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Android Messages Desktop by Chris Knepper
The main problem with Google’s own web app for Messages is that you need to have it open in a browser tab. If it’s not actively open, you won’t get notifications on your PC. You’ll need to open your browser any time you want to use it.
Developer Chris Knepper worked around this problem by building a cross-platform application for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It’s called Android Messages Desktop. Essentially, the app creates a web wrapper that embeds the Messages web app. But Knepper took things a step further by creating a full notification system integrated with the operating system. He even went so far as to include a system tray icon for the Google Messages Windows version.
Lots of workarounds, but none are perfect
Joe Hindy / Android Authority
When I realized Knepper’s app wasn’t going to work for me anymore, I started hunting for something that could duplicate the experience. I discovered that there are a ton of ways to text through Messages on your PC, even without a bonafide Google Messages Windows app. Here are the solutions I found and why they don’t compare to Knepper’s.
Messages for Web: I already mentioned the big limitation of this, but I’ll repeat it again here for posterity. In order for this web app to work, it needs to be open in a browser tab. Even if you install the progressive web app (PWA), you can’t close the window or you’ll miss notifications. There is also no system tray icon or notification badge on the taskbar icon.
Phone Link: Microsoft’s app that lets you use your phone from your PC works pretty well. It’s compatible with a ton of different phones and integrates with Google Messages. However, its biggest problem is a huge one: It does not support RCS. Without RCS support, Phone Link is useless to me. Regardless, there’s no system tray icon, either (at least none that launches the app and tells you if you have messages).
Android Messages Desktop (Knepper): No longer works at all with Windows 11 (and possibly other operating systems). When you set up the app, it never connects with Google’s servers, giving you a blank white screen.
Google Messages for Desktop: This is yet another web wrapper program designed by an indie developer. It looks like it was once awesome, but it hasn’t seen an update since early 2023. When you attempt to install the latest version today, you get a warning that it uses an old build of Nativefier and is a serious security risk.
Finally, there is Android Messages Desktop by OrangeDrangon. This is a direct port of Knepper’s app but is more up-to-date. It is almost perfect, with no web browser needed, a system tray with a notification badge, and pretty much all other features of the Knepper app. However, it is uncertified, which makes it a significant security risk. Windows will warn you of this when you try to install it. It also has some quality-of-life issues, such as blurry photos. However, for now, this is the best thing out there and what I am using in the interim.
A Google Messages Windows app should come from the source
C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
Regardless of how well Knepper’s app did work (or even how well OrangeDrangon’s app might work in the future), there’s no ignoring the elephant in the room: this app should come from Google. The company understands that people want to use Messages on their PCs, which is why the web portal exists. However, Google is being lazy and keeping it a PWA. This is likely so it doesn’t need to bother developing and maintaining the app for all the major operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux, Chrome OS, etc.).
You're reading There Isn’T A True Windows App For Google Messages And That’S Driving Me Insane
There Should Be Billions Of Earths Out There. Why Can’t We Find Them?
In 2009, the Kepler space telescope constantly watched over some 200,000 stars in our corner of the Milky Way. It was looking for where life might exist—by pinpointing small, rocky planets in the temperate zones of warm, yellow suns, and figuring out just how special Earth is in the grand scheme of things. While the mission revolutionized the study of exoplanets, those main objectives went largely unfulfilled. A mechanical failure cut short Kepler’s initial survey in 2013. Astronomers would later discover just a single Earthlike planet in its dataset.
A decade later, researchers are finally closing in on some of the answers to the questions Kepler raised. Earthlike planets are probably rare, but not exceedingly so. Roughly one in five yellow stars could have one, according to a new analysis of Kepler’s data published in May in The Astronomical Journal. If the researchers’ conclusions are correct, that would mean the Milky Way might be home to nearly 6 billion Earths. Yet of the 4,000 likely exoplanets we’ve spotted, just one looks anything like our home planet. So where are the rest?
“[Truly Earthlike planets] are not hiding per se, it’s just that the sensitivity of our telescopes is simply not good enough yet [to find them],” says Dirk Schulze-Makuch, an astrobiologist at the Technical University Berlin, Germany, who was not involved with the research.
If astronomers want to find Earth 2.0s, research calculating the frequency of such worlds will give future telescopes their best chances of success.
Michelle Kunimoto, the exoplanet scientist who led the recent analysis, adopted one standard definition of what it takes to be an Earthlike planet: a world between three-quarters and 1.5 times as large across as ours, orbiting a sun-like (“G-type”) star, at between 0.99 and 1.7 times our orbital distance. Only Earth satisfies those criteria in our solar system, with Mars being too small and Venus orbiting too close for inclusion.
Worlds checking all three boxes are almost certainly out there, as Kunimoto’s work, which earned her a PhD from the University of British Columbia, suggests. But they’re hard to spot. Dimming from small planets is hard to see. Plus, they might transit in front of their star just once every few hundred days—and astronomers need at least three transits to confidently claim a detection. To make matters worse, yellow suns are rare to begin with, making up just 7 percent of the 400 billion stars in the Milky way. The vast majority of the galaxy’s stars are dim red dwarfs, which may bathe nearby planets in lethal flares.
Mission planners didn’t know it at launch, but Kepler had almost no chance of completing its initially intended search. To rack up three transits of slower planets orbiting at the outer edge of their suns’ habitable zones, the telescope would have needed to peer unwaveringly at the same patch of sky for more than seven years. But its pointing machinery broke down after four, long enough to find planets only in roughly the inner half of their stars’ temperate zones.
What’s more, Kepler was designed with our sun in mind. But our star turns out to be special in more ways than one. “The sun tends to be quite quiet,” Kunimoto says, while Kepler’s stars crackled more from their intrinsic burning. “Essentially, it’s a lot harder to find the Earthlike planets [than mission designers expected].”
Kepler delivered the scientific goods in the form of a huge haul of thousands of exoplanets, mostly massive giants hugging their host stars. But researchers have been trying to infer the less epic, more familiar worlds that Kepler couldn’t quite make out ever since. (Kepler 452b, which is 10% wider than Earth and has a year that’s only three weeks longer than ours, is one prominent Earthlike exception.)
The new work builds on a method developed by Danley Hsu, an astronomer at Penn State, in 2023. Previously, many researchers assumed there’d be an even spread of planet sizes and orbits, but as the population of exoplanets has grown, some kinds of worlds seem common than others. For planets with years shorter than 100 (Earth) days, for instance, many are 50% wider than Earth and many are 150% wider, but few have twice our planet’s girth. To accommodate these unexplained oddities, Hsu and Kunimoto both broke the Kepler data into many different categories of size and orbit and analyzed them all in a more independent way. Kunimoto went a step further and generated her own list of exoplanet candidates, not relying on the official catalogue.
In the end, Kunimoto found that an Earthlike planet may circle one in approximately every five sun like stars. She stresses that this figure represents an upper limit, however, and that the worlds could well be somewhat rarer. Her results represent an emerging consensus that the Earth-to-sun ratio of the local Milky Way should hover in the ballpark of 1:10. That figure remains a bit rough, Kunimoto acknowledges, but it’s tighter than the wide ranges published previously, which suggested between one earth per fifty suns, to two earths orbiting every single sun.
Schulze-Makuch calls the estimate “reasonable” and says that this kind of research gives us a valuable glimpse at the answers to otherwise unknowable questions, such as “whether our solar system is typical or kind of a freak system.”
He cautions, however, against letting one’s imagination run wild with images of a galaxy awash in billions of blue and green, cloud-studded orbs. The limited criteria of orbit, size, and star type say little about whether the planets have protective atmospheres and magnetic shielding, water, or the materials needed for life to emerge.
Estimates like Kunimoto’s may also shape future missions and give them more of a chance of finding more Earthlike planets than Kepler had. The more common these planets are, the more mission planners will be able to focus on designing instruments that scrutinize individual worlds, as opposed to wider sweeps.
Schulze-Makuch hopes, for instance, that the Keplers of the future will carry “star shades” that block out stars to capture exoplanets as single pixels, whose variations could betray the passage of seasons or the presence of ice caps. Such innovations could narrow researchers’ definitions of what it means to be an Earthlike planet, but he predicts a clear-cut discovery of a true Earth 2.0—one sculpted by life—remains a long way off.
“If we just use the technology we have right now,” he says, “it feels like we’re light years away.”
Let There Be Light: Exploring The World Of Lifi Communication
Let There Be Light: Exploring the World of LiFi Communication
In today’s fast-paced digital era, there has been a constant search for more efficient and secure ways to transmit information. Enter LiFi, or Light Fidelity – an emerging communication technology that uses LED lights as a gateway for data transfer.
Unlike its radio-wave-based counterpart, WiFi, LiFi harnesses visible light communication (VLC) in the electromagnetic spectrum for high-speed and secure bidirectional data transmission.
This breakthrough holds immense potential in revolutionizing wireless systems while significantly reducing electromagnetic interference.
Key Takeaways
LiFi, or Light Fidelity, is an emerging communication technology that uses visible light waves for high-speed and secure bidirectional data transmission.
With its unique properties of shorter wavelengths and higher frequencies, LiFi offers faster and more reliable connections with significantly reduced latency compared to traditional radio-frequency-based WiFi systems. It also reduces electromagnetic interference.
The potential applications of LiFi are vast – from integration with IoT devices and smart homes to healthcare settings and industrial environments. In these settings, it can provide a secure way for data transfer while reducing the risk of safety hazards caused by radio waves.
Looking ahead, the future of LiFi appears promising. Its integration with IoT devices and smart homes could open up new possibilities for automation in multiple sectors.
How LiFi Works and its Advantages?Li-Fi technology uses light waves in the electromagnetic spectrum to transmit data, resulting in high-speed and secure communication. It operates by modulating the intensity and frequency of an LED light source to encode data, which is then picked up by a photodetector on the receiving end.
Use of Light Waves for Data TransmissionLiFi communication systems capitalize on the unique properties of light waves to transmit data, making it a ground-breaking innovation in wireless technology. Light-emitting diodes (LEDs), which are not only energy-efficient but also capable of emitting modulated light at high speeds, form the backbone of LiFi’s data transmission infrastructure.
Additionally, since LiFi operates within a defined area illuminated by an LED source, it is far less susceptible to signal interference or eavesdropping compared to Wi-Fi networks.
High-Speed and Secure Data TransferLi-Fi technology offers a high-speed and secure data transfer solution. With the use of light waves in the electromagnetic spectrum, Li-Fi can achieve incredible data transmission speeds of up to 224 gigabits per second, which is much faster than Wi-Fi.
What’s more, since Li-Fi uses visible light waves for data transfer, it does not face radio interference or suffer from issues with signal strength as older wireless technologies did.
It also has the potential to be more secure compared to other wireless communication mediums because it cannot penetrate through walls and into neighbouring rooms like traditional Wi-Fi signals do.
Reduction in Electromagnetic InterferenceHowever, LiFi uses light waves instead of radio waves for data transmission, making it immune to those kinds of interferences.
LiFi could provide an effective solution for areas such as hospitals where medical equipment uses sensitive electronic mechanisms requiring precise location tracking. The high precision offered by Li-Fi aids in ensuring less electromagnetic interference from surrounding devices compared with traditional WiFi networks.
In conclusion, the reduction in electromagnetic inference makes LiFi a highly effective solution compared to Wi-Fi as a result of its immunity against disruptions caused by other devices emitting RF energy during operation.
Potential applications of LiFiLiFi has potential applications in various fields such as integration with IoT devices and smart homes, healthcare, industrial settings, and more.
Integration with IoT Devices and Smart HomesLi-Fi technology has the potential to integrate with IoT devices and smart homes, revolutionizing the way we interact with our surroundings. Here are some of the potential benefits and applications −
Smart lighting − Li-Fi enabled bulbs can act as data communication nodes, creating a high-speed network of interconnected bulbs that can be controlled remotely through a smartphone or other device.
Energy efficiency − Li-Fi technology offers energy-efficient solutions for IoT devices by leveraging existing lighting infrastructure. This allows for a reduction in power consumption, making it a viable solution for smart homes.
Indoor positioning system (IPS) − Li-Fi enables accurate indoor positioning, allowing users to track objects or people within a space using light beams. This can be useful in healthcare settings or industrial spaces, where precise tracking is necessary.
Secure communication − The use of light waves makes Li-Fi more secure than Wi-Fi as it cannot pass through walls and is not susceptible to radio interference or hacking attempts.
Increased bandwidth − With higher data transfer speeds compared to Wi-Fi, Li-Fi offers the potential for increased bandwidth in IoT devices and smart homes.
Overall, integration with IoT devices and smart homes could greatly enhance the capabilities and functionalities offered by Li-Fi technology.
Use in Healthcare and Industrial SettingsLi-Fi technology has various potential applications in healthcare and industrial settings, providing a more secure and efficient way to transfer data. Here are some ways Li-Fi can be used −
Medical Data Transfer – In the healthcare industry, Li-Fi can be utilized for high-speed and secure data transfer of medical records, images, and other sensitive information between doctors, hospitals, and clinics. This can lead to faster diagnoses and treatments.
Manufacturing Industry – Li-Fi can also be implemented in the manufacturing industry to provide high-speed communication between machines on production lines. It allows for real-time monitoring of production processes which could lead to increased efficiency, reduced downtime, and cost-effectiveness.
Hazardous Environments – In hazardous environments such as oil refineries or chemical plants where radio waves can cause interference with equipment or pose a fire hazard, Li-Fi technology could be a safer alternative.
Lighting Controls – Li-Fi-enabled lights can also act as a medium of communication with smart lighting systems that detect human presence in a room or location within the facility.
Precision Agriculture – The agriculture sector could also benefit from the use of Li-Fi technology by setting up networked LED systems that would aid in detecting nutrient deficiency or disease identification early on in crops’ growth process.
The versatility of Li-Fi technology opens up possibilities for its use across several industries beyond information and communications technology (ICT). From enhanced security concerns to precision agriculture monitoring capabilities, it is evident that this cutting-edge technology holds an array of untapped potential yet to be explored fully!
The Future of LiFi and its impact on Communication TechnologyThe future of LiFi technology appears very promising, and it is expected to have a significant impact on communication technology. With its high data transfer speeds and reduced interference from radio waves, it has the potential to revolutionize the way we communicate wirelessly.
One exciting application of LiFi technology is in smart lighting systems and IoT devices. The ability of LiFi-enabled devices to communicate with each other will lead to new possibilities for automation in homes, industries, and public spaces.
In healthcare settings specifically, Li-Fi could provide more secure communication channels between medical equipment whilst avoiding any safety issues associated with radio waves that health care personnel usually face from exposure over long periods during x-ray imaging procedures.
With all these potentials likes this already proven by various research worldwide including experiments run by Zumtobel group company’s Helvar at Monash University in Melbourne where they are creating an office network based entirely on light sources) among many others; there’s no telling what other developments might come up next – making us excited about a bright Lifi enabled future ahead!
ConclusionWith its potential integration with IoT devices and smart homes, as well as its application in healthcare and industrial settings, Li-Fi seems to offer endless possibilities.
Razer Kiyo Pro Review: One Of The Best Webcams Out There
The Razer Kiyo Pro is an improvement over the original Kiyo in almost every way. It’s a fantastic webcam that does struggle a bit with autofocus, but the image performance is top notch.
The Razer Kiyo Pro webcam is impressive. While the specs—1080p, 60fps—don’t look like anything on paper, the combination of software and hardware equal a device that I have no problem recommending—despite its high price. At $200 you might wonder how much better it could be compared to more budget-friendly and classic options like the Logitech C920, so let me tell you: Under most circumstances—whether you are hosting a Zoom session or streaming video games to the world—the quality surprised me.
Adam Patrick Murray/IDG
Razer Kiyo Pro mounted on 27-inch monitor.
Kiyo Pro hardware and softwareAdam Patrick Murray/IDG
Left to right: ClearOne Unite 50 4k AF, Razer Kiyo Pro, Logitech C920, Razer Kiyo.2.
The design is impressive. The camera itself is considerably larger than the original Kiyo by every metric, and that makes it feel much nicer and more substantial—a real high-end piece of gear.
It also features a wide variety of mounting options, a treat for those who like to customize their setup. The included monitor mount has two points of vertical articulation and features a 1/4”-20 standard tripod mount to screw into most consumer-grade tripods. Don’t want to use the included mount? The camera itself is screwed to the mount via that same 1/4”-20 port, making the Kiyo Pro one of the most versatile webcams I’ve seen.
Adam Patrick Murray/IDG
Giving up privacy in order to bring you this review!
The Kiyo Pro connects to the PC via the standard UVC protocol, meaning almost any program will get easy access to the camera. My two main applications for testing were Zoom and OBS, both of which had no problem bringing the camera online. While each program has a different toolset for adjusting the video capabilities of the Kiyo Pro, the easiest way to configure it is via Razer’s Synapse software. Inside Synapse you have access to all the tuning options your heart desires, as well as some quick presets.
Unfortunately there seem to be a couple of configuration options that have to be set inside Synapse: HDR and field of view (FOV). Out of the box, my Kiyo Pro was set to SDR, and the FOV was set to its widest angle. SDR vs HDR depends on your lighting setup, which I’ll cover later, but at its widest FOV (103 degrees) there is considerable fisheye distortion to the image. While I’m glad the option is there in case I need to fit more people in the frame, I primarily use the camera alone, and it looks its best when set to the narrowest option (80 degrees).
The Kiyo Pro can display up to a 1080p signal at 60 fps with SDR, or 30 fps with HDR.
Adam Patrick Murray/IDG
Razer Synapse configuration screen for the Kiyo Pro.
Natural light performanceTeleconferencing has become an everyday activity, and most people use the natural light they have available to them. The camera used is important—it’s literally the window through which the people on the other end see you. You want to be seen clearly, be properly exposed, and be framed at a proper angle—all things at which the Kiyo Pro excels.
Let’s start with clarity—the sharpness of the image coming out of the Kiyo Pro, and how it compares to other webcams. The embedded videos were recorded at 4K, with each camera taking up a 1080p rectangle, running at 30 fps, with default settings. Transmitting video over the internet is always going to require some compression. I chose to post this footage to YouTube, which performs its own compression to the image.
Adam Patrick Murray/IDG
The mounting options on the Kiyo Pro are fantastic.
When it comes to exposure, the original Kiyo and the C920 both tend to blow out bright spots like white walls. More problematic is when skin is overexposed, leading to unflattering white spots on your face. The Kiyo Pro and the Unite 50 both offer a better exposure, but the ClearOne is too flat in its default configuration, and is a tad underexposed for my liking. This can be corrected in the settings, but it’s interesting to see how these cameras handle themselves right out of the box.
I’m the most impressed by the Kiyo Pro overall, as it usually provided a proper exposure and it’s not losing much information in the brightest or the darkest parts of the image. I’ll note that this isn’t even with HDR on. In most lighting scenarios like this, it’s best to stick with SDR.
Clockwise top left to bottom right: Razer Kiyo, Razer Kiyo Pro, Logitech C920, ClearOne Unite 50 4k AF:
Even with the Kiyo Pro’s HDR mode enabled it can’t perform miracles, but it does by far the best job at exposing for the highlights while still maintaining some light on the subject. In these situations it’s best either to add light or to tweak settings. While each camera can be tweaked to a certain degree, the Kiyo Pro has the most exposure information to work with. With that said, no one should do any serious video work with a backlit setup.
Adam Patrick Murray/IDG
The inclusion of a removable USB-C is an welcome bonus.
One thing that is noticeable in extreme lighting situations is autofocusing performance. Both of the Razer webcams struggle with focus hunting—which is when the camera does a visible ‘breath’ in order to find what it should be focusing on. The original Kiyo has always had this problem, even in well-lit scenarios. The Kiyo Pro’s performance is better, though still not great.
Staged lighting performanceFor those needing a webcam for stream, such as to Twitch, it’s important to see how a camera will perform in staged lighting setups. While my house isn’t as complex in terms of lighting as it would be for professional streamers, my background as a video director helps me understand how it would perform in most streaming scenarios.
In these types of setups there is usually a main light illuminating the subject, with some (often colored) accent lights in the background. As with backlighting, each camera has to decide which parts of the image it should expose for—the more complicated the lighting, the harder it becomes.
This scenario tends to trigger focus hunting on the Kiyo Pro. When it happens it’s very distracting, and even problematic when you are trying to maintain a level of quality on a stream. I’m not sure which autofocus system Razer employs but it’s most likely something that can’t be solved by a patch.
Adam Patrick Murray/IDG
The Kiyo Pro might look bulky atop a laptop monitor.
If you can surmount that problem, the Kiyo Pro performs well otherwise. It is a bit underexposed in the default mode, but at least it keeps my face evenly lit. (Many webcams brighten the image too far, which results in bright spots on the face.) When HDR is enabled, however, the Kiyo Pro balances the lighting like a champ. It’s a bummer that it seems to be triggerable only within Razer’s Synapse software.
Low light performanceClockwise top left to bottom right: Razer Kiyo, Razer Kiyo Pro, Logitech C920, ClearOne Unite 50 4k AF:
In auto-mode the original Kiyo exhibits a lot of contrast in its image, which is only compounded when used in low-light conditions. Its built-in ring light (which acts more like a spotlight in practical terms) helps—and it’s a unique feature that most other webcams still don’t have—but the spotlight-like look it creates, is not for everyone.
Adam Patrick Murray/IDG
The original Kiyo had a handy built in light, but the Kiyo Pro doesn’t really need it.
The new Kiyo Pro trades out the built-in light for a larger, more sensitive sensor. Without getting into the technical particulars of why, most small-sensor cameras (like those found in smartphones) break down in low light, affecting the camera’s ability to portray color accurately, for instance. In this department the Kiyo Pro does impressively well. Not only is it accurate, it also doesn’t tend to add too much contrast the way the original Kiyo did.
This is another scenario where SDR is typically going to perform better than HDR. HDR is very effective at protecting against blown-out highlights, but in low lighting you actually want to use those highlights to give a better exposure. Like backlit scenarios, I’d like to hope that nobody is doing serious work in such situations, but if push came to shove I’d prefer using the Kiyo Pro.
ConclusionThe Razer Kiyo Pro is one of the best webcams I’ve ever used. Its high-end hardware and easily workable software traits make it an easy recommendation, as long as you can swallow the $200 price tag. It strikes a sweet spot for those wanting an easy-to-use camera that looks great without having to take the next step to invest in a DSLR. Apart from the well-hidden HDR toggle and occasional focus-hunting, there is little to dislike. It’s a viable option for those seeking to up their Zoom game, or to have a simple, reliable, and great-performing solution for Twitch streaming.
There Isn’T A True Windows App For Google Messages And That’S Driving Me Insane
Android Messages Desktop by Chris Knepper
The main problem with Google’s own web app for Messages is that you need to have it open in a browser tab. If it’s not actively open, you won’t get notifications on your PC. You’ll need to open your browser any time you want to use it.
Developer Chris Knepper worked around this problem by building a cross-platform application for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It’s called Android Messages Desktop. Essentially, the app creates a web wrapper that embeds the Messages web app. But Knepper took things a step further by creating a full notification system integrated with the operating system. He even went so far as to include a system tray icon for the Google Messages Windows version.
Lots of workarounds, but none are perfect
Joe Hindy / Android Authority
When I realized Knepper’s app wasn’t going to work for me anymore, I started hunting for something that could duplicate the experience. I discovered that there are a ton of ways to text through Messages on your PC, even without a bonafide Google Messages Windows app. Here are the solutions I found and why they don’t compare to Knepper’s.
Messages for Web: I already mentioned the big limitation of this, but I’ll repeat it again here for posterity. In order for this web app to work, it needs to be open in a browser tab. Even if you install the progressive web app (PWA), you can’t close the window or you’ll miss notifications. There is also no system tray icon or notification badge on the taskbar icon.
Phone Link: Microsoft’s app that lets you use your phone from your PC works pretty well. It’s compatible with a ton of different phones and integrates with Google Messages. However, its biggest problem is a huge one: It does not support RCS. Without RCS support, Phone Link is useless to me. Regardless, there’s no system tray icon, either (at least none that launches the app and tells you if you have messages).
Android Messages Desktop (Knepper): No longer works at all with Windows 11 (and possibly other operating systems). When you set up the app, it never connects with Google’s servers, giving you a blank white screen.
Google Messages for Desktop: This is yet another web wrapper program designed by an indie developer. It looks like it was once awesome, but it hasn’t seen an update since early 2023. When you attempt to install the latest version today, you get a warning that it uses an old build of Nativefier and is a serious security risk.
Finally, there is Android Messages Desktop by OrangeDrangon. This is a direct port of Knepper’s app but is more up-to-date. It is almost perfect, with no web browser needed, a system tray with a notification badge, and pretty much all other features of the Knepper app. However, it is uncertified, which makes it a significant security risk. Windows will warn you of this when you try to install it. It also has some quality-of-life issues, such as blurry photos. However, for now, this is the best thing out there and what I am using in the interim.
A Google Messages Windows app should come from the source
C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
Regardless of how well Knepper’s app did work (or even how well OrangeDrangon’s app might work in the future), there’s no ignoring the elephant in the room: this app should come from Google. The company understands that people want to use Messages on their PCs, which is why the web portal exists. However, Google is being lazy and keeping it a PWA. This is likely so it doesn’t need to bother developing and maintaining the app for all the major operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux, Chrome OS, etc.).
There Isn’T A True Windows App For Google Messages And That’S Driving Me Insane
Android Messages Desktop by Chris Knepper
The main problem with Google’s own web app for Messages is that you need to have it open in a browser tab. If it’s not actively open, you won’t get notifications on your PC. You’ll need to open your browser any time you want to use it.
Developer Chris Knepper worked around this problem by building a cross-platform application for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It’s called Android Messages Desktop. Essentially, the app creates a web wrapper that embeds the Messages web app. But Knepper took things a step further by creating a full notification system integrated with the operating system. He even went so far as to include a system tray icon for the Google Messages Windows version.
Lots of workarounds, but none are perfect
Joe Hindy / Android Authority
When I realized Knepper’s app wasn’t going to work for me anymore, I started hunting for something that could duplicate the experience. I discovered that there are a ton of ways to text through Messages on your PC, even without a bonafide Google Messages Windows app. Here are the solutions I found and why they don’t compare to Knepper’s.
Messages for Web: I already mentioned the big limitation of this, but I’ll repeat it again here for posterity. In order for this web app to work, it needs to be open in a browser tab. Even if you install the progressive web app (PWA), you can’t close the window or you’ll miss notifications. There is also no system tray icon or notification badge on the taskbar icon.
Phone Link: Microsoft’s app that lets you use your phone from your PC works pretty well. It’s compatible with a ton of different phones and integrates with Google Messages. However, its biggest problem is a huge one: It does not support RCS. Without RCS support, Phone Link is useless to me. Regardless, there’s no system tray icon, either (at least none that launches the app and tells you if you have messages).
Android Messages Desktop (Knepper): No longer works at all with Windows 11 (and possibly other operating systems). When you set up the app, it never connects with Google’s servers, giving you a blank white screen.
Google Messages for Desktop: This is yet another web wrapper program designed by an indie developer. It looks like it was once awesome, but it hasn’t seen an update since early 2023. When you attempt to install the latest version today, you get a warning that it uses an old build of Nativefier and is a serious security risk.
Finally, there is Android Messages Desktop by OrangeDrangon. This is a direct port of Knepper’s app but is more up-to-date. It is almost perfect, with no web browser needed, a system tray with a notification badge, and pretty much all other features of the Knepper app. However, it is uncertified, which makes it a significant security risk. Windows will warn you of this when you try to install it. It also has some quality-of-life issues, such as blurry photos. However, for now, this is the best thing out there and what I am using in the interim.
A Google Messages Windows app should come from the source
C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
Regardless of how well Knepper’s app did work (or even how well OrangeDrangon’s app might work in the future), there’s no ignoring the elephant in the room: this app should come from Google. The company understands that people want to use Messages on their PCs, which is why the web portal exists. However, Google is being lazy and keeping it a PWA. This is likely so it doesn’t need to bother developing and maintaining the app for all the major operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux, Chrome OS, etc.).
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