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Google is quietly blocking RCS on rooted devices.
(support.google.com)
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this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2024
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Android
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Less bloat ware/spy ware - custom ROMs don't come prepackaged with random shady games from shady companies or random shady social media apps from shady social media companies.
Better privacy and security implementations along with DeGoogling - a lot of ROMs offer Gappless ROMs which is really important since Google is way to big and has too much influence on android OEMs and its easily the biggest ad company in the world and constantly refused to respect peoples privacy. e.g GrapheneOS https://grapheneos.org/features and DivestOS https://divestos.org/
Long term software support to help against e-waste e.g LineageOS supports so many phones who's manufacturers have stopped supplying software updates. https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
Customization e.g Crdroid includes loads of custom settings from a variety of other custom ROMs and OEM ROMs that rarely get implemented by any stock ROMs. https://crdroid.net/
Rooting android phones gives users the ability to access system files that they may not have been able to backup if the apps don't support it. It also allows for a full system backup and restore
It also allows users to block ads and unwated connections without using a local VPN e.g adaway
Enabling Google to dictate what a user can do with their own device by limiting features is a slippery slope and the last thing we want to happen is for Android to end up like iOS with its walled garden approach.
The walled garden is something that grows fast everywhere. Users should have the rights over their devices. Maybe its time to get the EU on this train, their last approaches like the GDPR or the DSA are from near the same spirit.
Its unlikely that they'd get involved, RCS might be default on Googles messenger app but people still mainly use alternatives like WhatsApp so there's not a big enough user base that would be affected and since Google is pushing RCS as interoperal, DSA won't apply.
Yes, OS supported root should be mandatory, it shouldn't have to be some sort of hack.
You can still install custom roms without root enabled. Enabling root access is an optional step on most custom roms installation as long as your bootlooader has been unlocked. The question is, does google disable rcs on such devices too, or is it just on rooted devices?
According to the OP that opened the issue with Google, it doesn't work with devices with unlocked bootloaders so it would affect the majority of custom ROM users since very few custom ROMs and devices support relocking the bootloader, and I think it probably would still affect these devices too since the last time I relocked a bootloader with DivestOS I still had the error message about system integrity on boot
Rooted users can probably bypass this issue with some Magisk modules the same way they do with GPay and banking apps.
If Google really does want to push RCS then disabling access to the more technically inclined users now seems a bit silly.
I thought they'd at least wait for wider adoption before locking it down like they're doing with YouTube and ad blockers, especially with imessage and WhatsApp being such big competitors. At least in Europe, I don't see anyone dropping WhatsApp for RCS anytime soon.
That doesn't work anymore due to hardware attestation
Works fine for me, banking and gpay
Yeah this will cause issues because many device that allows relocking bootloader can only do it once, which lock out future rom upgrades.
What prompt google to do this? Do they have bots problem abusing the service?
I've been degoogled since 2019 so I have never actually used RCS so I'm not 100% sure.
If I were to guess I would assume it has something to do with Apples support for RCS. The last time I checked, Apple won't support end-to-end encryption in RCS and the messages are only encrypted in transit so maybe Android users that will use RCS with Apple users will have all of the chats saved unencrypted within the system folders and that would be no bueno for Google
But I'm honestly not sure, I have no interest in learning about RCS unless GSMA helps open source apps integrate it so I'm not stuck with either Samsungs or Googles messaging apps
I never will. It's too little, too late.
20 years ago it would've been a god replacement for SMS. Today? I only use SMS with people who refuse to switch to any modern messenger. I was using XMPP on my phone 20 years ago...
You can only relock once? Since when?
Or do you mean relock once with current OS? Yea, unlocking requires a reset, as a security mechanism.
iirc many chinese phones can only be unlocked using the stock rom, so if you lock it while using a custom rom, you better not planning to unlock it again.
For practical purposes its capturing revenue from OEMs and users. Android being open source if they didn't completely sabotage an actual open source market they could well find OEMs or third parties capturing those dollars or indeed those unearned dollars evaporating in a competitive market. Think the IBM PC and Microsoft.