With simple messager selling out & qksms no longer being actively worked on. What’s our options for open source sms messagers?

Should I dedicate time to learning flutter and building my own or does anyone know any cool foss projects working on this issue?

  • Dark ArcEnglish
    00·
    10 months ago10 months ago

    You definitely shouldn’t invest time in SMS. Without RCS (or some custom messaging protocol support), “texting apps” are pretty much a dead market.

    RCS is both more secure and more user friendly than SMS can be by design. Once the iPhone gets RCS support in the coming months/years, this will be especially true.

    • SokathHisEyesOpenEnglish
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      10 months ago

      If you message cross-platform from Android to iOS, and you can’t get everyone to agree upon a 3rd party app, then you’re kind of stuck with sms. This isn’t a problem that is going away in the near future. Apple relies on their locked messaging platform to influence their users into thinking iOS is the best. The users then pressure all of their friends to get iPhones too. It’s an effective strategy for them. Very few iPhone users seem to understand the games being played.

    • priapusEnglish
      00·
      10 months ago

      There is no open source RCS messaging app afaik

    • smegEnglish
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      10 months ago

      Plenty of services still unfortunately rely on SMS for 2FA, so we’ll still need a client to receive them. Doesn’t really need to be able to send them though, I don’t think any human has sent an SMS message deliberately for about 12 years!

      • apisEnglish
        00·
        10 months ago

        SMS is my primary mode of contact with the rest if the world. I use Signal as well, but most people I know only use SMS.

        • smegEnglish
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          10 months ago

          So how do you have group chats or send files with your non-Signal contacts?

          • JomnEnglish
            00·
            10 months ago10 months ago

            You don’t x)

            More seriously, in these cases, I often rely on emails instead. But I don’t really use group chats a lot (even with my contacts that are on Signal), nor send many files, so it’s not features I really miss. And SMS works with everyone, so it’s always my default if the contact isn’t on Signal.

          • nymwitEnglish
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            10 months ago

            Group chats work over SMS. I use cloud links for large files or just SMS/MMS for pictures and you just live with the low quality if texting with an iPhone user.

            • smegEnglish
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              10 months ago

              SMS doesn’t have group chats does it? Unless your client is just sending the same message to everyone and grouping together the responses?

              • nymwitEnglish
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                10 months ago

                I mean, maybe? I’ve used group texts with every sms client on every android smartphone I’ve ever used. Don’t know how it works on the backend.

      • petrescatraian
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        10 months ago

        @smeg Me and my friends use it as a fallback for mildly urgent stuff. If anything is more urgent, then we call each other.

        @Dark_Arc

      • scoobfordEnglish
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        10 months ago

        I don’t think any human has sent an SMS message deliberately for about 12 years!

        sweats nervously in American

        • spacecowboyEnglish
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          10 months ago

          I don’t know anyone in Canada that isn’t a new Canadian that uses anything other than the default sms app on their phone. (FBM and Insta and what not don’t count in my example).

          SMS is alive and well in Canada.

  • MagneticFusionEnglish
    00·
    10 months ago

    There is P-SMS which is a fork of QKSMS, that is what I use

  • miss_brainfartEnglish
    00·
    10 months ago10 months ago

    The simplemobiletools apps are being forked by one of their bigger co-developers, so I’ll just use that as soon as it’s available.

    Until then, as long as you got the build from F-Droid, there shouldn’t be anything to worry about.