I don’t really have the option to use something like Signal due to lack of adoption from friends and family.
Would hosting a matrix server and then using something like smsmatrix provide myself with a bit more privacy? Or would this be extra work for not much gain?
sms is not a form of communication that I typically share a lot of personal info on anyway, so its not a huge loss but I have been having a lot of issues with sms coming through to all my profiles using the standard graphene os sms app. I figured I would at least attempt to add a bit more privacy while I look for a new app.
Privacy in what way and from whom? Matrix bridges don’t generally provide better privacy, sometimes even less. They exist mostly for convenience reasons. (In some very specific scenarios they might give a little bit more privacy, but that’s more by coincidence, not by design.)
according to that smsmatrix app “data-in-transit…will always be safe as they are encrypted using https over matrix” which seems like an added privacy bonus over just replacing current GOS sms app with something like google messages.
The real appeal for me is it seems more likely that all the user profiles I have setup to receive sms will actually receive them. With the current GOS app half the time sms doesnt update for a user profile until I end the session and go back to the main profile and then go back to the profile I was using, which defeats the purpose.
Yes, that refers to the data that you send from your Matrix client to your Matrix server. If you don’t use a bridge, then these both don’t exist in the first place and so that data just doesn’t exist. Not a privacy difference there, except that there’s now one place more for your text messages to be saved in, which backup-wise could be a good thing, but doesn’t make things more secure.
an added privacy bonus over just replacing current GOS sms app with something like google messages.
Now I don’t know what Google Messages is doing, as I’m fine with the AOSP app, but yeah if SmsMatrix gives you all the functionality you need that otherwise you would need to get Google Messages for, then that might be a reason to use it. Not because it makes your SMS itself more secure, but more because Google Messages is even worse.
Basically i need to find some solution to the standard graphene os sms app as it does not reliably retrieve sms messages for all my profiles. Since I have to find an alternative I am basically wondering if there might be one that also provides some sort of privacy benefit as well. Any suggestions?
yeah something like this would be the main solution I am looking for, also open to other suggestions if there is a more elegant solution.