1159
GrapheneOS is building its own RCS support to cut Google Messages out of the picture
(www.androidauthority.com)
this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2026
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Android
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Yeah I still don't get why people use or promote WhatsApp. If anything, use Signal or even Telegram
Telegram is worse than even Whatsapp, since it's not even pretending to be end to end encrypted.
The real choice is signal or threema.
Or something equally secure and also decentralized like Briar or Cwtch.
I have thought this for years. Everyone slimes on Americans for using iMessage and asks who no WhatsApp? Same reason Iβm not on facebook, donβt use a meta quest, and donβt use instagram.
While Whatsapp is not great, the problem with iMessage is that it is (was?) locked exclusively to the apple platform
Yeah, thats the main issue with imessage (and it still is) and if your switching from IOS to android, you have to start over on all of your messages unless if you figure out a way to back them up.
It's not a good solution, but from a meme in c/selfhosting i learned that through the price of a used mac mini (about $120 at that time) you can selfhost iMessage on mac, and selfhost a 3rd party free software called Bluebubbles, which, as far as i can tell, uses Google and Cloudflare services to convey the iMessages to your Android phone.
I'm sure it is a privacy nightmare. But the shunning for not having iMessage from my own family was getting to me, real or imagined.
You're not self-hosting iMessage. It's just a bridge between your device and Apple's iMessage network.
You are self hosting iMessage -- you have a machine you own (mac mini) running the iMessage application 24-7, so you can access it on your own client (Android phone).
It's self hosting a proprietary service with some middleware to access it on the device of your choosing.
By that definition, I'm self hosting iMessage on my wife's iMac. That's all it is, a bridge.
Is the iMac running as a server? If it is, then sure, that can be self hosting.
That is just so overly complicated, i would rather just start them overπ€£π€£
Iβve never had a problem starting over. Used to custom ROM hope back in the day and start with a fresh Android release on the cyanogenmod nightly releases.
There is nothing in my iMessage that I would be sad to lose moving to Android.
What do you mean exactly start over? If you don't have iMessage, you can't talk to other people with iMessage.
Yeah, its basically that. When i moved from IMessage to Google Message(this was before i went down the FOSS rabbit hole), you have to remake your group chats or someone who is your contact would have to send a text that makes you rejoin a group chat even though you no longer see any of your old messages. One of the biggest annoyances from Apple, its way to locked down to the point that you cant even export your messages, unless its with another apple device.
OK that makes sense. My family excluded me from group chats while i was using Google messages. I couldn't convince them to change. So i eventually broke down and bought the mac mini rather than get an i phone
Hopefully yours are more tolerant
Google messages and IMessages at this point are literally the same thing. They both use RCS, just on different platforms. Unless your family really like Apple, it shouldnt have been a problem.
My folks were really chill about the change until i decided to go the degoogle route. Texting started to become an issue, and im trying to tell anyone that i text to go to Delta Chat. So far, some of my family are using it. But for others, i know its gonna be an issue.
They weren't the same thing for us. Any group messages i was in, videos especially would get transcoded to tiny thumbnails
Sure but if you want it to work wirhbpbine number you have to have a phone talk about every seven days.
WhatsApp does not commit the sin of not having cross platform support at all, it is genuinely the most pratical and easy to use proprietary IM solution besides the network effect
People will always trade privacy for ease of use.
The inertia is real.
Telegram are you kidding me?? Telegram is a thousand times worse than WhatsApp pal
Not even close lol. The sooner we stop using meta shit the better.
While I agree with you that Meta must die, saying that Telegram is any way better than WhatsApp is, I'm sorry to say, either delusion or extreme ignorance.
It's not encrypted. At all. The company has full access to everything on it.
It's also russian and actively used to spy on users by the russian FSB (FBI equivalent, kind of).
To be more accurate: Telegram is totally unecrypted by default, unless one chooses to enter a "secret chat", in which case you use its proprietary encryption. As such its better suited for public group chats and not for anything that needs to critical privacy, but to say it has zero encryption options is not correct.
As for "Russian", while its CEO was born in Russia, and made his cash to initially fund it from the Russian social media VK, he has lived outside of Russia for a decade now, and Telegram is head quartered in the United Arab Emirates, with servers installed globally.
It is, and he has, but if you're following what's going on in the RUvsUA war, you can see that the authorities are absolutely using Telegram to identify dissenters and leaks.
Hate to be supporting Telegram but I recall there also being some sort of Ukrainian Telegram bot meant to be used by Russian soldiers to safely give up and be taken to the other side, using the "share location" button. IDK how that's meant to work now that you need Tor tunnels to browse fucking Telegram in Russia, though. Phone roaming or something? Point is, both sides are trying to use it for their advantage.
You can't use Signal or Telegram because your contacts are on WhatsApp, but yes WhatsApp might as well be called Facebook Messenger
Your contacts weren't always on WhatsApp, stop using it and if they want to talk to you enough they'll join a better platform. Maybe just keep sending them links every day about how trash WhatsApp and Meta are until they get the point lmao
Already did that, and after two years I'm back on WhatsApp. Everytime you do something at least a bit social it will be a WhatsApp group, you can refuse of course, but believe me, unless it's really close friends no one is going to put the extra effort to reach you.
Nah, Signal or Threema
And Briar or Cwtch
I tried to switch over a group of friends and got rebuffed because one of them really likes Whatsapp's transcription feature. Signal doesn't offer it. Nobody else cared.