Receiving Notifications About SMS Feature Removal

[burrm]

• [X] I have searched open and closed issues for duplicates (duplicates do not sufficiently address issue)
• [X] I am submitting a bug report for existing functionality that does not work as intended
• [X] I have read https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/wiki/Submitting-useful-bug-reports
• [X] This isn't a feature request or a discussion topic (current functionality in terms of in-app communications of feature removal)

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Bug description

Signal has notified users of removing SMS support for Android. This doesn't follow logically, and therefore I am submitting the in-app notifications as the bug to be fixed (by keeping SMS and removing the notifications).

Steps to reproduce

Open the application and receive notification that SMS is being discontinued

• or - Visit: https://signal.org/blog/sms-removal-android/

Device info

Android (all supported versions) Signal (future supported versions within months)

More information

Re: Removing SMS Capability in Signal Background:

The Signal Foundation has recently announced a decision to remove SMS support for Android through its blog on October 12, 2022 and through in-app notifications.

I, and many others, on Android use Signal as the primary messaging application on our devices. I communicate with a number of Signal and non-Signal users alike.

The two primary reasons that I use Signal are secure messaging with contacts who can be convinced that secure messaging is important and interoperability with users who use SMS/MMS based messaging. Both of these are jointly necessary and sufficient to keep using Signal. Without interoperability, I suspect that many of my first degree contacts will stop using the application, which will in turn cause me to abandon use of the application too.

In adopting Signal as a primary messaging application, I’ve had reasonable success with encouraging roughly 80% of my main first degree contacts, with whom I likely share 99% of my messaging, to use Signal. The crucial, sine non qua, feature of this, is actually SMS interoperability even though the vast majority of my messages are Signal messages. The remaining 20% of first degree contacts haven’t been, and reasonably can’t be, convinced at the current time to use Signal, primarily due to issues with second/third degree contact adoption, general user expertise/capability, not wanting a “second application”, and different devices in use (ex. Apple). Security alone, while desirable, is not sufficient for user adoption/maintenance.

Analysis:

Signal presents flawed arguments for terminating SMS support. I will address each of these, in turn, from Signal’s blog post: Signal’s first stated reason, “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.”

As an experienced developer/IT professional I appreciate technological security more than most laypeople. Willingly or unwillingly, I am in a position of having to support all of the “family devices” and frequently get contacted about technological issues by second and third degree contacts. For my contacts where I have recommended Signal (most of them at this point, with around 80% adoption for first degree contacts), the sole feature to overcome skepticism of trying a new app has been “you can use this for all of your contacts and it will be secure for others who use the application too”. Without this, I estimate that only one or two first degree contacts would have been willing to make the change, and estimate that they would not have used the application for more than a month before reverting back to a default SMS application on their devices.

Impacting the user base in this way is likely to cause more, not less, messaging to go over carrier SMS networks, working against the Signal Foundation’s stated goal of keeping data away from telecommunications companies and other counterparties. Signal’s second stated reason, “Back when we started supporting plaintext SMS messaging things were different. Data plans were much more expensive generally, and were totally inaccessible in many parts of the world. Now, data plans are cheaper and far more ubiquitous than they were nearly a decade ago. In a reversal, the cost of sending SMS is now prohibitively high in many parts of the world. 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. This is a terrible experience with real consequences.”

The Signal foundation proposing removing a key feature due to users incurring costs is tenuous, at best. I suspect that an analogous case of users being charged high fees for data use has occurred as well, but that’s not a meaningful argument to say that Signal must abandon data based messaging and only use carrier SMS. Users that I am familiar with typically have capped data plans, but unlimited messaging, therefore using Signal calls, video calls, and data based messages are likely to incur high fees for these users, or at least higher than the use of carrier SMS/MMS and voice calls. In any case, Signal should not be concerned with the specifics of a user’s SMS/data plan, any more so than their identity or the content of their messages.

Additionally, presenting the removal of a key feature of the software because users incur fees is akin to saying the following: but for the use of Signal with SMS, users would not have incurred these fees. Users would have likely still incurred these fees, if not through Signal, then through another messaging application utilizing SMS (other users using SMS instead of signal is a necessary condition of using SMS in Signal). Users have access to many data based messaging applications (ex. WhatsApp, Telegram, etc), so they could have chosen a data based application if that was what they were inclined to do and what their first and second degree contacts use.

Signal’s third stated reason, “Third, there are serious UX and design implications to inviting SMS messages to live beside Signal messages in the Signal interface. 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. And while we flag the difference between them in the app, we can only do so much on the design side to prevent such misunderstandings.”

I think that Signal has already struck a good middle ground here, and users need to apply a healthy degree of “caveat emptor” with regard to whether they are communicating securely and whether the content of their message interlinks the security level of their communication medium and the people involved. The “secure by default” approach is the right one, but prohibiting SMS will likely cause a reversion in security for many users. Instead of using Signal, or another secure communications application, they will simply revert to their phone’s built in messaging, likely utilizing SMS. This will result in less security, not more, for Signal’s users.

Conclusion:

The Signal foundation has provided, at best, flawed reasoning for discontinuing SMS support. Signal’s gamble here is on overcoming inertia with built in SMS messaging applications by compensating with Signal’s other features. Politely, I don’t think that the other features available are sufficient for users to use this application over SMS unless most of their other first and second degree contacts are already using it and will continue using it with SMS removed, or if backward support with SMS is maintained. Removing SMS is likely to cause users to incur messaging fees, where applicable, by using other SMS applications (to talk to SMS users) because they incurred these features by communicating with non-Signal users while using Signal. Finally, designing user experiences is always hard, and some users will inevitably mess up. A critical aspect of software development being difficult does not overcome the necessity of doing so. Sacrificing the user base for the sake of solely allowing secure messaging seems like an ideologically motivated decision, not a pragmatically motivated decision, and is likely going to work against the ideal of providing secure messaging for the largest number of people possible.

There may be a sufficient condition for ending Signal support for SMS, but it has not been stated by the Signal Foundation in its communications to date. If Signal replaced SMS support with support for Google’s and Apple’s encrypted chat based protocols that “feel” like SMS and are present in devices' default messaging apps, then this might meet the desire to end unencrypted messaging support while still providing users the ability to communicate with first and second degree contacts who are not Signal users. However, there would still be a case for needing to at least receive SMS messaging, as the protocol is likely not going away anytime soon and is used for many 2 factor authentication messages, among other cases where it is necessary to receive, but not send, SMS messages.

The second degree contact issue is a key issue for me to use the application. Removing SMS support will cause most of my first degree contacts using Signal to stop using the application, and in turn, cause me to stop using it in all but the most infrequent cases. Signal should weigh the concrete instance of users warning Signal about loss of users against the theoretical, tenuous, reasons placed forth by the foundation in removing this key feature.

In conclusion, I would respectfully ask the Signal Foundation to very carefully reconsider the need to remove SMS support and keep it if in any way possible. Without it, most of my and my first degree contacts’ communications will revert to carrier SMS and Google’s/Apple’s “chat” capabilities through our devices’ built-in messaging applications.

[sdoDevelop]

Want to though my comment into the pot that this is an awfully decision, unfortunately I will be removing signal once sms is dropped. An app that I have been ecstatic about for years, now makes me angry and sad.

[SoftoLibre]

This is nothing short of a self-inflicted headshot. Signal is the closest thing Android has to a killer app. It is the iMessage of Android. There is nothing else like it. One single app that defaults to modern/full-featured messaging when the other person has it, but seamlessly reverts to SMS for your other contacts, keeping all your conversations streamlined and in one place. And the default messaging protocol has best-in-class encryption/privacy to boot. Oh, and it stores your SMS messages in encrypted storage to protect them from being read by other, less scrupulous apps.

This is the app I use the most, every single day, and it has been that way for years. And you are going to ruin it, ostensibly to protect some nonexistent group of people that is simultaneously (A) smart enough to seek Signal out and install it BECAUSE of its privacy features and (B) so stupid that they routinely look past all the obvious UI cues and send an SMS thinking that it is a secure message? This is such a ludicrous notion that I honestly cannot believe it to be true; I think this is intentional sabotage of the app by some internal or external force. I have not followed the politics of Signal these last few years, but it seems that the murderers are inside the house at this point.

Signal devs, name a single killer feature that your app will offer to Android users once you destroy SMS functionality. I'll wait.

Edit: I just did some more research and read about the new Signal president, fresh out of her 13 year career at Google, which, oh-so-conveniently, just released a proprietary, phone-home implementation of the so-called "open" RCS protocol in the form of Google Messages for Android. This app essentially does what Signal currently does (unified SMS and modern messaging), but it uses RCS instead of the Signal protocol and hoovers up as much data about you as it can get away with. It also will not function without the spyware Google Services Framework installed on your device (spyware which I sure as heck will not be putting anywhere near my GrapheneOS system).

What a coincidence.

[NoneRighteous]

Don't know what more needs to be said beyond the many well thought out and communicated comments above. This is a bad move for the future of Signal.

[sanjay]

I was thinking about all of this, and I think I had an epiphany as to one part that may be motivating this decision after reading some stuff on Reddit. Next year (supposedly) Signal is rolling out usernames for Signal users. Once you do that, you don't need to tie to phone numbers anymore, and then everyone can sign up even if you don't have a phone. So if you don't want to support the complexity (?) of supporting two identity schemes or having to track both of them and potentially opening yourself up to providing that information to a subpoenaing entity, then you dump one - the phone number - and as a side effect, support for SMS. The problem is, that the vast majority of the current user base came to this app because of SMS support and now you're saying "buzz off, we want to start over with a user base near zero again." If this is the motivation - or part of the motivation - then it's an incredibly dumb move. Maybe we're also seeing why running large apps/services as a non-profit isn't necessarily "the way" either. No sane for-profit company would consider a move that would make a large percentage of their user base drop their app.

[clampak]

There's really nothing more to add to all these comments, but I will reiterate some of my thoughts. I really believe that this is a terrible move, and will almost definitely lead to Signal's complete downfall. I like the encrypted messaging, and think it's a good idea for everyone, but so many people don't, or don't care, or don't understand it, that they'll never move to an app that doesn't support being able to communicate with everyone. Having to keep track of who uses Signal and who doesn't is a ridiculous burden to put on users. I can't see keeping Signal after SMS support goes away, though I have no idea what I'm going to use. What I don't need is yet-another-app-that-almost-does-what-I-need-but-not-quite-enough-to-make-it-worth-it.

As so many others have noted, Signal could keep the option of SMS support, but having it disabled by default for those users (and I'd bet, and be very interested to find out, that it's a very small fraction of the user base) who use Signal solely for encrypted messaging.

Also, and this is on par with how bad this decision is, the complete disregard and disrespect for users by this unilateral announcement to remove SMS support is incomprehensible to me. You've discussed it in your echo chamber, have you, and decided what's best for everyone? It's just so condescending and insulting.

[matthewadie]

I've been using Signal for many years, and SMS integration has been it's major selling point for me. Without it I have no real use for Signal since the majority of my contacts do not use it. I also now regret recommending it to others...

[bovineblitzkrieg]

This change has the feel of a social media platform's AI algorithm deciding you violated some kind of term of service thus you get privileges revoked or banned without actually knowing what the specific violation was. Then you seek a resolution and there's no option except a simple form for you to fill out, and nothing comes of it for weeks, if ever.

This thread is that form, it placates the rabble. I guess Signal has a 'soulless big tech' vibe going on now.

[lanz]

[mbethke]

To be fair, no, it won't be Signal's downfall—Signal has a massive user base to alienate before that happens. But yes, it will seriously hurt advocacy for no good reason. I'm not having any "code complexity" or "secure protocol development" nonsense when there is time for gimmicks like "stories" and and cryptocurrency integration that increase both the technical and the legal attack surface. RCS is a red herring, and as much as carriers would like to charge us for every single message again and Google would love to siphon off the metadata, Apple would be stupid to support this direct iMessage competitor so I don't see them changing their "Nyet" any time soon. So you can't use it to talk to people with old phones, you can't use it to talk to the vast majority of people on the planet whose carrier doesn't support it yet, you can't use it to talk to anyone with an Apple device—and you don't need it for any bank, 2FA etc because they all know this and will stick to the one thing that works for everybody, SMS. If devices try and fail to deliver RCS messages to Signal, even RCS' selling points of presence and capability announcement obviously aren't working properly—after all, Signal couldn't possibly have announced any such capability. People will run into the same problem with Apple devices of the protocol implementation is this broken. Either they fix this shit in RCS itself, making it a non-issue for communication with Signal-as-SMS-app devices, or way more users will be pissed off at RCS.

[bokaklav]

Not much more I can say for compelling reasons that hasn't already been said. This really is a shame though... This was the sole reason I was able to get people in my contact list to use Signal. None have any intention to use yet another messaging app.

[tigerhawkvok]

Signal presents flawed arguments for terminating SMS support. I will address each of these, in turn, from Signal’s blog post: Signal’s first stated reason, “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.”

Importantly, this is probably the "best" reason to take out SMS and also the easiest to fix. Just add a giant, red, scary banner to insecure SMS frames and change the send button to textual "Send Insecurely" button. There is no possible confusion.

[Elipsus]

Hello, I created a Github account specifically to add my voice to this request. Please keep the SMS integration, that was the one thing that allowed me to convince so many family members in installing signal "look, its your SMS app now, but if the other guy has signal, its secure !" now its just to going to be another messaging app, less popular than the others, that's going to fall behind and uninstalled by the masses Oh, and, by-the-way, i was a monthly donator to Signal, but i'm not going to give money to a failed project that i won't be using anymore, of course.....

[Fisherman166]

Encryption is not a selling point for the average person that just wants their tech to work. They don't even know what SMS is let alone care as long as they can talk with people. Opportunistic encryption is the only thing that makes sense for the general public - which Signal used to offer. Two non-tech friends who I got on Signal as their only texting app years ago tell me they are likely to leave now because they don't care about encryption and don't want to juggle multiple apps since I'm the only person they talk to on Signal.

Even as a techie encryption enthusiast the biggest draw of Signal was that it was my single messaging app that just worked. For the roughly 40% of contacts I have on Signal, I could Signal message them. For the other 60% I could send SMS. All in one app. Having to juggle multiple messaging apps is going to be a huge pain.

[mufunyo]

I agree with basically everything that has been said up to this point. I also never quite understood why Signal (previously TextSecure) removed the encrypted SMS feature. Maybe this is the right moment to bring it back? I liked the ability to send encrypted messages even in poor conditions when no internet is available. This would also be in line with Signal's mission to enable whistleblowers and political dissidents to communicate freely.

As for plaintext SMS messages, I enjoy the convenience of being able to receive UPS/DHL/etc automated tracking codes, mobile carrier notices, and other robot vomit directly in Signal without having to keep yet another separate (stock) messaging app on my phone just to receive those with. I can't remember the last time I myself sent a real SMS message to a real person that wasn't something along the lines of "Hey, is your internet offline?" or other question about why a Signal message wasn't being delivered.

And if MMS is so troublesome, just remove MMS support but keep SMS support. The last time I sent or received an MMS was when I was still on a Symbian phone.

Third party RCS apps (including Signal) are also just a matter of when, not if. If Google wants RCS to succeed, they'll have to allow third party apps to use it.

The "but users are too stupid to wield a potential footgun" argument is so weak I won't even validate it with a response.

[spiralshannon]

Chiming in with another voice here. Signal serving as a unified app for both unencrypted and encrypted messaging has been key to my and my friends and family's use of it. Many of the contacts I exchange encrypted messages with in Signal are people who came to Signal independently from me... we never set out specifically to have an encrypted conversation with each other, but by the virtue of having a single app, when we started messaging each other we automatically got the encryption. Now I'll have to default to messaging people through a separate SMS app, and if those people also happen to have Signal I'll have no way to know that and move us over.

If your goal is truly to minimize the number of messages your users are sending over insecure channels, this is absolutely not the way to go about it.

[jan-leila]

Out of all of my contacts the only ones besides my partner who I have been with every day for the past 3 years and took the first year of that trying to convince her to download signal, the only ones that I have been able to convince to use signal and who I could still text on signal a week later because they didn't uninstall the app are android users. Every time I asked one of the ios contacts why they uninstalled the app the answer every time is "I don't want to have another app". What this move does is now takes all of my android contacts who don't really care that much about privacy and gives them the same gambit. People are lazy act on habit.

Lets take a very common scenario when using signal, you want to talk someone.

Pre change for android users: you open signal, you text them, it just works

Post changes for android users: you think about who you want to text for a second and if they have signal if the answer is yes then you can ether open signal and text them or open your texting app and text them if the answer is no then you open your texting app and text them

if I'm a user the lease energy intensive option is just always use a texting app. Your brain likes things that work every time and now with this change signal has gone from something that works every time to only working some of the time. There is more to UX then just what happens after someone is in your app. Sure removing sms will solve the problem of people accidentally sending an sms message. But making it so cant send message to my contacts anymore at all because they all uninstalled the app because they dont want to use just one more app isnt a good solution to that problem. A better solution would be every time you open a message/group having it always default to messaging over signal if that is an option. And then having a large warning that needs to be clicked though before you can send an sms message. Hell we know how users are they are just going to click okay, so before you even enable okay direct them to settings then make them enable insecure messages.

And I get it sms is very insecure. I don't want to use it whenever I can help it. The issue is most of my contacts simply do not care. But the issue here is I cant not use sms for a contact if they don't even bother to install signal in the first place. Being alone on encryption island with 0 contacts does not help me move more of my communication to more secure channels.

I have been meaning to get around to donating to for a long time now but I haven't done it because you guys seam to have no direction. The goal should be letting me message whoever I want to in the most secure way that is available. This means adding features like sms support on desktop that proxys back though my phone, or adding additional usernames to let people have an account without a phone number. Instead you consistently add more and more bloat to your application. I don't want a crypto payment processor. I don't want stickers. I don't want story's. I want to be able to send someone a message. You cant claim that supporting sms is to much work when you keep adding so many features that no one wants from a messaging app. You arnt apple. You dont have the budget to make a do everything app like iMessage. Just make your app that does your one thing and do it the best you can do. Come on now unix philosophy is not that hard to manage.

If you desperately need to drop features drop the bloat not core functionality.

[avarsava]

I have been meaning to get around to donating to for a long time now but I haven't done it because you guys seam to have no direction.

I generally believe in paying for the software I use, but I cancelled my monthly donation to Signal over this change, seeing as this is no longer software that will be a daily driver for me the way it has been before this announcement.

Anyone know a good 3rd party sms app?

[Foxtrek64]

Anyone know a good 3rd party sms app?

If you're looking for a focus on encrypted messages with a fallback to SMS when unavailable, about the only ones that I know of that are maintained are, unfortunately, Google Messenger or iMessage. Hooray for native spyware!

If you want to just go with plain SMS and not worry about encryption, which seems to be the only sane option at this point, I was looking at Simple SMS Messenger. Simple Mobile Tools creates open source versions of a lot of the core Android apps, like camera and files. They're pretty basic typically but in exchange for the lack of features you get a solid app that works as advertised. Alternatively you can go with the stock SMS app available with degoogled android, but I'm not sure what the privacy implications of this are.

Edit: I did find Partisan-SMS which encrypts SMS in transit. There's still the metadata leakage problem and I'm not sure if it can detect whether the recipient also uses Partisan as all of the documentation besides the github page seems to be in Russian or Ukrainian (I can't tell the difference as a casual viewer). It's advertised as a fork of qksms that's maintained.

[SepticFuddy]

Just came to say "Amen." Over the years, I've managed to get my whole family, 5 of the friends I talk to most, and everybody at my last job on Signal. Convincing any Android user install the app, much less grant it battery privs and actually use it, will become exceedingly difficult. People who relied on the convenience of all-in-one will fall by the wayside, and more and more of our conversations will get pushed back to SMS/MMS. Without resorting to evil corporate spyware, I won't even have the handy features for SMS/MMS chat that I get in Signal.

The current design to make clear what is or isn't encrypted is wholly sufficient. Even still, more could be done if OWS is THAT paranoid about non-savvy users (who aren't the ones so tied-up in privacy anyway) slipping accidentally into the land of the unencrypted. It's not a valid reason.

Freeing up resources? Those resources are well-spent! SMS integration is a great feature for many of us, and wholly opt-in for everyone else, yet now we are no longer getting the option.

I also fail to see how this is necessary for divorcing accounts from phone numbers. Phone numbers can be voluntary profile metadata that will link the Signal account to help their contacts with auto-discovery. Otherwise, they can remain separate, or a feature could be introduced to allow us to manually link Signal accounts to contacts in our list.

Here's hoping OWS comes to realize how much trouble they're causing with this move before it's too late.

[CaptShmo]

In my opinion, removing SMS from the signal app is a really bad move and will probably hurt adoption of signal and will also cost you a lot of the users you currently have, myself included.

[lanz]

In other bad news, Signal's lawyers sent a DMCA order to Canonical to remove the Signal Desktop Linux snap package from snapcraft. Signal Desktop is AGPL and Canonical has every right to distribute it as a snap.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33450806

It seems Signal is racking up quite the list of awful decisions and hostile user actions:

1. Not publishing a years worth of commits, and when they finally do it includes the cryptocurrency MobileCoin.
2. Removing the much loved color feature that allowed users to assign colors to contacts.
3. Removing SMS integration, which is the main reason most Android users were attracted to Signal.
4. Hostile DMCA take downs for Signal Desktop snap packages.

I've been a Signal user for ~5 years, and I'm sad to see that Signal is heading down this awful path of self-destruction.

[therobbot]

Another +1 from a user who mainly got attracted to signal because of the SMS feature. When I tried to convince people to use signal, they always said, they don't want to use another app. I told them they didn't have to cause they could ditch their SMS app. This argument won't do anymore.

Also for me it was just so very convenient to know that with signal I could just reach all contacts without having to think about which messenger they use. Even for signal contacts I sometimes reverted to SMS when I or they didn't have mobile data right now.

Long story short: this is just an awful decision and I really hope they will rethink it. Otherwise I guess this will be another app that will become insignificant before long.

[Foxtrek64]

I trust the Molly fork, having been created by people who were not happy with Signal removing features to begin with, will keep the SMS functionality. OK for me as I'm using F-Droid already, obviously a huge hurdle for getting new users on board, but whatever, Signal's gonna Signal 🙄

Thanks for the recommendation! This will be the path I take as well.

As a note for those switching to Molly, the process is as simple as installing Molly along side Signal and importing, with the caveat that the Molly version must be equal to or greater than the Signal version. If you need help, they have a Matrix room with helpful people. Link in the readme.

I have heard back from the Molly community that Molly does NOT have SMS support and has no plans to add it at this time.

@mbethke

[gugulet-hu]

Adding to the chorus. I feel like an idiot for convincing a couple of my people to use this over WhatsApp and Telegram. I know that when I remove this, they will be going back that way and then I'll have to start again with another app.

I think the most frustrating thing is the disregard for the social capital people have had to use just to get others to use the app. There is a real lack of social intelligence in the way this decision was communicated and handled and argued in forums: "Just get your friends to install an SMS app" as if most people care about privacy enough to stick around when everyone else is on WhatsApp. A communication app where you're talking to yourself is not useful.

[Andrewskiz]

I feel everything that needs to be said probably already has. Just wanted to chime in and say that several people in my friends group who I got on to Signal will be dropping it if it loses SMS functionality.

[riggtravis]

I feel everything that needs to be said probably already has. Just wanted to chime in and say that several people in my friends group who I got on to Signal will be dropping it if it loses SMS functionality.

My personal view is that the more voices the better. I think Signal is out of touch with the broad majority of their user base. Adoption is more important than pure functionality when it comes to a communication app. Does Signal want to carve a niche for itself by being more secure by default than telegram at the cost of adoption? Congrats! You just became the new Cryptocat. Have you ever heard of Cryptocat? No. No, you haven't. Because developers stopped working on it because it didn't receive much adoption.

[ZacVawter]

Team, I propose we all disable auto updates, and recommend the same to those we have encouraged to use signal. This will at a minimum keep the SMS compatibility until signal servers refuse to accept messages from the current versions.

I realize this is not great for security, but this is a compromise given the signal foundations unwillingness to compromise.

[imol-ai]

I personally have just stopped updating the app. If it will stop me from getting security updates, then so be it. I care more about sms integration.

[therobbot]

There's really not much to add other than this is a bad decision. The big plus of signal was that it could reach all my contacts. I even sometimes sent an SMS with it to Signal contacts when either I or they didn't have mobile data at the moment. It was great that I still had the message in the correct thread. For a lot of people I who are not tech savvy enough to care about meta data this feature was the one feature that set this apart from WhatsApp. Removing it is just out of touch with the user base.

[ddurham2]

Having already tried, due to the warning, of using the SMS app and Signal app separately, I can say that I really do not like the proposed experience.

[pentargency]

Not much to add about emphasizing this as a bad idea, but it is. So I'll just add my anecdotes.

News of this change has killed Signal dead amongst my technical circles. What idiot is going to try and train his family and friends to juggle two apps after selling them on the idea they only need one and that the privacy benefits will come naturally as adoption increases? What idiot is going to continue to advocate for software that makes life harder? And what idiots would listen to someone who did either of those two things?

Possibly due to an evident shortage of idiots in my life (somehow), most of my circles are going through the process of migrating friends & family fully back to SMS so they can stay in touch with everyone without hassle, or to new messengers for nerd-to-nerd communications before Signal rips more out from under us. Mom and Dad are not going to figure out the migration themselves, and they definitely aren't going to send ads for Signal to all their coworkers and club members to get them onto Signal, lmao. This is not creating new advocates of the software by forcing the users to choose, it's only destroying old advocates of the software who put in the work to "convert" people. The value is gone. Now I'm running 3 other competing apps to chat with my technical friends until we can somehow get everyone consolidated again on something decent (yikes).

Extreme disappointment.

[ungutknut]

Horrible news here. I wonder what the signal team would respond to burrm's well argued posting. His resoning sounds a lot more conclusive than what we can find on the signal blog.

Actually I'm only here to file a feature request, but then I learned that Signal is going suicide. So I don't think that's really necessary anymore.

Is there a SMS-enabled fork around? Not that I believe any of my contacts would like to change messenger again... but who knows.

[greyson-signal]

Closing as a duplicate of #12517. You can read my comment there for more details.