Protect yourself from Spam Texts and Messages on Android.
When the spam texts first started appearing in November 2021, we looked into what might happen if you kept clicking on their links. All of the spam texts are sophisticated phishing scams, as we discovered, meant to take advantage of people in need of money. The culprits are probably based abroad as well.
Never reply to text messages sent to you by unknown numbers, no matter how frustrating it may be. That's actually one of the worst things you can do because it informs spammers that your cell phone number is active and you risk provoking a flood of additional robotexts and other annoying messages.
We have Google Messages installed and set as our default messaging software ever since getting a flood of scam texts in 2021. Since then, we haven't received any more spam texts. The same protection is available to you for free if you own an Android phone. Here's how to stop your phone from receiving spam texts.
- Download the Google Messages app from the Play Store and install it.
- Make Google Messages your default messaging program.
- Setup the application, then select Settings from the menu in the upper-right corner.
- Turn on spam filtering.
Among messaging apps, Google has created the most sophisticated and clever spam protection at the moment. From our experience, in the past 10 months after we installed Google Messages, it has successfully stopped 100 percent of all incoming scam SMS.
Google detects texts that are considered spam and notifies you when one is delivered to your phone, but it does not display the text itself. In the drop-down menu, under the "Spam and Blocked Messages" heading, you can view the messages.
Google Communications has never blocked or blocked any important or genuine messages thus far.