In a blog post published yesterday Signal confirmed that they are going to remove SMS support in Android devices soon. For those of you who are not aware, Signal was providing SMS and MMS support on Android devices since it’s inception as TextSecure. This feature was not available on iOS as Apple doesn’t allow third party SMS or MMS apps in their ecosystem.
In the blog post Company said that they are they are following this approach to make the Signal Experience more streamlined.
We have now reached the point where SMS support no longer makes sense. For those of you interested, we walk through our reasoning in more detail below.
In order to enable a more streamlined Signal experience, we are starting to phase out SMS support from the Android app. You will have several months to transition away from SMS in Signal, to export your SMS messages to another app, and to let the people you talk to know that they might want to switch to Signal, or find another channel if not.
In the interest of privacy, security, and clarity we’re beginning to phase out SMS support from the Android app. You’ll have several months to export your messages and either find a new app for SMS or tell your friends to download Signal. https://t.co/u9XZ7XM7rT
— Signal (@signalapp) October 12, 2022
Signal gave three reasons for this move, first being the privacy and security of course. They said the most important reason to remove SMS’s from Signal App is the insecurity that lies with SMS service. As Signal is known for it’s privacy and security, SMS’s in Signal app kind of differ from the idea of Signal.
Also, as per the company, earlier this was justified when SMS’s were cheaper option and Data cost was high, but now, SMS’s cost more than data in most part of the world.
Third reason given by the company is sometime user may mistakenly send private messages on SMS from the app thinking they sent a Signal Message.
This move is going to affect only users from Android devices as this feature was not available on iOS in the first place. If you are Android user, then soon you will start receiving notifications related to this move which will help you in exporting your existing messages from Signal app and choose a different default SMS app on your device.
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