I would argue that the removal of SMS encryption is a worse failing. Accepting all key changes without question renders you vulnerable to active attacks, but you remain safe from mere passive collection (the most common case). On the other hand, whatever Whisper Systems would have you believe, people really do still use SMS. A lot.<p>I will never convince my friends to use an internet-based messenger - I might as well try and get them to use Pidgin+OTR if that&#x27;s the ball game. I have, however, switched a few of them over to SMSSecure, the SMS-only TextSecure fork, which is a perfectly serviceable SMS client.