“This helps people reach you in video calls, messages, and more.”

  • herseycokguzelolacak@lemmy.mlEnglish
    14·
    2 days ago

    It also automatically turns it on for every device you own. You have to manually deactivate it. It’s really shady stuff.

  • BiscuityCat@lemmy.worldEnglish
    92·
    1 day ago

    Someone please enlighten me. I cannot figure out why does RCS even exist? It does not solve any problems… unless the problem was that Gurgle didn’t have everyone’s phone number yet.

    Seriously, If I understand it correctly, RCS requires data (either mobile or wifi), so it cannot be used instead of SMS. But if you already have data, then you can use the communication app you use normally (Matrix, Signal, WhataCrapApp, …). There is no point in using RCS at all.

    EDIT: I should have posted this as a reply to one of the comments here… too late.

    • JasonDJ@lemmy.zipEnglish
      4·
      18 hours ago

      None “just work”.

      SMS did. But it got dated fast…like, as soon as camera phones came out.

      RCS came out around 2007 and was defined by GSMA as the next generation of SMS, but they struggled with carrier and device compatibility until 2016-ish.

      By then, iMessaging had already been around for several years.

      Apple could’ve opened up iMessage. Google could have forced Android towards GTalk/Hangouts/GVoice, but instead joined up with a pre-existing standard.

      Plenty of stories where Google is the bad guy (including one, I thought, where they basically hijacked the XMPP project, but I could be misremembering)…but I don’t think RCS, itself, is one.

      • BiscuityCat@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11·
        12 hours ago

        From what I could gather:

        RCS is not supported by the Android system - probably because Gurgle doesn’t want to (not sure about iOS). Also quite few carriers still do not support it. So if you manage to send a message, you have no guarantee that it would arrive in the same format you would expect.

        The only advantage it has is that you don’t have to create an account anywhere and you can simply use a phone number to send it. However, that is also it’s biggest downside, because you would have to give your phone number to other people or services, which is not a good idea in this age.

        It may have been a good idea around 2007, but it’s too late now.

  • gole@lemmy.zipEnglish
    12·
    2 days ago

    There is a switch in google account security on the web to turn this off, I did so a long time ago and thankfully, it stayed off on the phone. I think this new settings is just bringing it to the phone UI.

    But at this point best thing to do is block all google play updates before they roll out the complete block for external app installation to more countries.

  • [object Object]@lemmy.caEnglish
    571·
    2 days ago

    This makes me deeply deeply uncomfortable.

    I look forward to the class action when a telecom provider cancels service or denies fraud claims after this exploit feature is used.

  • will@piefed.zipEnglish
    22·
    2 days ago

    I’m not 100% sure, but I think this is required for RCS? I remember having to try toggling this (or something very similar) trying to get RCS to work on graphene before they added patches. If that’s the case, this isn’t new

    • artyom@piefed.socialEnglish
      71·
      2 days ago

      but I think this is required for RCS?

      Sure. Discovery works the same as iMessage and WhatsApp. However, what if you haven’t opted into RCS? Google is just like “Mine! Fuck you!”

  • Irdial@lemmy.mlEnglish
    5·
    2 days ago

    For both iMessage and RCS, your phone number essentially acts like a username. Both services communicate with the carrier to “claim” it, otherwise everything would arrive as an SMS.