Since the family didn’t want to turn off RCS, I completely changed the app instead😂😂😂
Moved my entire family to Signal. If anyone texts me I just ignore it. If they call me and ask, I say I don’t check texts and to use Signal.
I got most of my family on SimpleX because it does video and is reasonably secure. Encryption, no username, no phone number, and it’s self-hostable if that’s your bag
Yeah I got my young son and all his friends onto SimpleX because you don’t need a phone number to use it. Works great except they don’t use it, they still default to fucking Facebook messenger.
And it’s dogshit
Started using signal just in time for chat control 2.0 to drive it out of the EU 😞
Has signal left EU?
Quick search says they were threatening to leave, but didn’t see anything to the effect that they had.
I comtemplated using Signal until I saw they you need the play store in order to use it👀
I also use Delta over Signal for my own reasons, but heads up:
Nah, download Aurora Store from F-Droid, now you have degoogled access to the Play Store.
BUT a word of warning:
You still have to be careful of what you download, it usually lists known trackers to help with that. And “requires google play services” is often actually not true, some things that claim that work fine or maybe just don’t give notifications.
It just makes sense to just download everything from Droid-ify and/or Fdroid ( almost all of my apps are from these two). Yeah but even with that, it can still get shut off. Idk. . I wouldn’t risk it.
Yeah I do when available too, but if something I need isn’t on F-Droid I’ll use Aurora begrudgingly, just nice to have the option.
They also got a store called Aurora Droid. Its another alternative to fdroid. Now I don’t know if it’ll help with some apps from Aurora store but its another alternative.
I think that’s just an alternative frontend for F-Droid, like Droidify (the one I actually use for F-Droid) is.
Molly is a fork that also has a FOSS version with proprietary blobs removed. They also have their own F-droid repo if you’re not interested in the github repo.
You don’t REALLY but they also don’t make it easy to use anything else.
I don’t know… some of these apps I’ve been experimenting with, even with microG, of not work properly just because your not getting it from the play store. Also,with September being around the corner, I would try to stay away from google as much as I can.
It works completely fine without any Google stuff. It will just kill your battery and you’ll have to check and update it manually.
https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/releases
Though I do wish they showcased this on the main website
It’s not easy to find though
FWIW I used duck duck go and searched for signal apk and it took me there.
It is weird they bury it on their site though, I haven’t found a way to navigate to it from their page.
Ew don’t promote GH, it tracks you a much as GP! Someone else linked the apk directly 😀
My wife and I use Signal with each other. She also uses Graphene on her Pixel. Both were her choice. And now she wants to go further down the FOSS rabbit hole. I warned her it was deep. She’s totally onboard.
How did you get her on board? Can your wife talk to my wife? Over signal 😅
She was getting fed up with the direction all the tech companies were going and started researching how to take ownership of her shit. I only found out because she asked me about Graphene OS, which caught me totally off-guard because she was an apple person for so long. We talked about it at length, then she decided to ditch her iPhone for a used P9PXL, and asked me to install Graphene OS as soon as it arrived.
She is incredibly sharp and is more than happy to struggle with figuring out a whole new world of privacy and real ownership than deal with forced “upgrades” that do nothing except harvest even more data.
Nice! Yeah my wide gets irritated if I even mention hosting something. She’s still under the impression open source means poorly thrown together… I’ve self hosted things for so long, and I had a new pack of hard drives fail (4 out of 8) after moving about 50TB of data, so she sees how bad it can be to host; however, 90%of her stuff on her phone isn’t backed up bc she won’t let me install anything to help and she has no cloud storage.
She works for a big (in its industry) software company and of course is always fed the “little guys” aren’t as good, etc. I’m chipping away slowly but surely. 🤞
I don’t blame her. It’s fun. My family is not on board with it unfortunately but I hope them seeing me do it might convince them someday
I think I’m good with Delta Chat for now 😅
Do you? i thought they had an apk available to install.
Besides Molly through F-Droid you can also get it through Obsidian from GitHub which I believe comes with a self updater anyways.
If you do want to use it, there’s a security focused fork called Molly on f-droid. You’ll have to enable their repository though.
I saw someone post the link but, One step at a time. My family is not on the FOSS journey like I am.😅
They do not need to be, as they can just use the AppStore/PlayStore release.
Maybe that’s why SimpleX came along.
But they started diving into crypto tokens so they are on thin ice.
I’ll take crypto over phone number identifiers
What’s the impetus for turning RCS off?
https://www.klaviyo.com/blog/difference-between-rcs-vs-sms-vs-mms
For anyone who is completely using degoogled android; unless your using microG, stock android messaging apps don’t support RCS. That is Apple (joined the bandwagon with IOS 18) and Googles controlled space. Everyone knows that google is anti privacy, hence, not using messages with RCS, unless google unleashes the reign of RCS, but unfortunately I don’t know if that is ever going to happen.
You’re not really missing much except for high resolution pictures/ gifs, read receipts to confirm when messages are sent and how certain messages are sent with better resolution. Plus, also having the ability to send longer messages, along with messages sent over Wi-Fi and cellular.
The problem I was having was I was completely using a stock SMS/MMS android app, but my immediate family (all with apple devices except for one android user) all are using their default messaging apps with RCS. Texting is big with us and I can’t receive any messages, so in order for communication to work, I’m having them download Delta Chat, we make anonymous profiles and talk in a private group chat. This is all happening all because to them I’m going, “off the grid” and They don’t want to turn RCS off, even though that would be easier😒
So, I was able to make a compromise with Delta Chat.
RCS: google and apple can spy on your messages and control it
SMS/MMS: everyone, google, apple, the government, your cell provider, their mother, and their 5th cousin twice removed can intercept and view your messages in plaintext and they are stored in plaintext forever at ISPs for anyone that wants them. I remember as a teen when my mother would get emails with documents containing every text that me or my sister had ever sent, from the SMS provider.
Not to mention all the technical limitations. Nobody at all should be using SMS in 2026.
Any encrypted message service (signal, delta chat, simplex, matrix, XMPP, etc…) Is a huge improvement to SMS in every way.
everyone, google, apple, the government, your cell provider, their mother, and their 5th cousin twice removed can intercept and view your messages
Uhhhh nope, just the carrier(s) (and the government)
SMS/MMS is famously possible to intercept, by anyone, what are you talking about?
Otherwise it would be sufficient 2FA and we wouldn’t have to bother devising other methods.
Intercept how? SMS is overwhelmingly the default 2FA. So much so that many banks and companies won’t let you not use it.
the default in america
Developed countries use literally anything else. TOTP apps, encrypted apps, Card reader code generation, identity providers, 3rd party verification programs, etc…
America uses it because it is cheap and easy and it pushes the infrastructure cost to someone else, not because it is secure. My american bank I keep only had SMS from american numbers to start, now they have TOTP app support, passkey support, and are going to phase out their SMS because of security.
Also, SIM phishing is pretty common… There doesn’t have to be any physical access to the phone. It is a standard phishing attack and they get all your SIM details and spoof it in an automated system.
the default in america
No.
SIM phishing is pretty common…
No one was discussing security.
One of the first links that came up: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/03/16-attack-let-hacker-intercept-a-t-mobile-users-text-messages/
- This is not “anyone”, and definitely not Google or Apple. This is malicious actors doing illegal shit.
- You would know if they were doing this as your phone would stop working
Sakari responded to Ars with a statement saying, “We’ve now closed this industry loophole at Sakari
Is SMS insecure? Absolutely. Is Apple, Google, et all maliciously SIM swapping users? Absolutely not. What are you talking about?
I’m not really picking up from your link what you’re trying to say to be honest. Did you read what you linked? Why use a AI marketing platform article instead of one of the myriad of technical docs about it?
It’s a protocol, and if messages are sent to non-RCS compatible devices they should not be sent as RCS, by default. It’s on your carrier.
Where is this otherwise?
Also why use that over signal? All around I’m confused by the “solution” to your “problem”
After googling it’s an android only problem with their messages app, shot yourself in your own foot. But you can just use another app that supports RCS and move on?
That part makes sense - Google Messages is the only RCS-compatible Messaging App. Though I don’t think SMS is an acceptable fallback these days anyway. Not encrypted, goes through your carrier.
With the link, I was just showing what the difference was and how much your really not missing unless your concerned with certain features. Also, how the hell is that AI? It looks like a regular general blog post to me, where are you getting the AI part from?
I’m on a degoogled device, you don’t have RCS unless you’re using MicroG and gets an app that uses it. I don’t want to use it and for some reason, regardless of turning RCS on/off, messages are not working properly, so I decided to pick Delta Chat. it’s easy to use, straightforward and I direct everyone to one place. What’s the fucking problem?
Signal uses the google play store. I would have to use microG to use it and I don’t want to do that. What’s the problem, with that?
I also picked Delta chat because in the states, we have been having serious issues lately with Cellular power outages. I still want to connect with my family if, god forbid we have a complete blackout. I know as well there are other messaging apps for that case as well.
You people on this freaking app annoy the shit out if me, and get so easily triggered, when someone doesn’t pick the same apps, applications, products or procedures when using FOSS. Its fucking annoying honestly. FOSS is fucking FOSS for a reason
Do you disable SMS too? It’s far, far less secure than RCS so I’m not sure why you’d avoid RCS but not SMS.
You do you boo-boo
You’re just being confidently wrong about the things you’re saying
If you want a variation on Delta Chat, there’s also Arcane Chat, which is made by one of the devs of Delta, and both are compatible with each other. Just for like, you know, options.
Wouldn’t it not automatically switch to SMS because you turned off RCS?
I was having issues with that on my mother’s phone. For some reason, it wouldn’t work, but yes that’s what it’s supposed to do.
another odd thing too, when I would send messages, they would see it but if they would text back, I wouldn’t get any of their messages. It’s like iMessage and google messages on their phones was not turning off RCS for some reason.
I only have two relatives that I was able to text with no problems only because they were not using google messages. (They’re on android as well but not degoogled like myself)
“Oh noo, it doesn’t work perfectly, oopsie😜, guess you’ll have to go back using RCS hehe 😄”
😂 you wish
Which other options did you consider? By any chance, could you compare it with Element or Snikket or Conversations (or other Matrix or SMPP clients}?
Umm tbh I haven’t tried any of those.
I picked Delta cause it’s the most user friendly, you send a QR code of your chat or channel, make an anon profile and boom your done.
I know for myself I will go down and try those but I’m dealing with people who really don’t understand what FOSS and AOSP is, so I gotta take it slow.😅😅 My family thinks using Delta alone is going “off the grid” I don’t want to scare them off.
Which app did you land on?
I’m using Delta Chat (downloaded from Droid-ify)
