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Google is quietly blocking RCS on rooted devices.
(support.google.com)
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this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2024
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I always disliked RCS, I kept telling people it's a walled garden, mainly controlled by Google
Jibe is RCS. They are so dominant all other implementations will have to follow. So far only Google, Samsung and soon Apple can actually implement RCS practically.
Where I live there's a single ISP which doesn't use Jibe. RCS is largely Google, and this likely won't change with iPhones supporting RCS.
Even so you'd think they'd want to get as many people as possible on board with RCS to increase adoption, not fewer.
Then what they're doing tells us all we need to know.
Google wants to control what data they can glean from RCS users.
This is Google's end game messaging app. They want to replace text messaging and Google hangouts/allo/chat... were never going to cut it.
Its a chat app that doesn't look like one. It looks like the default sms app, you don't need anyone to download or make an account for it. There biggest hurdle was getting iOS users. They've now pressed apple into supporting it as well. They even have Apple state Google will help with their installation. We know Google pay apple billions every year to keep Google search the default on iOS, it even binds Apple to publicly and in court support the arrangements. I wouldn't be surprised if Google has paid billions just for RCS on iPhone. It will keep their marketing monopoly in place for a long time.
I agree. You're much better off just using Signal. It's not federated/decentralized, but all client apps, the protocol and the server code are completely open source and anyone can fork the project. It also works on every platform, its encryption protocol is the most secure one out there and it's been around for over 10 years. They also recently added some cool new privacy features.
Ok good. But then there's the problem of actually convincing people to use Signal. A messaging app is pointless if nobody else wants to use it.
Sure, but in my experience it's not that hard to convince people to get on Signal. (Maybe because here in Europe everyone already has like 15 messengers on their phone, so it doesn't bother anyone to download another one)
If you use SMS, you can argue that Signal has much better photo and video quality, it can be used from a tablet or a computer and it's basically just like iMessage but for all platforms.
it's a golden prison*
The thing is is that if MNO's truly cared about running their own RCS network (instead of leaving everything to Apple and Google). It might actually be a more open system. Sure, you can't self host an MNO, but it's still a much larger step forward.
The weird thing is that so many people are buying into the Google and Apple marketing on SMS being insecure.
If you're on an unroooted smartphone running stock OS, nothing you do is secure
Basically everything is more secure than SMS though. Security is a gradient, and never absolutel.
Yes, but I was never under the impression that SMS was secure, and have never heard anyone say it was secure.
What it was, was cheap, designed to be free, effective and difficult to monetize.
Google RCS is proprietary and designed to sell your data as well as deliver targeted ads to you that you cannot block.
GraphineOS is more secure than the stock OS