Silence vs Signal-Android

Silence

PROJECT MOVED: https://git.silence.dev/Silence/Silence-Android/ (GitHub is just a mirror.) (by SilenceIM)

Fork from a private messenger for Android with extra options added: full backup and (partial, ony text) xml backup of messages. Restore can happen at any time, not only after a fresh install. Import SMS database. Import of (unencrypted) WhatsApp databases. Removed apk expire. Choose between passphrase protection and the Android screenlock. Choice for the backup location (internal or removable storage on Android < 11 (on 11 and higher this is already possible)). Set the maptype in the place picker. Option to treat view-once media as normal media. Option to ignore remote deletion. Choose between FCM or websocket notification delivery. (by johanw666)

Signal Encryption Messenger Chat

Source Code

johanw.home.xs4all.nl

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Silence		Signal-Android
	Project
15	Mentions	46
1,110	Stars	234
0.2%	Growth	-
10.0	Activity	0.0
about 3 years ago	Latest Commit	7 days ago
Java	Language	Java
GNU General Public License v3.0 only	License	GNU Affero General Public License v3.0

The number of mentions indicates the total number of mentions that we've tracked plus the number of user suggested alternatives.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.

Silence

Posts with mentions or reviews of Silence. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2023-06-05.

Silence alternative or updated versions (supporting arm64)
2 projects | /r/PrivacyGuides | 5 Jun 2023

I would like to use Silence to encrypt my SMS, but the app isn't updated and doesn't support arm64 (I have a Pixel 7).
Why do people still use facebook even after the billions of dollars in fines?
1 project | /r/privacy | 31 May 2023

LOL, I had in mind a more E2E sms solution. I saw this in Fdroid but have not experimented with it. but it might be the low bar my contacts can accept to stay in touch with me
what are the alternatives for encrypted sms now?
1 project | /r/signal | 10 May 2023

Maybe https://silence.im/ ? But the latest release was 4 years ago
Vonage Help!
2 projects | /r/privacy | 26 Apr 2023

My first answer was https://silence.im/. However it seems to be semi abandoned and unmaintained.
Signal alternative?
1 project | /r/signal | 19 Mar 2023

I have yet to find anything roughly compatable that also seems to be in active development. Slience looks like it but doesnt seem to be really active at all.
Federal judge sanctions Seattle officials for deleting texts
1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 17 Feb 2023

They are certainly able to do so.
The only tool that I know of that can encrypt SMS messages is Silence. The source code is quite stale.
https://silence.im
Signal replacement app for SMS on Android?
3 projects | /r/privacy | 28 Jan 2023

This will not help unless everyone has silence.im installed. And in that case, why not just ask them to add signal and skip a step?
Re-Adding SMS Support to Signal
5 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 24 Jan 2023

There's also Silence, which is a fork of Signal from back when it used to be TextSecure. It only does SMS.
https://silence.im/
Are there any messaging apps that don't need Sim
5 projects | /r/fossdroid | 5 Jan 2023

Yes it is. It is also abandoned, last update was 3.5 years ago and it looks like their site has an expired cert. Rip TextSecure
SIM Registration = More government surveillance
3 projects | /r/Philippines | 27 Dec 2022

From their website:

Signal-Android

Posts with mentions or reviews of Signal-Android. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2023-02-19.

Which version of Signal introduced SMS nags?
4 projects | /r/fossdroid | 19 Feb 2023

The fork by johanw666 is most likely not going to keep SMS support, see here and here.
Re-Adding SMS Support to Signal
5 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 24 Jan 2023

there is already Singal fork with no APK expire whrere you can keep using SMS as long as you want
https://github.com/johanw666/Signal-Android
SMS and MMS features leaving
1 project | /r/signal | 17 Jan 2023
Are there any end-to-end encrypted messaging apps that also support SMS?
2 projects | /r/androidapps | 9 Dec 2022
Signal Introduces Story Time
4 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 7 Nov 2022

Just use Johann's fork with SMS support and no APK expiration and don't update it. This would either buy you some months before proper alternative will be introduced or at best work infinitely.
https://github.com/johanw666/Signal-Android/releases
Signal discontinuing SMS support.
7 projects | /r/degoogle | 28 Oct 2022
Google Messages and RCS with microG
1 project | /r/CalyxOS | 22 Oct 2022

Just use Signal fork with SMS feature and don't update it, this fork should keep working even if Signal tries to force you to update.
If I disables updates, the old android APK will still have SMS integration, correct?
1 project | /r/signal | 17 Oct 2022

I've been looking into this fork and hopefully the dev ends up keeping SMS : https://github.com/johanw666/Signal-Android
Removing SMS support from Signal Android (soon)
6 projects | /r/signal | 12 Oct 2022
Hackers install Dracarys Android malware using modified Signal app
2 projects | /r/signal | 10 Aug 2022

Signal Fork by Johanw666 is it safe right? I've been using it for long time

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Silence and Signal-Android you can also consider the following projects:

Partisan-SMS - Encrypted SMS messenger for Android

simplex-chat - SimpleX - the first messaging network operating without user identifiers of any kind - 100% private by design! iOS, Android and desktop apps 📱!

phosh-antispam

Signal-Setup-Guide - Signal Server Setup Guide

cifs-documents-provider - CIFS Documents Provider

Signal-iOS - A private messenger for iOS.

ad-silence - Mute Ad/promotions from Accuradio, Spotify, Soundcloud, TIDAL & Pandora Android. Minimal, extensible & lightweight under 150kb.

TextSecure - A private messenger for Android.

anonaddy-android

signalbackup-tools - Tool to work with Signal Backup files.

termux-gui - A plugin for Termux to use native Android GUI components from CLI applications. [Moved to: https://github.com/termux/termux-gui]

mollyim-android - Enhanced and security-focused fork of Signal.