What do you use to send and receive SMS on your computer? I’ve tried KDE Connect but found it too buggy to use daily.

    • 80386SX@lemmy.ml
      385·
      1 year ago

      My friends started getting rid of Signal when Signal dropped SMS support. As soon as it stopped being the default SMS application, it got uninstalled. Nice own goal.

      Now Signal only lives on for me due to the signal-cli project. Once I can find a working google-messages cli setup to send and receive reports to/from a specific device , goodbye Signal 😿

      • fubo@lemmy.world
        28·
        1 year ago

        My impression was that Signal dropped SMS integration because it was being used to trick users who really needed security into thinking they were having secure chats when they really weren’t. Given that enabling reliable secure chat is the reason for Signal’s existence, that was a pretty bad problem.

        90+% of my mobile and desktop chat with real-world friends is via Signal. I use SMS with friends who don’t have modern phones, with relatives who are mentally impaired, and with businesses.

        • 80386SX@lemmy.ml
          231·
          1 year ago

          That was and is a legitimate concern, and I totally stand with their decision. But it could have been handled by making changes to the user interface, blue send button is encrypted , red send button is plain text. By removing sms support people who are unable to use multiple apps moved to other options.

          Cannot get grandma to use three different communication apps.

          Well it was the signal teams toy , we were just allowed to play with it. 🤷

    • highduc@lemmy.ml
      7·
      1 year ago

      I’d rather use SMS than Whatsapp. I also use Signal and am open to use any open source alternative but most people don’t and aren’t so the thing we have in common is SMS.

    • IronKrill@lemmy.ca
      6·
      1 year ago

      I’ll switch to something else when Canada gets data plans that don’t suck, but until then I am going to make use of the unlimited SMS on my plan.

    • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
      159·
      1 year ago

      OK. But most of NA uses SMS instead of some Meta product to message with.

    • const_void@lemmy.mlOP
      111·
      1 year ago

      Most of the time I can’t even send a message with it - I’ll type the message out, click send and… nothing. No indication of error, no indication of success. There’s also an issue with loading the message history right after launch. A lot of times it doesn’t work or only works partially. App on the phone has full permissions, set to unrestricted battery, etc.

      • mvirts@lemmy.world
        3·
        1 year ago

        Do you have a crapload of messages stored on your phone? It took a really long time to load my messages the first time, then it was usable

  • LinuxSBC@lemm.ee
    61·
    1 year ago

    I used Google Messages directly for a while, but then a Matrix bridge that uses Google Messages was released, so now I use that. If you want to try it, matrix-docker-ansible-deploy makes it really easy to self-host, but if you don’t want to do that, something like Beeper can probably do it.

    • k_rol@lemmy.ca
      2·
      1 year ago

      This is what I currently use since it’s free.

      I don’t understand why people in this thread try to send sms through the mobile network, I’m confused.

      Is this not available outside Canada?

      • jayandp@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        1 year ago

        I don’t know what it’s like in Canada, but in the US tons of people use MVNOs instead of straight subscribing to one of the big 3 carriers, so guessing what the domain name for each one, or getting everybody to text your email so you can find out, is just tedious.

    • owatnext@lemmy.world
      1·
      1 year ago

      I use that for my NAS to “text” my phone if the power goes out and it shuts down gracefully on the UPS.

  • bitwolf@lemmy.one
    4·
    1 year ago

    Most of my contacts are on Signal. So I tend to use Signal desktop. It’s not the best desktop application but it works well for what I use it for.

  • bbbhltz@beehaw.org
    3·
    1 year ago

    When I’m at work I sometimes just use scrcpy over WiFi and leave my phone in my bag. That way I SMS but also all of the other apps.

  • davefischer@beehaw.orgEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    I had a 3g modem in my cisco router that I used to use for that, but when they shut down the 3g network I was never able to find another cheap sms-only service for the 4g version of the cisco modem. (So I switched to wifi & xmpp.)

    I wrote my own software to use it, talking to the raw modem interface. Which, interestingly, uses an extension of the old “AT” modem command set. Weird.

    Being able to write shell scripts that access sms is fantastic, I miss it.

  • jayandp@sh.itjust.works
    2·
    1 year ago

    Personally, I transitioned my entire family and friends to use my Google Voice number years ago. GV doesn’t support RCS still, which is annoying, but otherwise it works great. When my phone broke at the beginning of this year I was still able to send and receive texts from everyone.

    Obviously, if you don’t trust Google this would be a non-starter though.

    • nora@slrpnk.net
      3·
      1 year ago

      Wait it doesn’t support RCS? Isn’t google the one heavily pushing RCS?

      • jayandp@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        1 year ago

        Yep. Google Voice is the forgotten step-child that Google only remembers exists once every few years, randomly pushing a wave of updates, and then nothing(don’t let the bi-weekly bug fix updates fool you).

        Though in a way I don’t mind, since they’re still providing the service for free, with zero ads, for over a decade. I’m convinced at this point that it’s the pet project of some higher up that likes the service and manages to sweep any maintenance costs under the rug so the bean counters never try to kill it.