Hi all. I recently had to reinstall Manjaro because I broke it somehow. So naturally I need to reinstall my programs. Got all but one reinstalled, and unfortunately I can't remember how exactly I installed it. It's just called "Messages" for android. It lets you send SMS messages from your desktop, which I find to be extremely useful. For me it's a must have. I tried to use KDE Connect, which is supposed to include this functionality.

But I never could get that to work. Over at the Manjaro forums, a lot of people have that same issue. I even emailed the developer and he said it's not quite finished so it may work for some and not for others. So I needed to find another desktop SMS program.

Somehow I came across one called "Android Messages" which has text messaging app that you also need to install on your android phone and use as your default texting app. It all worked great, but now I can't find it in Pamac. Unfortunately I can't remember if that's how I installed it. There is a snap package there, but it does not seem to function. You try to install it but nothing ever happens.

So I found I could download it using this terminal command:

sudo snap install android-messages-desktop --edge
[sudo] password for justin:
2020-10-31T18:43:59-05:00 INFO Waiting for automatic snapd restart...
android-messages-desktop (edge) 3.1.0 from W.Johnson (chris82thekid) installed

I bolded the part that makes me nervous. I don't know who that is, and I was kind of hoping for something more... "official" you know? Something that comes from a reliable and trusted source. Here's the site where I found the command: (it's at the bottom)

https://snapcraft.io/install/android...esktop/manjaro

It does seem to start up and function. Can you see anything wrong with what I've done? Is this a security risk made by some random guy that I should uninstall immediately? Pamac does say it's installed now. I guess the GUI just didn't want to work, maybe?

There is no need to do all that. You can get desktop messages in any browser easily enough.
https://mspoweruser.com/googles-desk...ays-to-use-it/
It appears that what you installed is for MS Edge, but I don't know for sure.

I could be wrong here, but that appears to be the same thing I'm using. Messages for Android, or whatever they're calling it. The program I installed also uses a QR code.

The way I posted requires no installation other than going to messages.android.com, scanning the QR code, and you're done. You can run it any time by going to that URL. I think you do need to do it in each browser separately, though, if you use multiple browsers. Nothing is on the local system except the browser, all the messaging work is done on the server.