Why I ditched Google Messages for this open-source SMS app

As someone who uses WhatsApp for family communication and sundry, I simply don’t care about RCS. I can absolutely appreciate its benefits and why many of our readers use it, but my circumstances simply don’t require it. What I do need is a capable SMS app for one-time PINs, company correspondence, and emergency communication. It’s safe to say then that Google Messages is overkill for my needs. But the reason I recently started looking for an alternative Android messaging app isn’t its sheer breadth of features, but rather one it was sorely lacking.

Google Messages’ spam blocking is far too rigid. In my experience, it often marks messages from my carrier and bank as spam, but will happily allow actual scam texts to stroll onto my device. The feature has no toggles, allows no user refinement or customization, and does what it believes is best on my phone. Giving it the wheel simply doesn’t work for me anymore; I want agency.

Since RCS is an unnecessary extra I’ve used only twice in my life to test a feature, I could happily ditch Messages and look for a new SMS app that’ll offer the spam-stopping feature I desperately need. After a few swipes and scrolls on F-Droid, I found a solid, open-source alternative in QUIK.

If that name rings a bell, QUIK is a continuation of the defunct QKSMS, an app I used decades ago. You won’t find a polished visual experience that drips with Material 3 Expressive flair, but you will discover a highly functional, no-nonsense SMS app.

For starters, let’s talk about the primary reason I adopted QUIK as my SMS app of choice: its more granular message blocking features. Head to Settings > Blocking to open the options, including the choice to select a specific Blocking Manager. QUIK can use external apps to vet incoming messages, which includes Should I Answer?, a platform I regularly rely on to identify calls from outside my contact list.

I can also make full use of its Message content filters feature, which is something I desperately wish Google would add to Messages. In short, I can add specific words, regular expressions, or strings to a blocklist. When an SMS containing this content is received, QUIK runs it against my blocklist and siloes any offending texts. This keeps my main feed spam-free.

While Google Messages picks and chooses messages it feels it should block, QUIK lets me decide what content I want to see.

I can block specific advertising annoyances — funeral cover, data specials, insurance, and various other SMSs — by including common strings that regularly occur in this content, while leaving other similar content unaffected. This is the difference between blocking advertising messages from my carrier while allowing balance updates. It’s a subtle difference that an automated system might not understand. With Messages, I was never assured that important texts were allowed through. With QUIK, since I’m in control, I can guarantee it.

I won’t pretend that QUIK is a silver bullet for spam. There are problems with this content filter solution. For one, its hands-on approach presents a learning curve.

I initially added individual words and phrases without selecting the Regular expression toggle, only to realize that QUIK wasn’t blocking a thing. The app also demands constant tinkering and vigilance on my part. If a sender tweaks the wording of a text, I need to ensure that any changes are reflected in the block list.

Yes, some messages still get through, but that isn’t QUIK’s fault. However, this process does mean I’m more aware of the content I receive, and I’m no longer leaving this task in the often-unreliable hands of an app.

Although RCS is becoming the de facto messaging standard for many regions of the world, SMS remains an annoying necessity in my country. Even though WhatsApp is my primary means of communication, I still rely on SMS for important info from companies and institutions. Unfortunately, this necessity is abused, and spam messages are a regular fixture.

Google Messages, while seemingly effective in mitigating this, wasn’t doing a good enough job for me. My confidence in the app was permanently dented when I received a spoof traffic-fine text, nearly tapped the link, thinking it was vetted, and stopped myself when I saw the bogus URL. Google Messages should’ve blocked it.

After this near miss, I had to look elsewhere, and I’m glad that I found QUIK.

QUIK won’t be a good fit for everyone. As I mentioned, a large portion of our readers rely on RCS daily, and only Google Messages supports this particular protocol at present. Since RCS isn’t important to me, I can focus on SMS-specific features instead. If you’re in the same boat, you’re far better off looking beyond Google.

I’m certainly not permanently hitching my horse to QUIK and ignoring all potential alternatives, though. As with every app on my phone, I’m constantly searching for better solutions. While QUIK does a good job at present, there are some ripples that could be ironed out. Perhaps other apps have already smoothed out these issues, but for now, QUIK does a far better job on my device than Google Messages could, regardless of whether it supports RCS.