[_jomo]

I'm using Cyanogenmod and I wanted to try TextSecure. There is a version for SMS pre-installed, but I'm not a fan of paying money for 128 bytes of data.

I don't have any Google Services installed.

So I tried finding it on F-Droid, but it wasn't there. I found out there has been a lot of discussion about this. [0][1]

I decided to compile it on my own. That requires to use use Google Libraries, oh well. I managed to get that done and was disappointed when I tried to use it. It also requires to have Google Services installed on your phone for push notifications. I don't have that.

I tried finding a solution, and other people complained about this and there was the idea to use websockets instead of google push notifications [3]. Someone forked TextSecure and started working on it [4].

Unfortunately that fork isn't stable yet, and it doesn't communicate with 'producion' users of TextSecure [5].

This is where I gave up. It shouldn't be so hard to install a free app on a free system.

Also, the websocket fork is somewhat dead [6].

0: https://f-droid.org/posts/security-notice-textsecure/

1: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure/issues/127

3: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure/issues/1000

4: https://github.com/JavaJens/TextSecure

5: https://github.com/JavaJens/TextSecure/issues/10

6: https://github.com/JavaJens/TextSecure/issues/15

[iamthebest]

I had the same experience. I am using CyanogenMod as well and as much as I dislike Google I did install the Play services. I can't even remember why but I think I needed it to use the google voice app.

Anyway, google play apparently tried to auto-update and bricked itself; now it just says "no connection" when I launch the play store.

Last week I tried to install TestSecure but it would not run. It just gave an error message about needing to update play services.

I ended up installing the Telegram app in F-Droid.

[Nullabillity]

I've had Play Services brick itself a few times, but uninstalling all updates tends to fix it.

[vosper]

After all that effort, do you regret not just buying it?

[tedks]

What are you saying the comment parent should have bought? TextSecure is free-libre-open-source software, it isn't sold anywhere. It depends on the Google Play Services, and cannot be run effectively if the framework is not installed on the device.

[vosper]

> There is a version for SMS pre-installed, but I'm not a fan of paying money for 128 bytes of data.

I think I misread this as saying there was a paid-for version available for install, but I have no idea how I got that, since it's clear that it's the SMS charge he doesn't want to pay for.