NewsUpcomingReviewsUnboxingTips & TricksAppsChromebooksChromecastGoogle AssistantAbout

Chrome Unboxed - The Latest Chrome OS News

A Space for All Things Chrome

Allo For Web Brings Support To Firefox, Opera and iOS

By 8 Comments

by Gabriel Brangers
Filed under:

Google’s messaging platform, Allo, has become a robust, user-friendly application with frequent updates and a smorgasbord of features that appeal to a wide range of users. Unfortunately, Allo’s few shortcomings are still crippling it from becoming a truly mainstream product.

The greatest weakness of the Allo app is surely Google’s hesitation to add native SMS support. The ins and outs of the reasons behind the decision range far and wide but that argument can be saved for the comments section.

Another highly-criticized “feature” of Google’s Allo app is definitely the exclusivity it created when the web platform was launched back in August of this year. At inception, Allo for Web was restricted to users of the Chrome browsers and only worked in conjunction with Android devices.

Last week, the Allo ecosystem opened up a little bit. According to a tweet from Allo’s product head, Amit Fulay, our favorite messenger now supports Firefox and Opera browsers on the web.


Amit included that iOS users can now use Allo for Web in sync with their iPhones. You can find instructions on using Allo from your computer at the Google Support Page.

If you don’t want to move over from Safari or IE/Edge, I won’t candy-coat it. I have a feeling Allo will never find itself officially supported on these browsers. However, there are some alternatives floating around the web if you’re looking for one.

Source: Android Police

  • Nana Adu-Krow

    All in all the arguments for Allo makes sense for users. I’m curious to see what they have in store for Duo and Allo next year as well.

  • Asif Hasan

    I fail to understand all the fuss about SMS integration. Nowadays everyone is connected to the internet on their phones 24/7 and online messengers get the job done. As far as I know, most countries except for US have moved on to online messengers. In my country, SMS is considered obsolete.

  • Anfronie

    Google needs to integrate SMS into their message apps or I will never switch. Too many people I know will not have Allo or the many other messaging apps google has made.

    • ChrisGX

      Why does SMS integration in the messaging app matter to you? This is a serious question asked out of curiosity. I have watched for quite some time users stress how important the integration of SMS in their messaging app of choice is for them and wondered why I don’t feel similarly passionate about the matter. Android phones, after all, can receive SMS messages like other phones (unless there is some geographical/national/account based factors that I am unaware of) can’t they? I use secure two factor logon to my Google account and receive SMSes (actual SMSes not some rerouted equivalent) all the time to complete the login process and everything is straightforward and hardly clunky. So, I would be grateful if you could you please outline for me what the factors governing your concern about SMS integration are. It is not as if I can’t guess what some of these factors would be but I want to know how you look at this.

      • Anfronie

        I just want everything in one app. I don’t want to have multiple apps running for messages from people. I’m all for internet texting but as SMS is phased out I would still like to be able to communicate with everyone in one app. I think if Allo had it all then the transition away from SMS would actually be quicker as people would see the virtue of having internet messaging.

        • ChrisGX

          Thank you for that explanation.

      • The issue comes up when you don’t know (or care) which messaging app your contacts are using. In that case, your messaging app needs to message them with SMS or native app messaging depending on the recipient’s capabilities.

        • ChrisGX

          For whatever reason Google started ‘honouring’ the carrier subscriber relationship in a stricter way some years ago. It is hard to believe Google can’t reroute SMS over its own servers using a proprietary protocol (related to XMPP, I believe) in the same fashion as Apple. Actually, it used to do exactly that with Google Talk, which was XMPP based, and also with Hangouts, using a proprietary protocol. And it still does it with (the RCS based) Android Messages. The only sensible reason that I can see as to why Google hasn’t implemented a more compelling way of handling SMSes, that would fit with current smartphone usage patterns, is that they are waiting for the carriers to put their house in order regarding RCS, the carrier supported successor to SMS. I would not be surprised to see Google clear away a lot of the unneeded array of apps leaving an RCS capable Allo as Google’s signature messaging app for general phone and computer users.

          Note: It is already clear that Google will not be playing the Facebook inspired game of offering one jumbo messaging app for everything, though. Evidently, wants to go its own way on this. People should get used to that.