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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
by 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 agoYes, 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 agoThe 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 agoThere are surely ways around this that don't limit the functionality of the application
- dylan604 4y agoAs if Signal couldn't change the color of the text bubbles to some shade of, let's just say, green, to indicate when a user is chatting via SMS instead of a Signal secured message.
- busymom0 4y agoCouldn’t they just do something like have the sms messages in a different color than the rest? Similar to how iOS used blue for iMessage and green for texts? Signal could use an annoying red color for sms to make it even more clear.
- nazgulsenpai 4y agoI've been using QKSMS on Android 12 and haven't had any problems in about a year of use. I think its on Google Play as well. https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=com.moez.QKSMS https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=com.moez.QKSMS
- _-david-_ 4y agoLast commit was a year ago. Do you know if it is still being developed?
- nazgulsenpai 4y agoI'm not sure, but I haven't had any issues or want any more features than it already has so it's not an problem for me, but might be for some.
- daedalus_j 4y agoDoesn't look good... https://github.com/moezbhatti/qksms/issues/1881 https://github.com/moezbhatti/qksms/issues/1881
- jmcphers 4y agoThe Google Messages app is pretty good. It's a little thing, but it's the only app that supports tapbacks from iOS -- so on the (many) group threads I'm on that have iPhone users, I can see loves/like reactions instead of a flood of texts that say "Jane Doe loved an image".
- LtWorf 4y agoIt's terrible. Every once in a while they decide to convince me that I really don't want to be sending an SMS but I want to use google's messenger of the month, that will inevitably be gone next month.
- MAGZine 4y ago+1 google messages. rcs support works well, the emoji reactions are good. the web ui for it is pretty alright. I use the quick responses and scheduled send from time to time. and it cleans up my 2fa codes automatically. Also, it now sends emoji reactions over sms which is a nice little graceful degredation from sms.
- metamet 4y agoI also use the "messages for web" sync that Google Messages offer: https://messages.google.com/web/ https://messages.google.com/web/ Really convenient to be able to respond to texts without having to take out my phone.
- Markoff 4y agoPulse SMS is really good, but I blacklisted updates since they were bought in 2020 https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/10/29/it-looks-like-pulse-sms-has-been-bought-by-maple-media-get-ready-for-intrusive-ads/ https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/10/29/it-looks-like-pulse... QKsms is open source but abandoned more than a year, so I guess Simple SMS at Fdroid should be ok, it's from the guy behind Simple Gallery
- evandale 4y agoI've been using Chomp SMS a long time and it's still being updated.
- cannam 4y agoYeah, I like Chomp. As I recall, I first installed it because it had an optional emoji pack with the old blob emojis in it, which I was miffed to have had taken away from me in an Android update.
- neogodless 4y agoPosted elsewhere in this thread but... 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 Also surprised me the other day when a friend used an iOS reaction, and it applied it correctly on my end. > Added support for Reactions (also known as Tapbacks) received from iOS Apple devices.
- davchana 4y agoI am also using it on both devices, and I also paid for it using Google Opinion Credits :) Textra is an amazing SMS app.
- rtcoms 4y agoSMS Organizer by Microsoft https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.android.smsorganizer&hl=en_IN&gl=US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft....
- DesiLurker 4y agoshudder
- whoibrar 4y agoBeen using this for years, I really like the Updates and finances tab. https://i.imgur.com/hUABKGr.jpg https://i.imgur.com/hUABKGr.jpg
- genpfault 4y agohttps://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.simplemobiletools.smsmessenger/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.simplemobiletools.smsmes... ?
- Stamp01 4y agoThis is what I'm switching to. I would have suggested Textra, but when I downloaded it just now, TrackerControl told me there are a bunch of tracking libraries in it. Simple SMS Messenger, on the other hand, not only doesn't have any tracking libraries, but doesn't ask for internet access! I've used other tools in the Simple suite and I love them. Although I like using F-Droid, this app is also available on the regular Play Store as well.
- Stamp01 4y agoUpdate: I switched back to Textra because Simple SMS lacked a way to see timestamps for arbitrary messages. It will show occasional times when a message was received with some lull between it and the previous message. Otherwise, the timestamps are a mystery. I don't like that.
- autoexec 4y agoSilence is like a less polished version of Signal. The only important feature I really think it's lacking is a search function. You can export your texts to an XML file though, so to find something from a long time ago I just export to a file and use grep to search through that.
- grammers 4y agoThis. I've switched to iOS recently and I hate that I need two apps now. Already longing to go back to Android.
- aendruk 4y agoWhen I switched from Android to iOS this was the number one technical regression, and for years my go-to example of nice things Apple keeps from us. It’s unbelievable how Signal is sabotaging itself here.
- dontlaugh 4y agoYou need WhatsApp anyway, you’ll have several apps whatever you do.
- nobody9999 4y ago>You need WhatsApp anyway, you’ll have several apps whatever you do. Do I? Not being snarky here, I just really don't understand why I need WhatsApp. No one I know uses WhatsApp to communicate with me. No business I deal with uses WhatsApp to communicate with me. In fact, I'm not sure what value WhatsApp provides as I've never used it. I'd appreciate it if you'd elucidate on your point. Mostly because if you're correct, I'm obviously missing something extremely important.
- aidenn0 4y agoMy understanding is that in many places outside the US it's near-universal. I've never used it myself either.
- dontlaugh 4y agoI suppose it depends where you are. I’m in Europe. Almost everyone I message with defaults to WhatsApp, or even insists on it. A few also have Signal or Facebook Messenger or iMessage. SMS is only for notifications and such. Even some businesses default to WhatsApp.
- aendruk 4y ago
- Waterluvian 4y agoThere's another reason for iOS users to avoid Signal: It eats up Gigabytes of storage space, refuses to ever clear it, and the devs are rather resistant to accepting that it's even a problem at all: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/4916 https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/4916
- JustSomeNobody 4y agoWeird. Signal is my primary messaging app (on iOS) and I'm sitting at 196MB storage used.
- adfm 4y agoSince there’s no server storing media, consider saving the stuff you want and dumping all the old photos and video you don’t. It’s a more secure communication tool, not an archive.
- Y-bar 4y agoYeah, that would be nice. But an export-import. Or any backup function whatsoever is sorely missing on iOS.
- xeromal 4y agoPeople usually want both and that's what causes most people to ignore good tools.
- cassonmars 4y agoDoing so comes at a cost to privacy — by signal having a hosting server, even if the contents are E2EE, retrieving and storing these contents creates a metadata trail. I actually go over these drawbacks and tradeoffs in a recent blog post: https://cassieheart.substack.com/p/notes-on-e2ee https://cassieheart.substack.com/p/notes-on-e2ee
- anigbrowl 4y agoWho said anything about a hosting server? Why isn't there a simple option to export a conversation to local storage, encrypted or unencrypted, along with a warning that 'your conversation is now leaving the secure Signal zone.'
- ndsipa_pomu 4y agoThe biggest issue I can see with using two separate apps is checking who's on Signal and who isn't. That means opening up Signal to see if they're on there and then switching to SMS if they aren't. I much prefer having both types of contacts in the same UI and it's been obvious to me which messages are secure. Also, when someone then joins Signal, subsequent messages to them automatically get upgraded to being secure with no effort on my part.
- CommitSyn 4y agoYes... Unless it's able to somehow alert you that you're texting someone with Signal, it seems like Signal will be phased out because everyone will default to SMS, unless they have a reason to use Signal for a conversation, which hurts the entire privacy ecosystem.
- godelski 4y agoPeople often complain about the alert that you get when one of your contacts joins Signal but this is exactly what that attempts to solve
- fwn 4y agoThere was a time when contacts that use Signal were listed above contacts that are only reachable through SMS. Those two groups of contacts then got mixed making it much harder to see who's on Signal and who isn't. Back then I thought that was deliberate. It would be surprising to me, if the desire to avoid that self-inflicted confusion would have contributed to the decision to discontinue SMS support.
- godelski 4y agoIf I click the new message button I only see Signal contacts.
- Krasnol 4y ago...and there I am here in Germany where nobody seems to use SMS anymore. I couldn't care less about this.
- groestl 4y agoDidn't even realize there was SMS built into Signal (apart from the "Invite via SMS" screen once in a while).
- jhoechtl 4y agoAustrians don't care too. I can't understand who and why anyone cares about SMS these day, besides receiving government emergency notifications.
- maratc 4y agoPhone-based 2FA hasn't got to Austria yet?
- dopa42365 4y agoMost sites and platforms use HOTP/TOTP (RFC 4226/RFC 6238) for 2FA, use an authenticator app of your choice. Regardless of that, you can still always receive SMS for the 3 outdated services that still use it.
- maratc 4y agoInteresting. What do they do with the grandpa/grandma population who have neither an idea nor the skills for "RFC 4226/RFC 6238"? (As my friend used to ironically say: "Is your grandma so senile that she can't type `configure; make; make install`?")
- berndinox 4y agoNot via SMS, anymore
- Krasnol 4y ago
- NoGravitas 4y agoEvery friend using iOS that I've convinced to use Signal has uninstalled it. They stay registered, though, so I have to notice that my messages aren't reaching them, and re-send as SMS.
- caf 4y agoYes, this is a massive pain.
- nicholasjarnold 4y agoI agree completely here. This is terrible news from my perspective too. I use Signal for _all messaging_ (e2e secure or not) for the reasons that you mention. I've onboarded friends and family, too, ensuring them it should be set as their default messaging app and that it _just works_. Unfortunately, people in the general population seem to have pretty much zero tolerance for any friction whatsoever. If they have to use 2 apps, they'll just end up communicating with me in the clear using their "default SMS" app on their phone. That's what this is going to result it...a reduction in overall message security due to people defaulting to what's easier...which is to _not_ have to remember which app to use for which "send a message" purpose. Fuck. I understand the argument about people in markets where SMS is expensive getting screwed sometimes when they don't realize they're sending a message over SMS. However could that not be fairly trivially solved for with some UI notification or app setting that warns you about this and allows the warning to be perm-disabled if the user doesn't care!? I think the real reason here is this desire to transition the service into supporting usernames, which is a topic that's been discussed before (and is explicitly mentioned in the post). Right now the service is tied to your phone number. After this change I suspect it will not be or not need to be. This is very, very unfortunate for those of us who've convinced a ton of non-technical friends and family to use TextSecure->Signal over the years...
- nextos 4y agoI don't like some of the decisions taken by Signal. However, if "dropping support for SMS messaging also frees up our capacity to build new features (yes, like usernames)", I think it is something I would not miss. Besides, I agree with them on the point that SMS leak metadata.
- anigbrowl 4y agoBut that's just a bullshit promise (in the sense of not being anchored to any commitment), no different from a politician saying some policy initiative will create jobs because that's how the economy works. SMS does leak metadata but guess what, that leakage is going to continue because people aren't going to just cut off their SMS-only-using friends and relatives. Now they'll be leaking Metadata from an even less secure app, so the user is in no way better off.
- godelski 4y ago> I have repeatedly been unable to convince iOS users to use Signal because "I don't want another app". Here's how I've convinced my iPhone friends. I tell them if they actually want to send pictures and videos to me that aren't potato quality they can either switch to an Android, email me, or use Signal. At this point Signal is more like a cross platform iMessage. This tends to move people over because Apple's walled garden makes group chats infeasible with mixed devices.
- fsflover 4y agoSignal is another walled garden, where you have no say in their decisions and simply must obey or leave. Consider Matrix if you want to have the freedom.
- the_other 4y ago> I have repeatedly been unable to convince iOS users to use Signal We don't seem to have this problem so bad in the UK/Europe. Most people I know have WhatsApp and/or Telegram, and FB messenger, and Signal (in my friend circles); all alongside SMS. I have very few iMessage groups, and use it mostly for 1to1 SMS with people I don't know well.
- iudqnolq 4y agoThe only reason this isn't a dealbreaker for me is because their sms implementation was so buggy and feature-poor that I would never have used it. (The only reason I use signal is to talk to my girlfriend. The only reason we use it is early in our relationship I was going through a phase where I adopted annoying privacy tools. I wanted to abandon it, but after years of using it she's developed positive emotional associations between our relationship and signal, so for non-technical reasons she likes to keep using it just to talk to me)
- chrononaut 4y ago> The only reason this isn't a dealbreaker for me is because their sms implementation was so buggy and feature-poor that I would never have used it. It took me a long time to find this comment. The number of SMS messages I never received was ridiculous. I still use the app all the time, but would never use the integrated SMS messages ever again.
- wildzzz 4y agoI used to use WhatsApp with my girlfriend because I had awful cell service at work but did have wifi. We switched to Signal and have been using it for years. She only talks to me on it and iMessage for everything else but I use it for SMS too. We would literally get into arguments sometimes because she wouldn't see SMS messages I'd send her with my one bar of 3G or they would be out of order and cause confusion. I love having all of my conversations in one app. I really like Signal and if this change goes through, it might make me seriously consider just getting an iPhone next time.
- betwixthewires 4y agoThis "I don't want another app" thing is senseless to me. Why? What does it hurt having more than one communication channel? In my experience people that say this generally have no space on their phone, usually because of an unfettered willingness to install the taco bell app and the Starbucks app and whatever else. Their underlying reasoning is correct. SMS sucks, really really bad. They're a secure communications channel. People see signal and think they're secure. Signal has no business supporting SMS. The on boarding has reached critical mass, the neyworke effect is here. If you're smart you'll abandon SMS altogether forever and just tell people to reach you some other way, not ditch the actual, over the internet encrypted channel.
- dugite-code 4y ago> This "I don't want another app" thing is senseless to me. Why? My elderly mother pushes one button to text me and everyone else anything else is a show stopper, End of story.
- inamorty 4y agoMy elderly mother uses Whatsapp, signal and element. They're all the same.
- caf 4y agoMaybe in the circles you move, saying "Sorry, I don't SMS, you'll have to download this other app to message me" would fly, but I for one have to interact with a lot of people for which it would not.
- betwixthewires 4y agoI have SMS, right, you kind of have to have a phone number, but to me it's legacy support, I pay for the mobile data. I'll do SMS as a sort of fallback. The people you want to send you SMS like companies that need your phone number can't do SMS, and the ones you'd rather message you elsewhere sometimes insist on SMS. It's annoying.
- cam_l 4y agoI have got all my friends / family using signal, but everyone else I know and everyone else they know are using SMS or whatever. They will no doubt stop checking their signal messages from me same as iPhone users often do and I will have to change to insecure messages for all my messaging. This will break their trust in my recommendation, as much as it will break my trust in signal. I get the reasoning over this, but I think they fail to realise that interoperability is the most important feature. I will have to stop donating to signal over this change, it will be useless to me...
- kanbara 4y agomeanwhile, i, on iOS and all my friends use Signal together ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- stefandesu 4y ago> but I also like being able to keep my message history around and search my conversations for something that happened a year ago I'm dreading the day where I lose or break my iPhone and thus lose my Signal chat history. I've been using Signal for years, but this makes me still prefer other messengers when starting new chats, even if Telegram (for example) is not e2e encrypted. (Unfortunately, I've long overcome the "I don't want another app" thing and just installed all the messaging apps. Although I kind of want to look into setting up Matrix bridges and merging everything into Element.)
- wink 4y agoI honestly don't remember when I sent or received the last SMS that was not the telco's "Welcome to $country, the rates are ...". I.e. I don't have a strong opinion on this, I simply do not use SMS.
- midmagico 4y agoAt least you can do backups.