abandoned? #1970
Comments
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Wondering the same thing. Literally looked up this today. I'd really rather not leave QKSMS behind, though...it's been a good app. I just want support for MMS backups/transfers and I'll be happy! |
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Quick update: I've been dipping my toes into Textra, and I like it a lot. Scheduled messages, pinned conversations, custom conversation names, highly customizable colors and behavior. It even has the per-contact color customization options that QKSMS has. The only other texting app I was even considering from the article I linked was Mood Messenger, since it is also listed as having a lot of features I care about and seems to be privacy-focused.
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Thanks @Chloe-H |
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Hi, just to say that both are not opensource so for me it's not an option, but thank's for sharing. I hope that qksms is not dead ;) |
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Just got an updated phone and was really disappointed by the new stock SMS apps; finally settled on QKSMS only to find it seems abandoned - no releases for 2.5 years now :( UPDATE: There are newer versions on F-Droid. A version was added in January which is somehow three times the size of the previous release. Apparently it's only a pre-release version, but.. maybe there is hope that a new version will eventually come out? 🤞 I installed the updated pre-release version and it seems to work well (Android 13). So for those of you willing to install the .apk rather than go through the Play Store, this should work for you and at least it's less than a year old. Sadly it does not have the features I want and I am not hopeful that they will be added if I submit a feature request, so I won't be keeping it. @Chloe-H Thanks for the recommendation for Textra! I looked into it and it seems like a good alternative, albeit closed source. At least the paid option is a one-time fee and not a subscription (at least as of a few years ago based on the reviews I could find). Please correct me if I am wrong. Questions: does Textra allow to configure timestamps to display on every single message (Update: found answer: no), and also, does it allow to configure a sound notification for a new message even when the app is open (Update: found answer: yes)? Most times I set the phone down after sending a text and don't get notified of the reply since the app is still open. These are the only 2 features missing from the the stock apps that I could not determine if Textra has or not. It seems documentation for SMS apps in general is quite lacking. @87113 You can look into Partisan SMS, it is a fork of QKSMS and is open source that uses encryption. I don't know if it's on the Play Store. If not, you can try the pre-release 3.10.1 version I linked to above. |
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After trying Textra and Mood I went back to QKSMS then noticed what @random-pixels said about the latest Version - 3.10.1 being Pre- release, then I remembered one time loading up a prior version just to be able to name my Group Convos and then updating again. Realized now that maybe the older version - 3.94 might be the one to use - since it worked fine. So - I reverted back and boom - I can both Name Group Convos and Customize Group Notifications. I'm thinking that these problems with the newer PreRelease versions are why they are still PreRelease - duh. |
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I have also been using the second most recent version 3.9.4 and haven't had any issues yet. Obviously won't work forever, but hopefully it will work until I can find an alternative or this project gets restarted |
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She should fork.. that's a good app but MMS not working for me |
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See also #1964 (which has no responses), in which the poster claims the author is not responding to email either. |
was curious, that is in part due to the bundled librealm-jni.so getting bigger. realm.io is the on-device database used inside qksms |
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I've been using QKSMS for about 4 years. Development has definitely slowed. In the last year bugs have started creeping in to the application. For example, if I go into my gallery and select an image and share it via QKSMS, I can't select who to send the image to. In the place where I would select the person, it shows //media/external/imag... The only way that I can send an image via SMS is to start the text message to the person, and then click on the + symbol and choose the option to attach a photo. Going the other way no longer works for me. Nevertheless, I'm afraid that there won't be much more development work on QKSMS. SMS is dying, probably to be replacing with either RCS or MLS. Hopefully that future will include some open source applications. But, there really needs to be some standardization. The future looks dim for texting. I don't want a future where I have to have Facebook Messenger, Google Messages, WhatsApp, Signal and a broken SMS app all installed to be able to communicate with everybody. I'm a Lineage for Microg user. If I have to move to Google Messages in the future, I'll have to move to regular Lineage with Gapps, which seems awful to me. The problems with QKSMS are such that a few months ago I moved to the AOSP messaging app. I used it for several weeks and then I just stopped receiving SMS messages with it. That was a major failure and I moved back to QKSMS. At this point, I suppose I'm stuck using QKSMS and will limp along with it until the future texting landscape settles into some kind of order. Personally, I don't mind @moezbhatti moving on. However, I do wish that they would at least comment on what is going on, and/or offer to hand over maintenance to somebody else. |
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Thanks for your thoughtful comment @mddvul22 . I learned a lot of things that I did not know before from reading it. |
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I saw this app on a foss list, apparently this app has a 'replacement' I just downloaded this one Partisan SMS and it has a recent update from May, and in the app in the settings the same name appears QKSMS I found this interesting and I saw that some of you are looking for alternatives so I decided to make this comment... |
Yep, as I mentioned above, Partisan is a fork of QKSMS that uses encryption. Good to know it's still maintained. |
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Sadly, the Partisan SMS fork also seems to be abandoned. See: wrwrabbit#34 |
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If you want an open source, currently supported, SMS app, I've moved to Simple Mobile Tools SMS Messenger. It is on F-Droid and in the Google Play store. |
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@octoshrimpy What about your fork ? Are you still planning on maintaining it ? If yes, would you enable issues on it ? Thanks |
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This is another fork of qksms : https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/os/Message looks like it's maintained by the eOS team. |
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Would they accept feature requests though ? 🤔 |
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I have no idea. |
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How did you download it ? I can't even find an APK. 😅 |
Ho! 🧐🧐🧐 It's installed by default in eOS. |
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Well then most of QKSMS users, who aren't using that ROM, can't install it, therefore it's not an actionable fork. |
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Hi, actually you can find the apk there : https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/os/Message/-/artifacts |
Yes, but if you install it directly, you won't get security updates and bugfixes. That's why it would be ideally included in F-Droid and/or Google Play (in addition to whatever /e/OS uses). |
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Actually, even just uploading APKs to the git releases page would be fine thanks to Obtainium, but not only the CI dowloads can't be automated but the APK inside these ZIPs can't even be installed because of being unsigned. |
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just tried that efoundation fork. nothing seems different comparing to qksms. what's the point? |
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@alekksander Also, the API level will never increase so QKSMS will never have new security features. |
Obtainium is neat, but the /e/OS Messages app doesn't have any releases and (as you note) the artifacts are archives with unsigned APKs. |
I would be down for it! I forked for the heck of it, in case, but I'm def down to help keep a maintained fork, but am gonna need help :) opening up issues and PRs |
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Actually I assumed that it would go through, what I meant is nobody knows whether the future owner will actually add ads and/or malware into the apps. |
They're already saying they've added ads: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.simplemobiletools.smsmessenger |
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Mea culpa. I see "added trial" in changelogs and "pro" versions as well. :/ Fossify actually isn't moving fast enough then, because users are getting those updates and can't switch as it seems these forks aren't distributed anywhere yet. |
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@octoshrimpy is there anything going on regarding quik? |
Im still learning kotlin and trying to figure out why obtanium won't grab the latest version. Otherwise i am working on submitted bugs first. :) |
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lots of info here. Anyone actually uses SMS in this day and age for anything more than (unsafe) two factor auth? Sending images and group chats were never SMS, but MMS (basically, send a url in SMS and download that url and show in the client instead. I usually block it --edit: just realized there no more option for it. must change on the main xml file to disable it now in qksms. too much trouble). google et al are all replacing SMS with RCS. which is MMS done just a little less worse. I.e. it uses https and notifications all the way, no more SMS backend (plus the much worse entire-contact-list-sent-to-server-all-the-time) This is mostly being done because telephony and SMS have privacy laws in most countries and RCS will not ;) it works same as email. hurray for advertising and citizen spying. anyway, here are some summary notes from the discussion here so far:
alternatives mentioned:
I'm thinking we all should jump ship and start contributing to the simpleMobileTools stuff. |
It seems you missed that the SimpleMobileTools dev sold his project recently to a company known to buy free projects, close them and monetize them in an excessively manner. Take a look at the fork instead and consider to contribute there: |
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@gcb thank you for the summary! my fork quik was forked from the 3.10 branch. The difficulty in following the commits is because i'm learning git deployments hands on, and making a lot of mistakes 😅 I've implemented a lot of the PRs that currently are open towards qksms, and am working through bug fixes that are present in the current f-droid QKSMS. My goal with quik is to do more than an sms app (like you mentioned, sms isn't great) but instead to have a plugin system that works much like matrix bridges, but locally on your device. no need to have multiple apps, when you can load up the plugins and let one single app do the same job. @Retardium is corect, SMT is no longer a viable tool, and fossify is the new alternative to that. Adding to the mess, f-droid also underwent some serious drama recently, with 2/3 of the community board leaving: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38517576 |
Yes : for people who won't use Signal and only offer GAFAMs as alternatives.
I avoid these as much as possible.
I won't use that either. |
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also RCS isn't a viable option until we can host our own TURN-like servers, as of right now RCS is a walled garden, as mentioned in octoshrimpy/quik#22 |
Signal doesn't let us host our own servers, takes a while to update their own servers, and has pushed crypto in-app. I personally no longer trust them. https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/why_not_signal.md |
About that, here's the comment that I made on your README, did you see it ?
Self-hosting Signal is possible, just not federating. It uses phone number verification so that accounts can't be stolen, duplicated or abused.
In order to fund the project.
The server and client remain open source and end-to-end encryption is verifiable. |
I totally missed it! replied.
you are correct, but that would be the equivalent of self-hosting reddit server and not federating. that would still cause a single centralized point, easy for attacks, and lock "my" users away from "your" users, causing a systematic split that I'm personally not okay with.
True, all OSS has monetary problems, but for a company paying devs to create new features like stories, wouldn't it be smarter to instead save the money and do bug fixes for the time being instead? I'm no economics expert, but it all sounds weirdy to me.
that is also correct. However, no federation from server to server, and marlinspike has often threatened shutting down 3rd party clients. I don't see that as a healthy ecosystem to join, as a dev. |
Well, that's what Matrix is for, I see that you already use it. ^^
Unfortunately no, because features attract new people, or at least make it easier for existing users to convince more people to come instead of forcing them to use big tech platforms.
Actually, I read nothing wrong in the comment you linked, which says that they're fine with third-party apps, just not using the Signal server and name, which is logical, because these are also potential sources of abuse. |
that may be true. Personally, I'll recommend a rock-solid app, with devs that listen to the users, over one that keeps coming up with half-baked or non-community-voted-for features. I was a signal user, and convinced a lot of people to use it, but then they removed the SMS feature claiming it was too hard to explain to users which messages were encrypted and which were not (UX problem) and then shipped crypto, followed by stories the updates after. I uninstalled at that point.
If you have the source code for the server and the client, and host it all yourself, and there is no federation with any other server or any other client, at that point aren't you the 1st party, and the original source is no longer accessible, meaning it's no longer 3rd party server/client? as for "potential sources of abuse", look at all of activitypub. it's still taking shape, but the communities sort themselves out, and figure out what is good and bad to use. I agree RCS is not viable right now. SMS is Very Not Great. for privacy and security, anything not self-hosted, whose servers sit in the US are (personally) out of question. |
That's true.
And I love the Fediverse. But, that only works for public communication, while community-based moderation can't work for private end-to-end encrypted messaging : each time someone spams, each victim has to individually block the sender. |
isn't that what we in the US are experiencing with spam calls as well? Seems like the general consensus solution is something along the lines of "don't even bother telling the user that there was a call unless it's from a known contact, or user is expecting a call." Not pretty, and puts the solution on the clientside/user. although without identifiers (like signal and phone numbers) this wouldn't be as much of a problem, I would think. again, not sure, just spitballin' ideas with you. :) |
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SMT apps on F-droid are safe :) If ofc F-droid doesnt die |
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I honestly think you all are missing the point here. SMS is not great, do not use it. run away. I do. But sometimes you need to receive/send that one annoying message. The discussion here: User needs to use SMS. Period. Nothing else. Which application to use? Do not try to adapt a dead sms app to whatever else you want. I mean, by all means to use the code, but fork and just mention "UI was from so and so". You do not need to associated with the original app if you don't want to support the SMS codebase. |
In the USA, SMS is still very much used everywhere, one cannot simply run away.
Why not? Is it not my choice, in the end? Personally, I'm using qksms (and quik) as a means to learn kotlin.
But I do want to support the SMS codebase. SMS is very much alive (sadly), and many users need a good updated app, considering all the news lately. |
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Thanks @octoshrimpy |
It is being sunset. What you call SMS today is iMessage(tm) and googleMessage(tm) both which use RCS (with closed extensions) and fallback to sms/mms. But not for long. My point is that adding features here is wasting time. By all means maintain this, as a simple sms client, or overgrow it to something more complex. Not saying to drop SMS. But stop adding features to this as it is a dead end. |
I will never use RCS, not even if SMS ends up shut down. That said, I don't believe that it will be shut down anytime soon, at least in my country, because even PSTN and 2G aren't despite being supposed to for years now. |
Not at all. what I refer to SMS is using the SMS protocol. RCS as it stands is a walled garden being gatekept by Google, who allowed Samsung and Verizon access to their blackbox RCS servers. The way you described SMS feels like saying using linux isn't worth it because most computers ship with Windows or macOS. Like @KaKi87 mentioned, SMS over 2G still operates just fine.
Okay. It's my schedule, is it not? By continuing to tell me to Not Do The Thing you're wasting your own time, haha.
I'm not sure I follow. Are you telling me to continue to add features, or to stop adding features?
100 new stars in a month and half with no advertising or talking about it (except for this one comment thread) would have to disagree with you.
agreed. until I can host it myself, it's not worth anything to me. Granted, RCS is just matrix/xmpp protocol with a fancy name. Wish we could all just agree to stick to what works instead of trying to reinvent the wheel and then try to sell it to someone.. |
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I don't know what to say man. you dont control the networks. US doesn't have even 3G anymore. latin america is offsetting 2g (even car trackers IOT sims are 4G now). Europe is holding to 2G for some IOT holdouts, but as soon as the telco move those big clients 2G will go down in the same day. see https://maya.land/monologues/2023/12/26/laptop-of-the-magi-apple-antitrust.html |
The fact that nowhere in his essay does he mention Threema means that he doesn't really know much about encrypted messengers. Not sure why Threema goes ignored by Silicon Vallyers, but it's often ignored or baselessly rejected for no reason at all. It's fine if someone doesn't like it or found a problem with it, but to not mention it is lying by omission, which makes me suspect that people have an agenda to ignore it, and/or why I don't think the author knows that much about encrypted messengers. |
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@allanonmage "If I cant read, I cant stop being offended." lol |
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@octoshrimpy how is your fork coming along? I'm thinking I may have to move back to the stock messaging app that comes with Lineage OS. Maybe the fork of Simple SMS Messenger might be the way to go. Looks like their fork just had a new release 18 hours ago. |
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Looks like the Fossify Messenger app (fork of Simple SMS Messenger) is now in Fdroid, also. |
it's coming great! I'm learning a lot. There was an update recently with some bug fixes, and i've got a MR to get it on fdroid waiting to be accepted. |
I'm wondering if anyone is working on keeping this app working.
Seems like maybe it's been abandoned, which would be sad, it's such a great message tool.
If so, thoughts on alternatives?
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