• codethief 4y ago
  Many people have commented on why this is devastating news regarding future adoption of Signal. But there is a second part to the announcement that hasn't received a lot of attention yet: > If you want to keep them, you’ll also need to export your SMS messages from Signal into that new app. So that means my text messages will be removed from my Signal chat history? Put differently, considering how many of my contacts over the years switched between using Signal, not using Signal, and using Signal again, this means that parts of my conversations will suddenly be gone and conversations might suddenly be incoherent? I have trouble expressing just how angry I am about this change.
  • codethief 4y ago
    I stand corrected: https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-blog-removing-sms-support-from-signal-android-soon/47954/18 https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-blog-removing-sms... Still a bummer that support for SMS will be removed but now I'm at least a tiny bit relieved.
• _emacsomancer_ 4y ago
  The Molly[1] fork of Signal already removed SMS support. [1]: https://github.com/mollyim/mollyim-android https://github.com/mollyim/mollyim-android
• paulv 4y ago
  I pretty much only use the signal protocol to chat with my husband, who I convinced to install the app because I could help with any problems that arose. I'm not going to use one app to communicate with just him and another to communicate with everyone else, nor is he. The result of this change is that we will stop using signal all together. They've accomplished the exact thing they said they want to avoid.
• deeesstoronto 4y ago
  I've only found only one good option to unify messaging on android. Blackberry Hub will bring together SMS, WhatsApp, Signal, multiple emails, Instagram, etc.
• neilv 4y ago
  It'll be interesting to see how their user numbers change. (How many current users will it drive away? Or cause to use Signal less than before?) (How many new users will Signal acquire, because adoption network effects weren't working as well as possible, when messaging with non-Signal friends was too convenient, but now Signal users are more motivated to prod their non-Signal friends towards Signal?) And who's going to pick up the users that Signal loses?
• progman32 4y ago
  Glad I was immediately suspicious of the sms feature and decided to not use it. Seems to be an unpopular opinion, but I'm a big fan of compartmentalization when it comes to closed ecosystems. This change won't affect me or my sms chat history.
• anigbrowl 4y ago
  This decision is asinine and should be reversed. I have been using Signal for years. The ability to make it your default SMS client is one of the major drivers of adoption; if someone agrees that privacy matters, and you can point out that the transition to Signal is frictionless and offers all the same features as their existing SMS app, then installing, trying, and liking it become easy. I've brought hundreds of people onto Signal, and being able to give a simple 'yes' to questions about whether it handles SMS is almost always what 'seals the deal.' Signal is saying that mixing non-secure and secure messages in the same app might cause confusion and security fails, even though the difference is very clearly signalled. Their argument is bullshit. If users go back to separate messaging apps, chances are those apps will look much the same as Signal (which itself copies the look and feel of the iOS messaging app quite closely). There's a much bigger security risk from users forgetting that they are not in Signal and carelessly pasting & sending information that was supposed to be private or disappear. Additionally, it creates a bunch of new security risks, allowing third parties who gain possession of a phone to distinguish between conversations that happen over SMS and conversations that happen over Signal, drawing inferences that there is something untoward about the latter. I cannot understand the constantly changing, er, signals coming from Signal. One month they want to be just like every other messaging app and they're pushing features that hardly anyone has asked for, like sticker packs or crypto payments. Other times they say users are too paranoid for not wanting to expose their phone number/pop up messages about who in the user's address book has installed Signal. Today they're saying that wanting to use Signal for all your messaging needs is somehow anti-privacy. I find myself wishing it cost money or a small annual subscription so I could vote with my $, because the Signal foundation seems to spend more effort on telling its users that they're wrong than on listening to them.
  • velosol 4y ago
    The blog post is... lacking but they have some half-decent technical reasons at [1] if you're interested. [1]: https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-blog-removing-sms-support-from-signal-android-soon/47954/57 https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-blog-removing-sms...
• robotbikes 4y ago
  This is a frustrating change being proposed and I don't like how powerless I feel to stop it. I even started donating to Signal because I support what they have done but it will dramatically limit the usability of the app. Many people sign up for Signal and then never check it and so it was convenient to be able to send a insecure SMS message to them instead. The only possible benefit to this would be to break their dependence on using phone numbers as the way to sign up for accounts and possibly provide a reasonable way to export message data. Otherwise it just feels like the wrong decision and a reminder that Signal is not a community driven project but subject to arbitrary changes and provides no way to fork or disagree with the project lead as can be done with most free and open source software.
• willmacdonald 4y ago
  I had frequently ran into problems trying to receive SMS 2FA tokens using Signal. Had to switch back to the default app on Android.
• marktl 4y ago
  Disappointing
• Melcupa 4y ago
  Wow :-( Just a week ago I replaced the sms app with signal for two people. This was the main reason why I just installed signal and still use it vs telegram because of this exact feature :-( Come on signal what ya doing stop!
• technoooooost 4y ago
  Well there you have it, these crooks probably accepted a few million$ by the feds to kill the app.
• yolovoe 4y ago
  I'm sad. I actually donate to signal every month, but now that will likely stop and I'll have look for alternatives. Rip. This is definitely going to make it harder to get signal adoption. My partner will surely stop using it too now and I'll have to convince my friends to migrate to yet another platform.
• godelski 4y ago
  I see a lot of pushback against this but even WhatsApp doesn't have this feature. Signal is just a small team of hackers (like 2 dozen employees) fighting against big tech (thousands of employees/developers). They aren't going to be able to support everything big tech does and what big tech doesn't. It is a pick your battle thing. I do think Signal deserves a lot of criticism but I'm always amazed how a forum of programmers and highly tech literate users just trashes a small team of hackers fighting against big tech. They are open source. We are the ones that can help them. There are plenty of custom builds out there (that do access official Signal servers) and you can build this feature back in if you want. I don't think it is a problem if Signal decides it has more important features to support with their tiny team. But if you want more features you got to donate either time or money. This is "HACKER" news, so get hacking.
• black_puppydog 4y ago
  Oh no! I can see how this is a hassle to maintain though; just for example, my Huawei consistently resets the default sms app to the crappy stock one every time I use their "ultra battery saver mode" (which I otherwise like a lot) even though I explicitly included signal in the list of apps that are allowed to run in that mode. So I can see how the ecosystem makes this an annoying feature...
• alexb_ 4y ago
  I hope that the signal devs are looking at this thread and seriously considering reversing this horrendous decision. Just announcing this was a horrible idea, but you can at least salvage it by formally retracting it. Getting rid of SMS support would immediately and swiftly kill the app. I use Signal for the sole reason of having a secure messaging app that works with SMS. If you get rid of SMS support, you immediately kill the app. This is quite possibly the worst decision you could possibly make.
• krylon 4y ago
  I am not so much upset about the decision to remove SMS support, but about the reasons they give. It smells like a really lame excuse. But whatever. I only send and receive SMS very rarely these days, so I installed Silence on my phone. It's still annoying, though. Having one app for SMS and encrypted messaging was very convenient.
• mfuzzey 4y ago
  Do people still use SMS? I haven't for many years, for sending (except for one time I wanted to test a modem driver SMS function). I regularly use Signal, Telegram and Google chat and used to use whatsapp until it was banned by my employer but the only time I ever use SMS is to receive automatic authorisation SMSs
  • toastedwedge 4y ago
    My workplace uses SMS. There are also many people in the US who do not carry smartphones, either. So at least here it is still very much in use.
• forgotmypw17 4y ago
  This is the type of occurrence which leads me to refer to most user-service relationships as non-consensual. The user enters the relationship consensually, but the choices about the service's operations are done without the user's consent. In this case, the user's only choices are to either abandon the service, or to put up with the changes they did not consent to. In the future, with data portability being common and table stakes for most services, I think there will be a third option: seamless transition to a different service, preserving all data, metadata, relationships, and user accounts. This is already possible with existing, established technology: private keys, hashing, and text files. We have a bright future to look forward to, where this type of change will be perceived as old-fashioned and barbaric as surgery without anesthetic.
• subarctic 4y ago
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• martsa1 4y ago
  Feels like an odd move but whatever. Does anyone here have a good suggestion for an SMS app for Android?
• betwixthewires 4y ago
  I use a default SMS application for SMS anyway, it changes nothing for me. Now, if signal could get rid of the phone number requirement...
• aeturnum 4y ago
  Just to add to the frustrating elements of this shockingly bad decision: In my friend circle, at least, it's common for people to go in and out of using Signal. They might have had it on an old phone and forget to install it on the new phone. Whatever - life happens. Signal can't know if someone who used to have their number registered with Signal has stopped using it. Signal will still display them as a user and accept messages. It's been invaluable for me to be able, if I message a friend after a break in communication, to send a signal message...and then, if I don't get a response, a SMS message. If they respond to the SMS I can see in our history that they had signal and switched at some point. This change takes that away and will make it must more difficult to deal with inconsistent adopters.
• dig1 4y ago
  > We have now reached the point where SMS support no longer makes sense > ... > Now, data plans are cheaper and far more ubiquitous than they were nearly a decade ago I'm curious, are these guys lives in a bubble or what? I think they should try to travel around the world a bit. > we’ve heard repeatedly from people who’ve been hit with high messaging fees after assuming that the SMS messages they were sending were Signal messages, only to find out that they were using SMS, and being charged by their telecom provider. So in essence, they fuc*d up UI/UX and now the simplest approach to fix would be just to remove it. Sounds like a brilliant idea from an MBA guy or whatever-evangelist-title-is.
• alpaca128 4y ago
  Am I the only one who likes this change? I'm tired of explaining to my relatives why they can send their picture to one person but not to another, or why it requires wifi for some contacts. Mixing two incompatible messaging standards communicating via two different channels in one app is confusing for many people. Sure, it also has advantages and I think you could make it work, but the app actively asking users to make it the default SMS app is not a great idea.
  • Flimm 4y ago
    I read the blog post with delight. I have been waiting for this change for a long time. I opened HN comments to join in what I thought would be a celebration, and I was surprised to find dismay. It never occurred to me to encourage my friends to use Signal for its SMS compatibility, (which isn't even supported on iOS). The whole advantage of Signal is its security, and I hated having to recommend an app that is secure, except when it's not.
• nelblu 4y ago
  I understand SMS is not relevant outside of US/Canada. But since signal chose to remove this feature they just lost a regular donor.
• S201 4y ago
  This is an idiotic decision. There are real issues around improving the UX for making it more clear when a message was sent as SMS instead of being encrypted and dealing with the problem of undelivered messages because the recipient uninstalled the app, but to drop SMS support entirely instead of improving those pain points? Terrible, terrible decision.
• Mystery-Machine 4y ago
  Terrible decision. They have a nice blue branding. What they could've done instead is to show SMS messages as green bubbles and then we'd have: green bubbles / blue bubbles, just like with iMessage, except this time it works both on iOS _and_ Android. This might win them over more and more users. If they manage to make the UI and feature set as complete as iMessage, it would convince people to switch to Signal much much faster than Google's pity RCS bashing of Apple.
• dugite-code 4y ago
  Well this just killed signal for me. The only reason I got my close family switched over to signal at all was it's SMS support, now that only the family uses it none of the family will bother opening it. This trend of siloing functions into seperate apps is confusing and frustrating for regular users, especially elderly users like my mother "Just push this button you can text and call me and text any of your friends"
• loceng 4y ago
  Why aren't there laws requiring to stop this problem from being a problem?
• aaronsnoswell 4y ago
  FFS. I've been fighting uphill this past 5 years to get my colleagues, friends, and family onto Signal. This single decision will tank any hope I have of keeping them there. Literally the only reason I'm able to convince non-privacy advocate types to switch to Signal is because it is a drop-in replacement for their existing SMS application. This decision is idiotic and will cause a mass migration off the platform. Why not take a better approach and work on a better UX to make it clearer when a message thread is secure or not?
• khnov 4y ago
  Totally disappointed because of this. I convinced tons of my friends and family to use signal for theur all messages and sms and now what ! Me too I use it heavily for sms. They could just put another tab for sms and people would be happy.
• kornhole 4y ago
  This is great. People should never use the number associated to their SIM card anyway as it allows telcos and others to track location and more. You can switch your real number to a VOIP provider such as voip.ms and use Linphone or other app for SMS. Use burner sims you pay for with cash such as Mint Mobile and only activate/use them away from home network when needed. If Signal does enable creating accounts with non-identifiable user names instead of phone number, then it will be a great improvement and a protocol that can be used for activists.
• corndoge 4y ago
  This is a really terrible idea, and the reasoning doesn't make much sense. The three reasons given are all the same reason which is "users aren't sure whether they are sending SMS or signal messages" and is purely a UX problem. Reason 1 and 2: Users can be confused by whether a message is SMS or Signal and this is bad for security, backed with "there's only so much we can do on the design side"...really? At what point do you sacrifice the convenience of the masses in order to get through to people who don't understand that a message that says "SMS" on it is sent over SMS? Hell, turn SMS bubbles bright red or something, that would be better than removing the feature. Reason 2: Users can be confused by whether a message is SMS or signal and thus end up incurring charges - I thought about this for 5 seconds and came up with a solution - ask the user whether they ever want to send SMS through the signal app when they first open it and respect that preference. Make it a setting. Boom, if you are using signal you know you're going over data. Or is the response to that that users are too dumb to understand it? I'm positive there is a good solution here. This decision just doesn't make any sense and it's probably obvious to the people working on signal that it doesn't make sense, I wonder what the decision process looked like here.
  • brainbag 4y ago
    Even non-technical users understand the difference between a blue and a green message on iPhone. There's no reason they could not have made a clear visual distinction with icons or messages or something.
• weird-eye-issue 4y ago
  I use Signal because it's a better SMS client and being able send/receive messages without a SIM card to my family is nice when traveling. Encryption is like a distant nice to have for me and I'm sure this is true for many others
• zalebz 4y ago
  I have nothing new to add other than to simply parrot what has been said a few hundred times above. This is a terrible decision. It took significant effort to convert close friends and family to signal and was only palatable due to it becoming the default messaging app on Android. Not only will I be likely to field a ton of tech support once this occurs, I'll also likely need to recommend a completely different app. Looks like I might just bite the bullet and buy iPhones for my immediate family (without icloud imessage backup)
• fooqux 4y ago
  I'll add my fuel to the fire, just in case somebody from Signal goes through these comments. This is a horrid decision. Everyone above already covered the reasons why better than I could.
• mlindner 4y ago
  The idea of having non-encrypted and encrypted messages in the same app is patently absurd. I didn't know they were doing this on Android.
• stereoradonc 4y ago
  • angry_octet 4y ago
    This is disinformation.
• angry_octet 4y ago
  When people complained that adding emojis and animated gifs was adding attack surface, Signal (moxie) said that it was required to build the user base, providing more security to all by providing more chaff via moving more people off SMS. And now they want to kill user engagement by forcing people to use a special app? What a boneheaded move. WhatsApp is going to pick up lots of users.
• 4oo4 4y ago
  For anyone that's upset about this, don't focus on the SMS vs. Signal messages UI distinction giving as the primary reason. That's something a simple UX change could improve and does not justify something so radical. There's probably another reason they are doing this, these are my best guesses: - Feature parity between Android, iOS and Desktop - Moving towards Signal accounts tied to usernames instead of phone numbers - Developer resources (unlikely, since this feature has existed since the beginning and probably requires less maintenance than other features, but I'd pay for a subscription if they kept it) Whatever the real reason is, make them say so, the reason given is extremely flimsy. If they go through with this it will put lives in danger for people like activists, journalists, and anyone crossing a border who depend on their SMS messages being encrypted at rest (despite SMS not being end-to-end encrypted in transit). Using Signal instead of a different SMS app also prevents other apps from reading your SMS messages. Test this out - switch your default SMS away from Signal and sign into an app requiring SMS verification, and that SMS is probably readable by the app without any interaction on your part. Cue the Apple-ish response of them saying they're listening while not taking any of their users' valid concerns seriously at all. Very disappointed in them.
• j3s 4y ago
  signal handling sms feels so good and natural, I almost can't believe they're nuking it. ugh.
• zeagle 4y ago
  My god, so much good will burnt in my family and friends circle switching to Signal and now this. As a plus I went to the google play store (in Canada) to install google messages to anticipate this change on my wife's phone and the top result is 'Messages' which is a 3rd party app with ads and 1 million + installs. It also has a blue icon similar to the official Messages app. Nowhere does it say it isn't by Google until you scroll the to bottom and click on Developer contact to learn it's made by some rando @ gmail.com...
• rektide 4y ago
  Signal has the worst product sensibility of any company I've ever seen. Dropping the Chrome Extension was a major quality of life dip for me, made Signal far less usable across systems. Their insistence that they didnt feel it was up to their desired quality offered me no comfort; it worked, it was easy, and you tool it away. Signal refusing to allow scripting, or an API, or any option at all for expanding user agency sucks. They have voice messages but to my knowledge you cant preview the message at all. I dont even know if you can abort sending it once you start? This company had such an early lead but they keep doubling dowm on the most detached, conceited ridiculous plans, few of which benefit the user. It's embarassing. It'd be so nice if there were some mandatory protocol in telephony that let people declare other systems they support; add someone's phone number and see their XMPP, email, irc, and mumble contact info. It's absurdly difficult for people to make known their contact info; Signals sms integration was a killer feature that seamlessly put them atop the telecomm heirarchy, but here the stupid fools are, killing that killer feature & what got them this marketshare.
• stjohnswarts 4y ago
  I think this is an instance of choosing religion over pragmatism and it will cost Signal a lot of users, possibly all of them.
  • IsNotNull 4y ago
    "Possibly all of them". A huge chunk of Signal users won't have ever used the SMS feature so why would they leave?
• asojfdowgh 4y ago
  IMO this is good. Blocking users from RCS, [while obviously no where near as good as signal, is still far better than SMS] has been a flaw in how signal has handled things
• meta-level 4y ago
  It's so very obvious that removing SMS support for "security reasons" is just as saying "please store your insecure SMS plaintext with your stock messages application or better just use WhatsApp for that again". It makes me wonder if there might also be another reason. Legal issues (encryption, governments, etc)? If not: please Signal guys - that's just a step back. People who write SMS won't stop writing SMS, you just allow another party to do whatever is good for them. And searching through _all_ messages is really a big thing for some of us. Why not just add some awareness items - visible eyes and ears and dollar signs, together with the information what information is given away and that this might cost money?
• b_m_x 4y ago
  For a starter, i don't rembember having a choice to replace the default messaging app with signal when i installed it. Also don't remember any settings to split it back to default messaging. It has always been All-In-Signal or no-Signal-at-all, and no user choice. Am-I wrong here?
• psteinweber 4y ago
  This will be missed and was a really nice growth hack. The following scenario just worked so well: - Setting up phone for relatives - Replacing Android Messages with Signal - “So this is the App to send and receive SMS, and you can also send me and many others secure and free messages on there” My optimism for Signal becoming mainstream just faded...
• pvapins 4y ago
  [dead]
• afroboy 4y ago
  This news will affect only USA users badly not the rest of the world since they don't use SMS as a way to communicate.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• b_mc2 4y ago
  This seems opposite to what their new president said last month: "From the beginning, the team behind Signal put people and their needs at the core of their commitments. They understood that iron-clad security is fairly pointless if people can’t use, access, or feel comfortable with it. In other words, if my friends won’t use a messaging app, it doesn’t work as a messaging app. It works as a thought experiment, at best. Understanding this, Signal’s developers and designers created an app that honors people’s needs and expectations, while maintaining strict privacy promises."[1] I'll echo the other comments here talking about network effects, onboarding friction, and social capital wasted convincing friends/family. [1] https://signal.org/blog/announcing-signal-president/ https://signal.org/blog/announcing-signal-president/
• ConSeannery 4y ago
  I suggest providing feedback directly to them via this form: https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/requests/new https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/requests/new
• Jenny_Wengerd0 4y ago
• jlkuester7 4y ago
  Imagine a world where Signal supported 3rd party apps on an open protocol.... This would be no big deal. I find myself very glad to have focused my efforts on moving family and friends into the Matrix ecosystem instead of Signal. Not that Matrix is perfect, but I don't have to worry about the rug getting pulled out from under my feet. :(
• iseanstevens 4y ago
  I just wish there were some way to back up my messages on iOS. Their built in transfer doesn’t work. Luckily it didn’t delete all my messages like it did to my friend :/
• aqwsde 4y ago
  The next step in ruining Signals reputation. They just keep on bugging.