The stock Graphene SMS app sucks, it lacks basic features and customization that standard SMS apps have.
I see no real need to keep it for security and privacy reasons unless someone can share legitimate information about the application for a need to keep it that is note worthy I am all ears to be educated.
I’d like to explore other privacy focused SMS alternative apps. Not services. Just the app. Thanks! I hope this helps others too. I can’t be the only one! I chose top 3 because I would rather not try 50 apps. Just the cream of the crop.
Edit: I tried several. Fossify seems to be the best overall, I encourage others interested to try it on F-Droid. Thanks everyone!
SMS is completely insecure from its very core. So it really doesn’t matter.
Just because someone can break into your house doesn’t mean you shouldn’t lock the door
In this case, your door has no locks. So you can shut the door and it will latch closed, but there’s no lock with which to secure it. So anybody can just walk up and turn the knob and walk right in. It doesn’t matter what kind of door you use, because there’s physically no capability to lock it.
qksms: https://f-droid.org/packages/dev.octoshrimpy.quik/ (works fine but no updates)
simple fossify: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.fossify.messages/ (up to date)
silence: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.smssecure.smssecure/ (no updates)
Fossify is based imo
On my generic android I am using Textra pro version. I do not know how good it is by comparison to other apps, but they keep updating and I am used to it.
Textra
This looks promising as a stock GrapheneOS message app replacement. One of the things that kinda irks me about the stock app is that reactions are displayed as text and the user doesn’t have the ability to react to messages. With Textra both are possible. Thanks for the suggestion!
I’m looking for this too and am interested in any answers. The stock GrapheneOS messaging app is okay for just text messaging for me, but I’d also like to be able to have an interface to it on my PC, either in the web browser or as a separate app. Google Messages for Web is really the only thing I miss from enshittified Google Android. I wish Signal didn’t remove their capabilities for making Signal the default SMS app on phones, but they likely had good reasons to do so.
I’ll share this post on the Fediverse; maybe we’ll get more traffic and thus more answers that way. To be honest, though, I’m not expecting anything that satisfies.
