100% this. I found it very disappointing that in order to achieve their arbitrary security policy that they sacrificed SMS fallback
I have no idea why it wasn’t just an option on setup or a configuration setting so that it defaults to encrypted messaging by default and then falls back to SMS for numbers that don’t support it (if enabled)
From their statement back in the days it always felt like they could have found a way to make this work but simply didn’t want to
Yeah, me too. I had started making headway on getting my extended circle trying it, then they did that and killed any chance of it gardening happening.
I believe that as painful as this decision was for the user, it was the right one. Supporting such a poorly documented, glitchy protocol makes further development very difficult. And users demand new features and bug fixes yesterday. Besides, I think that SMS will soon retire, and it will be replaced by the “new” RCS standard, which is much more stable and documented. Painful, but necessary to compete for the title of good messenger!
SMS is not going anywhere on a global scale and removing SMS meant everyone I had convinced to install signal because it was a drop-in messaging replacement for SMS has immediately stopped using signal. It’s now completely DOA for anyone that isn’t a tech privacy evangelist.
Because it’s already retired in many countries for a whole decade. SMS is not used for personal communications since data plans became widespread and apps like WhatsApp, WeChat, and even social media chats took over. The US is probably one of the few countries where the masses still use it.
But they didn’t implement rcs, which isn’t even new, android messaging has supported rcs for four years. Rcs as a whole is 15 years old.
If the plan was to implement rcs, they could have done that during the phase out of sms. But just removing one of the key features that helped people adopt signal (a feature which no other real messaging app did since the dissolution of Google hangouts), with no plan or consumer messaging about a replacement, and basically no real reasoning communicated to the end user is a pretty bad decision regardless of a ‘we know best’ mentality.
Regarding RCS. If they are going to add RCS support, it will be through Google’s API with Signal protocol for encryption (as I understand it). But Google hasn’t published it yet. That’s why RCS is not implemented. The Signal developers, looking from the user side, weren’t thrilled with the idea either. For example Greyson, one of the Android app developers, used it for 6 years for SMS. But I think we need more of a good messenger with support for a lot of features more than we need SMS support…
SMS via 3rd party apps has and always will be buggy in some way, shape, or form, at least on Android. No clue why. Since the dawn of Android phones and after some 25-30 Android-specific phones owned in my life, I’ve yet to use a non stock SMS app that worked flawlessly all the time. Closest I’ve come, unfortunately, is Google Messages, and even that isn’t perfect.
My parents use Signal and are the most tech averse people I know, so it isn’t that hard. I converted all my friends to Signal. Switched wife to Signal.
SMS is maybe 3% of my usage these days and about 2% of that is just restaurant reservations or spam. There are two people I message via SMS like once a quarter and that’s it.
I’m still butthurt about removing SMS support.
100% this. I found it very disappointing that in order to achieve their arbitrary security policy that they sacrificed SMS fallback
I have no idea why it wasn’t just an option on setup or a configuration setting so that it defaults to encrypted messaging by default and then falls back to SMS for numbers that don’t support it (if enabled)
From their statement back in the days it always felt like they could have found a way to make this work but simply didn’t want to
Codebase weird complexity due to SMS being very weird, buggy standard. Main reason.
Yeah, me too. I had started making headway on getting my extended circle trying it, then they did that and killed any chance of it gardening happening.
I believe that as painful as this decision was for the user, it was the right one. Supporting such a poorly documented, glitchy protocol makes further development very difficult. And users demand new features and bug fixes yesterday. Besides, I think that SMS will soon retire, and it will be replaced by the “new” RCS standard, which is much more stable and documented. Painful, but necessary to compete for the title of good messenger!
SMS is not going anywhere on a global scale and removing SMS meant everyone I had convinced to install signal because it was a drop-in messaging replacement for SMS has immediately stopped using signal. It’s now completely DOA for anyone that isn’t a tech privacy evangelist.
Because it’s already retired in many countries for a whole decade. SMS is not used for personal communications since data plans became widespread and apps like WhatsApp, WeChat, and even social media chats took over. The US is probably one of the few countries where the masses still use it.
I’m not American and it’s still widely used in my country.
Removal of SMS was a brain-dead move.
But they didn’t implement rcs, which isn’t even new, android messaging has supported rcs for four years. Rcs as a whole is 15 years old.
If the plan was to implement rcs, they could have done that during the phase out of sms. But just removing one of the key features that helped people adopt signal (a feature which no other real messaging app did since the dissolution of Google hangouts), with no plan or consumer messaging about a replacement, and basically no real reasoning communicated to the end user is a pretty bad decision regardless of a ‘we know best’ mentality.
Regarding RCS. If they are going to add RCS support, it will be through Google’s API with Signal protocol for encryption (as I understand it). But Google hasn’t published it yet. That’s why RCS is not implemented. The Signal developers, looking from the user side, weren’t thrilled with the idea either. For example Greyson, one of the Android app developers, used it for 6 years for SMS. But I think we need more of a good messenger with support for a lot of features more than we need SMS support…
Agreed!
SMS via 3rd party apps has and always will be buggy in some way, shape, or form, at least on Android. No clue why. Since the dawn of Android phones and after some 25-30 Android-specific phones owned in my life, I’ve yet to use a non stock SMS app that worked flawlessly all the time. Closest I’ve come, unfortunately, is Google Messages, and even that isn’t perfect.
My parents use Signal and are the most tech averse people I know, so it isn’t that hard. I converted all my friends to Signal. Switched wife to Signal.
SMS is maybe 3% of my usage these days and about 2% of that is just restaurant reservations or spam. There are two people I message via SMS like once a quarter and that’s it.
Why tho? They weren’t encrypted, were they?
It doesnt matter, it was about user base.
I can convince my tech iliterate family to use signal when they simply replace their texting app with it.
Now they have to use two different apps to talk to different groups? Theyre not doing it and dropped signal
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They were previously. They removed the encrypted SMS first, then years later SMS altogether.