Can anyone recommend a good texting app for Android? Requirements/Wants inside

In My Humble Opinion
1

I use whatever came with my phone. It appears to be called “messaging” and it does do a good job texting, but I have a couple issues with it. It struggles to scroll up message histories so I can read old messages. If I get bombarded with messages, I have to scroll up to follow the conversation, and it keeps jumping back down to the bottom.

Anyway, here is what I would like:

  1. I keep seeing others in group message “like” or “laugh at” pictures and messages people send. Almost like a social media type feature incorporated into messaging. On my screen, it just says, “laughed at…”. I don’t have the option to see that properly or do that myself. Is there an app on Android that displays these and also allows me to participate?

  2. Low cost or free. If it is low cost(under $5), I would buy it, but I would love a free trial version or I’m not buying one.

If anyone knows a bunch of other nice features, let me know. I’m on Android 8.0+ updates.

2

I use Signal, which is encrypted end to end and that is the main feature I like about it. If I want to send funny pics I usually use Bitmoji which will post to all kinds of different apps. Signal is really stable and notifications are solid and I like being able to easily assign different colors to different contacts so I don’t get confused who I’m talking to. And it’s free.

3

I use Textra. I’m very happy with it. I can customize notification tones. It has lots of built-in emojis and gifs. Read about it at the linky.

4

These are not separate messaging services, are they? I am using standard text messaging, not something like Whatsapp or Facebook messenger.

5

Signal is a standard messaging app, not a separate service in any way. It’s just a secure message app that encrypts texts end to end so if you text to another Signal user it’s much more secure than sending plain text. Everyone I know uses it so it makes the most sense for me. I don’t have Facebook or What’sapp on any of my devices (aside from using FB on my laptop in the browser) because it’s way too invasive and snoopy. Who needs that crap?

6

Group discussions with multimedia, likes, etc. are not handled naturally by standard SMS, as far as I know. A new SMS client won’t fix that. Generally, people will use either Facebook Messenger, Apple iMessage or some other non-SMS platform. This requires everyone in the group to use the same platform, of course. Some, such as iMessage, can also send out standard SMS messages if you’re not on the platform, but yes, you’re missing some content.

Traditionally, Google Hangouts was the analogous way to do this on Android, but 2019 is not a good year to be adopting Hangouts.