As a basic sms user, is RCS the reason my conversations now sometimes get flooded with messages like, “so-and-so loved this”?
Yup
If you’re on Android, the Textra app handles most of the emojis on messages without needing RCS. Sadly it still doesn’t work with reactions to images yet.
Looks like scamware, only available on Play Store, and it doesn’t look like it’s open-source. I wouldn’t go near that.
Textra was the go-to SMS app for quite a while in the enthusiast community. I don’t know what happened to it in the last few years though.
Textra claims Google is the reason they don’t have RCS support, something along the lines of locked out of the protocol?
RCS is not an open protocol. Never was. Otherwise every other SMS app would have already implemented it.
As a rule, I don’t use proprietary software unless I have to. So from my perspective it may as well not exist.
Why? You aren’t confortable with a random guy developing an app having access to your conversations or to your 2FA codes from your bank?
TBF I used it for a couple of years, tho I don’t anymore. It’s a good app. Didn’t get robbed or murdered.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! I’ve been busy, ok?!? Now if you could stop moving, I can’t aim!!
Quik, an open source SMS app on FDroid, handles this already without needing a specific OSes RCS.
Unless there is something fundamental thats wrong with Quik and its development, I dont see why one would be excited about another vendor specific solution. Quik works on any degoogled android, not just Graphene.
I might try Quik again at some point, but to be honest I don’t care enough about sms messaging apps to go beyond the default one usually. I think I remember I stopped using Quik because at least at the time it didn’t have link previews, which is a hell of a lot more convenient to me than emoji react buttons.
This would be great. Definitely one of the few missing features.
Honestly the best news I’ve seen in a while. It was RCS that drove me back to stock android. I’ll be switching back to Graphene as soon as this lands.
Excellent! Since Signal removed SMS support there’s no trusted app supporting old SMS and encrypted messaging on one UI
That old behavior of Signal confused what was encrypted and what isn’t.
It really didn’t. Blue messages encrypted, green not encrypted. There was nothing confusing there
I agree, it was a huge bummer that they removed it. Their reasoning didn’t quite make sense for me.
I think a huge selling point was that it wasn’t one more app to message with, you could just replace your SMS app and if your contacts also had Signal, your messages would be encrypted. Very simple proposition.
SMS is not to be trusted because it is plain text and full of vulnerabilities.
I know. But I still need it whether I want it or not.
I have a limited data plan, so the only way I can communicate when I’m not on WiFi is by good ol’ fashioned text and call.
If you’re only sending text messages (no voice memos, stickers, photos or videos), you’re data plan should never be an issue when using Signal.
however SMS doesn’t need a data connection, just a mobile signal, so as an emergency backup type of communication it’s great
Very much needed.
This has been missing for yearsI switched away from e/OS for this very reason. As much as I hate SMS based communications it just isn’t practical to ditch them completely in the US. It’s simply too widespread.
you got only RCS available, no old school SMS? I was relieved I exited the Google’s RCS.
SMS/MMS was working but only with individual conversations. Any group messages would fail. RCS is supposed to fall back on MMS when some recipients can’t use RCS but something about the handshake was broken and it never would do that. I spent two months trying to sort it out and I never could.
It’ll be a while I’m sure, but I’m here for it 🙌🏾
The number of Europeans in here acting like What’s App, which might as well be Facebook Messenger, is some sort of high road is hilarious.
Yeah I still don’t get why people use or promote WhatsApp. If anything, use Signal or even Telegram
You can’t use Signal or Telegram because your contacts are on WhatsApp, but yes WhatsApp might as well be called Facebook Messenger
Your contacts weren’t always on WhatsApp, stop using it and if they want to talk to you enough they’ll join a better platform. Maybe just keep sending them links every day about how trash WhatsApp and Meta are until they get the point lmao
Already did that, and after two years I’m back on WhatsApp. Everytime you do something at least a bit social it will be a WhatsApp group, you can refuse of course, but believe me, unless it’s really close friends no one is going to put the extra effort to reach you.
I have thought this for years. Everyone slimes on Americans for using iMessage and asks who no WhatsApp? Same reason I’m not on facebook, don’t use a meta quest, and don’t use instagram.
While Whatsapp is not great, the problem with iMessage is that it is (was?) locked exclusively to the apple platform
Yeah, thats the main issue with imessage (and it still is) and if your switching from IOS to android, you have to start over on all of your messages unless if you figure out a way to back them up.
It’s not a good solution, but from a meme in c/selfhosting i learned that through the price of a used mac mini (about $120 at that time) you can selfhost iMessage on mac, and selfhost a 3rd party free software called Bluebubbles, which, as far as i can tell, uses Google and Cloudflare services to convey the iMessages to your Android phone.
I’m sure it is a privacy nightmare. But the shunning for not having iMessage from my own family was getting to me, real or imagined.
You’re not self-hosting iMessage. It’s just a bridge between your device and Apple’s iMessage network.
You are self hosting iMessage – you have a machine you own (mac mini) running the iMessage application 24-7, so you can access it on your own client (Android phone).
It’s self hosting a proprietary service with some middleware to access it on the device of your choosing.
That is just so overly complicated, i would rather just start them over🤣🤣
What do you mean exactly start over? If you don’t have iMessage, you can’t talk to other people with iMessage.
I’ve never had a problem starting over. Used to custom ROM hope back in the day and start with a fresh Android release on the cyanogenmod nightly releases.
There is nothing in my iMessage that I would be sad to lose moving to Android.
WhatsApp does not commit the sin of not having cross platform support at all, it is genuinely the most pratical and easy to use proprietary IM solution besides the network effect
People will always trade privacy for ease of use.
Telegram are you kidding me?? Telegram is a thousand times worse than WhatsApp pal
Not even close lol. The sooner we stop using meta shit the better.
While I agree with you that Meta must die, saying that Telegram is any way better than WhatsApp is, I’m sorry to say, either delusion or extreme ignorance.
It’s not encrypted. At all. The company has full access to everything on it.
It’s also russian and actively used to spy on users by the russian FSB (FBI equivalent, kind of).
To be more accurate: Telegram is totally unecrypted by default, unless one chooses to enter a “secret chat”, in which case you use its proprietary encryption. As such its better suited for public group chats and not for anything that needs to critical privacy, but to say it has zero encryption options is not correct.
As for “Russian”, while its CEO was born in Russia, and made his cash to initially fund it from the Russian social media VK, he has lived outside of Russia for a decade now, and Telegram is head quartered in the United Arab Emirates, with servers installed globally.
It is, and he has, but if you’re following what’s going on in the RUvsUA war, you can see that the authorities are absolutely using Telegram to identify dissenters and leaks.
Nah, Signal or Threema
And Briar or Cwtch
The inertia is real.
I tried to switch over a group of friends and got rebuffed because one of them really likes Whatsapp’s transcription feature. Signal doesn’t offer it. Nobody else cared.
Telegram is worse than even Whatsapp, since it’s not even pretending to be end to end encrypted.
The real choice is signal or threema.
Or something equally secure and also decentralized like Briar or Cwtch.
The number of Eastern Europeans pretending Viber is everything is insane
I work with a lot of European teams and they always make me use WhatsApp. I hate it.
Literally everyone should just use Signal. I really don’t understand why we all don’t.
Because Signal requires a phone number.
But so does SMS, so signal is just a straight upgrade as an alternative.
Because people stick with the default. There was a time people I know would try different messaging apps but after hangouts got canceled nobody wants to bother.
I use Signal via Molly and as @lka1988@sh.itjust.works points out, there’s friction in getting users to on to it. But also the UX isn’t even as good as WhatsApp let alone Telegram.
Telegram’s UI fucking blows. I use Telegram on occasion, but only to follow a handful of software projects that inexplicably only distribute release notes via Telegram 🫥
Signal’s UI is exactly as one would expect. Open it and you have a list of chats. Tap a chat and it opens. Done.
Telegram has been winning awards for their UI since inception. WhatsApp has basically mimicked it. Signal has gone in its own direction which suits 40 year old geeks who use Lemmy, but the actual masses…
Come on, can we at least pretend to have the self-awareness to know what we like isn’t conducive to how the masses use these apps.
It’s like how people on Reddit use to try and say that front facing cameras were useless and so they want small phones without them. 😮💨
I used signal offical app and honestly it has a good UI and UX, what does it lack? What seems bad? I don’t understand
what ui? there is a namelist, a call icon, a message icon. what in the hell do you need?
one thing missing is support for Android Tablets, its pissing my GF off on her Samsung Tablet and yet it works for my mother on her ipad ffs
Because Signal 1) doesn’t ship as default, and 2) requires a login process.
You’ve already lost the majority of the general public with #1. The Venn diagram of people who go through with #2 and the people who already know about Signal is nearly a complete circle.
But the same is true for WhatsApp…
You see, the problem is that whatsapp came very early, when it released it wasn’t shit and it provided free messages which in many european countries wasn’t a thing yet, everyone hopped on it and used it as main communication platform, this created a big ass network effect that is nearly unescapeable, even today i can’t escape from it because i am the only idiot who uses Signal and Matrix and no one wants to leave whatsapp because they already have an account and all their contacts
- Dropping SMS support made sense from a security standpoint but slaughtered adoption
- When the central server eshittifies, we’ll all have to switch again.
I don’t even understand how dropping sms support improved security, was it the code required for making it work (I know sms is fairly little on android and remember mms is a pain in the ass) or just because “confusion” about having insecure and secure communications right next to each other?
The latter. I think it was a huge mistake. Now the phone numbers just worsen privacy.
Signal is pretty great and I use it at least a little myself, but it’s not necessarily perfect. The big elephant that’s always been in the room is its dependence on one backend and the fact they’re based in the US.
Different threat models call for different approaches, and every option has tradeoffs.
2 weeks now on Graphene. This is what a phone OS should be, simple, boring, juste the basics without a shit-ton of bloatware and spying crap.
This has been available since forever, though. Cyanogenmod/LineageOS was the biggest. Oneplus followed along and I love my OP15, though that’s coming to a bitter end
Lineage pales in comparison to what cyanogenmod was
Lineage was forked from the remains of CM. Without Lineage, CM would have died and faded from memory already.
Lol, lineage did nothing to stop that
Having used both extensively, what? I’ve seen very little difference between the two, and if anything Lineage has become more refined and stable compared to Cyanogen over the years.
The CM theme manager alone was leagues better than anything Lineage is doing these days. CM enabled things like 720p recording on Nexus One, before the stock camera. Hacked in multitouch on devices that didn’t properly support it. Features like the camera flashlight we take for granted today. The notification shade quick menus. Hell the majority of the android UI/UX was pioneered on Cyanogenmod, it’s actually insane how much customizability and custom features that were available. Then it got gobbled up by AOSP and/or PixelOS and dumbed down for end users. Remember touchwiz? There’s a reason Cyanogen got picked up by Samsung. Their android builds are actually good now. To the point that I prefer a lot of their UX flows over stock. If you told me that in 2013 I would have laughed in your face.
I daily drove Lineage for 2 years and honestly couldn’t name a single feature it provided me other than root access and failing Google’s play integrity checks + breaking my tap to pay.
My pixel 7 broke but am still getting a OP15 becasue I can’t stand google shit anymore, even paid an $150 for it. I figure the hardware isnt going to get better and OP15 is probably the best its gonna get for a few years anyways.
Insane that google can sell such an inferior product for the same or greater price.
So sad that OP15 wont get a reboot. These phones are the last bit of the pre-surveillance era.
So sad that OP15 wont get a reboot.
Why would it? It just came out less than a year ago.
I have high hopes for the new Motorola line. They also worked with Graphene to become even more compliant than Pixels.
Pixel 11 made itself less compliant than its predecessor so GrapheneOS won’t support it.
Where will you go after 1+?
I’m considering the new Motorola line, but I have no clue
Cyanogenmod and LineageOS have always felt like hacks upon hacks and always had something broken. While I have my gripes with GOS it’s truly the first time since I have had a custom ROM that just works through and through.
This is what a phone OS should be
Quite literally how my wife puts it. She’s been using Graphene on a Pixel 9 Pro XL for a few months now. Even with the hurdles of moving to an entirely different platform and the weirdness that comes with the extra security (not playing nice with some services), she vastly prefers it over her previous Apple stuff, to the point she wants me to wipe MacOS off of her iMac and install Linux.
bro trust me, its one more msg app, it is gonna solve everything, just one more bro
RCS is a protocol, not an app
Just one more protocol extension bro it’s gonna fix everything
I hope it’s functionally installable on other versions of android
Nah, it would be insecure (still more secure than defaults and way too secure for most users)
I read installable and instable, I was like 🫠
I hope it can finally bring this piece of shit messaging protocol to Linux phones so my friends and family know when I read a message
You can always use Waydroid
If you phone is X:
https://github.com/1999AZZAR/use-waydroid-on-x11#installing-a-nested-wayland-compositor
you do realise that rcs only works on unrooted stock google-certified android with a locked bootloader? that’t the whole reason grapheneos is making their own FOSS implementation
rcs only works on unrooted stock google-certified android with a locked bootloader
Uh no? It literally works on GrapheneOS. https://grapheneos.org/usage#rcs
I think you’re confusing this with Google Pay, which only works on Google-certified systems.
Just move them to signal :)
i can barely get them to move off of telegram 🥀️
My immediate family is on signal, and has been for a while, my parents and my sibling are now on signal which is nice!
I have a few others I communicate with often I wish I could get them over because I hate using sms, even rcs.
Good. Everything Google touches needs to be forked.
Fork Google
We keep trying, but the courts are ok with monopolies.
They suddenly care about monopolies whenever a major competitor threatens to shift the balance of the market by providing alternatives…
yooo! while i wait for mobile linux to be realistic for my device this is a win
Hopefully this work is able to be used to help further that as well
This project seems to be promising for providing a true mobile Linux experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otMoX0-PYp8
Wow. I had not heard of this device until now! Seems to have a passionate team behind it. I will definitely be watching this one. Thanks for sharing!
will it be usable on LineageOS? could it help with RCS support on linux?
I’ve had my GV number as my primary for ~16 years. I’ve been on grapheneos for about a year now. Maybe I should actually pull the trigger and migrate my number to my provider and finally get RCS. All the better if GrapheneOS provides native support.
