this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2025

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Google Messages will help you shame your friends into finally turning on RCS (APK teardown) (www.androidauthority.com)

submitted 5 days ago by Blaze@piefed.zip to c/android

34 comments fedilink hide all child comments

top 34 comments

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[–] obsidianfoxxy7870@lemmy.blahaj.zone 59 points 5 days ago (2 children)

"Better then ever" is a bold claim. I switched to GrapheneOS and guess what it stopped working. Why? Because Google decided not to make it work on custom OS's anymore like a year ago.

To my understanding there is NO real technical reason for this. If I can have Signal work cross platform (a real secure messenger) then RCS can as well.

[–] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

There is no technical reason. The carriers/cellular industry gave up on their efforts to push RCS and let Google own it all for the most part, and with it, everyone lost openness.

It's also why Samsung Messages is on a slow burn EOL. The Samsung/Google partnership had Google encourage Samsung to drop their RCS support and just push Google's app, after Google decided to sunset the openness of the messaging API. Third-party SMS apps will all slowly die. Probably also partly why Signal dropped SMS support. It was around the same time.

Android's weird changes are nothing but badness, and will likely get worse. Hopefully the open OS community can start focusing more energy behind alternative mobile OSes that aren't dependent on a corporation.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The problem is inertia

Market share matters

[–] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

In the context of basic communications, market share really shouldn't. Phone calls are a standard, SMS is a standard, MMS is a standard. RCS should equally be a standard, along with IMS video calling that has been in the 3GPP spec since Rel99 (that's 1999). Flip phones in the early aughts could do video calls (in Europe) way before FaceTime was a twinkle in Steve Jobs' eye. Every phone right now could do out of box voice call/video call/text/picture messaging regardless of platform, if the cellular standard bodies would grow a pair.

Problem is, companies like Apple and Google became huge, unregulated, and monocultured.

How we humans allowed something as basic as communication to be put behind walled gardens is just a failure of humanity.

[–] Unreliable@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

There are ways to make it work on graphene, but yes - it doesn't work out of the box.

[–] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 46 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Means nothing to me until there is an open source option for RCS. It is supposed to be an open standard, but in reality Google has a total stranglehold on the technology.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 10 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Google wants to eliminate any threat of competition outside of Apple and stock Android

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 34 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Fuck RCS.

Twenty years too late for a "protocol" that is bound to hardware - something we decided was a bad idea forty years ago, and part of why TCP/IP became the standard.

XMPP is a far better protocol, and has had all the features of RCS for 20 years.

I will never use RCS.

[–] unknowing8343@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

XMPP does have something that breaks my heart: it bounds encryption to a very specific client. So forget about migrating to something else and keeping your history somehow. Which is very sad for supposedly interoperable protocol.

[–] RheumatoidArthritis@mander.xyz 2 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Are you talking about omemo and a scenario where you buy a new device and want to sync your entire history from the server?

[–] unknowing8343@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

You don't even need another device. You might just want to try another client app. You'd be screwed. That's very, very sad.

[–] leetnewb@beehaw.org 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

That is how perfect forward secrecy is supposed to work.

[–] unknowing8343@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

That's a terrible UX. If you have a protocol independent from clients, at least the chat database backup should be standardized. It's not.

That means you'll forever get stuck to one client. This is absolutely terrible for any organization.

[–] leetnewb@beehaw.org 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Why would an organization use OMEMO if it doesn't fit their requirements? OMEMO isn't necessary for encrypting xmpp communications. Also, I get the concern that only the original client will have a full history of the user, but most people don't need a complete chat history. Or put another way, wanting a complete, unencrypted chat history is relatively orthogonal to wanting perfect forward secrecy.

[–] unknowing8343@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 day ago

Well, Signal can do it. That's where the argument ends. If Signal can do it, XMPP should too. But it doesn't.

[–] RheumatoidArthritis@mander.xyz 2 points 3 days ago

Most clients also offer OpenPGP which has the properties you are looking for.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 days ago

XMPP is for grey beards

We need something clean and modern

[–] 6nk06@sh.itjust.works 36 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Pushed by carriers, no E2E yet, Google. Why would anyone use this?

[–] muntedcrocodile@hilariouschaos.com 13 points 5 days ago

Is it only google approved operating systems still? I remember they weren't allowing people on non google signed android forks to use it?

[–] I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 10 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Have you been living under a rock the past 10 years? If you think 95% of users give a single shit about E2E, you have a vastly better view of humanity than I do.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 9 points 5 days ago

Perhaps a better word would be

Why should anyone use this?

[–] bl4kers@beehaw.org 18 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Google should open it up for other apps to use. Otherwise RCS is a power grab

[–] jcarax@beehaw.org 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yup, no way I'm enabling play services and installing Messages just to use RCS. I mostly use Signal, anyway.

What we should really be fighting for is more federation between messaging platforms.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Federation can be hard since you also need to protect privacy

With that bring said they could at least try. Honestly it would be better if we got some sort of RFC.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 5 points 4 days ago

It is abuse of the dualopoly

[–] Pxtl@lemmy.ca 17 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

I turned it off when it failed to failover to sms when there was no data connection.

Are both me and the recipient online? Send RCS. Are either of us not connected? Send sms. How is that so hard?

Otherwise RCS is just "worse SMS for people with intermittent data connectivity".

[–] unknowing8343@discuss.tchncs.de -5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Because SMS costs money everywhere else and the world is not the US.

[–] russjr08@bitforged.space 6 points 4 days ago

That would be a reason for the feature not being available.

The feature is there, it just apparently doesn't always work reliably.

[–] russjr08@bitforged.space 9 points 4 days ago

No thanks, I think I'll pass on sending out messages that look like spam.

[–] Turret3857@infosec.pub 9 points 4 days ago

Reading the comments here has me like: Woman sitting in the dark saying "Iam so proud of this community. Screenshot from the last Youtube Rewind.

[–] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 9 points 5 days ago

if you want me to turn on rcs then let it work with my google fi connected account where i can get my voicemails on the web

[–] Zak@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago

SMS works perfectly well for sending https://signal.org/install

[–] BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml 7 points 5 days ago

It's time to get with the RCS program, already!

Tell that to my MVNO 😮‍💨

[–] NuraShiny@hexbear.net 6 points 5 days ago

Fuck this. Fuck google. I use their shit at work and it sucks, leave me alone at home.