The Good Old Internet

For years now, I have been using the Textra app for my text messenger app. It really has worked well for me. To be honest, it has always just worked. Early on, it had the option to make the text larger, which was a game changer for me, being visually impaired. It also allowed me to set my color scheme. Over the years, I’ve discovered other things I liked too, so I never really looked at anything else.

Although I really haven’t had any interest in switching apps at all, I do occasionally search for alternative apps. I mean, you never know what’s out there that you’re missing out on if you do not check these things out.

That brings me to today and why I am writing this. I did that search just out of pure curiosity and saw that Google had updated their texting app. What I was originally searching for were open-source alternatives to my current app.

The thing that caught my attention about the Google app, though, is that it allows me to read and respond to texts on my tablet or even in the browser on my computer. Remember how I said I used the font size feature in Textra to make the text larger? Well, it works well enough, but the downside of it is that the phone screen is small and finite in size. The larger text eats up countless pixels. There’s not much on the small display at any given time.

I have been sending and receiving longer texts, so it’s been a source of frustration at times. My aunt had said she could get them on the computer, but I didn’t look into it and forgot about it until now. My mind was more than a little preoccupied at that time.

In my early testing, it was a nice ability to have the access to these messages on a larger screen. I’ve also discovered that one of the features that kept me from using an open-source alternative was the ability to give certain contacts a unique sound. My new sibling has one, and so does my girlfriend at this point, so I know without looking that it’s a message I want to read as soon as I get the chance.

I would rather not use another Google app, but my understanding is that Google has access to the texts anyway, regardless of the app that you use. What they do with that information is most likely nefarious, but we all know that’s the business culture these days. Track, track, track, sell, sell, sell. Everything is so short-sighted and only focused on maximizing the profit this quarter.