© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Google Messages, one of the most widely used messaging apps on Android devices is all set to get a new feature that cracks down to reduce spam. While RCS serves as a great alternative to SMS, the protocol is not without its fair share of problems as scammers and hackers often spam people with messages that contain links to shady websites.
According to a recent report by PiunikaWeb, Google is reportedly testing a new pop-up for both RCS and regular SMS messages to its Messages app that will warn users when they tap on links sent by people not in their contact list. Available on Google Messages beta 20240402_01_RCO0 or newer, the feature currently requires users to enable certain flags.
Compared to the current implementation, where the user needs to tap on the Continue button to open a link from unknown senders, the upcoming feature requires two taps by the user. This may be annoying at first, but will help users from opening random websites on their Android phones. However, the pop-up won’t show if someone in your contacts sends you a message that contains a link.
In November last year, Apple announced that it would support RCS on iPhones, meaning users who are part of the Apple ecosystem will be able to text their Android friends with iMessage-like features.
For years, Google has been pushing the RCS standard, but the rampant rollout hit a roadblock in India back in 2022 when the tech giant had to disable RCS-powered advertising after users complained that businesses were abusing RCS to send several promotional messages.
