Trying to ditch Google messages without success. I hung onto the old Samsung app forever but it is super buggy for me. I tried to switch to textra, bought the paid version, but keep getting this “MMS timeout” message so idk if im not getting or sending messages correctly. Have tried all the fixes i found online to no avail. So, is there any real, decent alternative to Google messages?
QUIK, Fossify messenger, Right Messages.
QUIK SMS (dev.octoshrimpy.quik.fdroid) from F-Droid
Fossify messages work quite well.
Any special features you’re looking for? Fossify messages works fine for me, and it supports both SMS and MMS. In fact, the entire Fossify suite of apps works really well in general.
I like Quik SMS.
Inase you didn’t know “quik” is a more active fork.
I’ve used the original and this for years.
Textra doesn’t support RCS yet either so even if you don’t use RCS, that’s one reason it’s not a full replacement. There really is nothing comprehensive right now that will give you all of the features, as far as I’m aware.
Nothing will support RCS except Google Messages. Google closed the source and extensibility of the messaging framework quite a while back. Around the time Signal dropped SMS support.
Why would anyone need RCS? What is RCS?
It’s like SMS, a messaging standard. But compared to SMS, RCS enables features like end to end encryption, larger file attachments, rich text formatting, and much more. It is the new standard of messaging. Even iPhone texting is getting RCS support. I believe at some point SMS should die entirely and be replaced with RCS. It’s more secure, less spoofable, more convenient, and feature rich.
Except it’s closed down and cannot be used by non-Google apps. Not an issue with the protocol itself, but that’s the reality on Android. Let alone iOS.
It can absolutely be used on iOS. In fact, it’s already partially implemented and iOS is about to roll out end to end encryption in RCS as well.
Granted I don’t use iOS so I might have missed it, but can you give an example of a third party texting app that can use RCS on iOS?
I thought the situation is the same as on Android - third party apps can only use SMS, not RCS.
I’m in the same boat as you. Used Textra and Mighty Text years back but want to try swapping back. Doesn’t seem like anything can compete with the robust features Messages has right now, unfortunately…
I’ve been using textra for about 9 years now with no problems. Can’t imagine the default offers anything it doesn’t.
Imagine how much your private data they harvested during whole that time…
https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/reports/705884
You aware of what tracker is?
Instead of advertising to me about issues I’m trying to escape, can you help me find a reliable way to get a phone that runs cr droid or graphene? I want out of the corpo chokehold but getting a divice I can do that with is a fucking nightmare.
Im honestly fine without RCS I just dont know how ti get rid of the error message
Oh shit, I missed that part in the post. Go into settings/mms/mms advanced and turn down the carrier send limit. It’s trying to send it in too big of chunks so your carrier blocks it
I cant find that option. Maybe being stupid about it? I have a samsung s25
Open up textra itself like youre going to text someone but havent chosen who yet, hit the three dots in the top right, settings, under messaging is MMS. Carrier send limit is in there.
Unfortunately I got the error message again, so I guess that isn’t the fix?
So far so good! Thank you so much for that!
Sorry, should have specified textra settings lol glad it’s working!
Thank you!! I tried it and will report back. It would be awesome if this works and I dont have to go back.
