Android Based Instant Messaging Application Using Firebase

International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056

Volume: 09 Issue: 04 | Apr 2022 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

Anurag Mhatre

, Nitesh Marchande

, Riddhesh Khedekar

, Amruta Sankhe

1.2.3

Dept. of Information Technology, Atharva College of Engineering, Maharashtra, India

Assistant Professor, Dept. of Information Technology, Atharva College of Engineering, Maharashtra, India

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Abstract - Exchange of information for our current

generation is increasing day by day. Terabytes of data is

generated and needs to be stored on a daily basis. Exchange of

information takes place through telephones, mobiles, texting

applications, via social media, etc. But online communication

is an ideal way for communication in a secured and fast

manner. Short messages can be sent within a very small span,

saving an ample amount of valuable time for users thereby

making it the most ideal way for communication. A mobile

application should be able to share information like video,

audio, texts with minimum delay as possible in order to

provide a better user experience. Only then will the user be

comfortable using the application. The information of users

should also be safely stored in a secured region which will

give users the confidence to upload their data freely. Firebase

is therefore used for such purposes. Storage of texts, videos and

files can be achieved using firebase. It is better to use android

for developing mobile applications compared to other

platforms as the UI is simpler as well as easy to understand,

thereby helping the developers. Creating a real time android

application with one-to-one communication between the users

in a safe and secure way is the main objective behind making

the app. This application will help users to communicate

through texts with each other. Storage of files on cloud will be

an added benefit for the users while using the app thereby

enhancing the user's experience. The application needs an

active and stable internet connection between the users for

secured communication to take place.

Key Words: Communication; Firebase; Android; Instant

messaging;

1. INTRODUCTION

To overcome geological restrictions, communication plays a

vital role to utilize technology and unite different people of

different cultures. Over the time communication has become

an important and indivisible part of our daily lives . So, from

an unknown time, people have been communicating through

various means throughout their lives. As in the late 2000s,

smartphones began to gain popularity among youngsters

and older people alike and that’s the reason more messaging

systems became available and began to gain popularity

among the common people. Chat applications have improved

social media by being the core component or characteristic

of any medium. Back in older times letters were used as a

medium of communication but the drawback was that for

any small message or any immediate message

communicating through letters was just not the ideal way ,

because it just sometimes took a lot of time for the letter to

even get delivered.

[1]So after the recent growth in the smartphone industry

and it being very popular among both the developers and the

smartphone makers. [2]Therefore a text-based

communication system which would allow instant

communication between the users. Which led to

development of several text-based messaging apps over the

decade ,including WhatsApp, WeChat, hike, Snapchat just to

name a few [4]This was made possible due to the Android

operating system . Android is an open source operating

system which is developed and managed by Google.

[5]In this paper we are developing a similar application

which tries to achieve similar goals of text based

communication and we will also be adding a cloud based

storage solution which will help the users of this application

to store any important documents or images according to

their need .

2. GOALS

The basic goal is to create an application which is capable

of creating a chat room according to the users, for the users

and storing the related data at a single place. Implementing

Google firebase, cloud to store the data. The goal of this paper

is to develop a fast, smooth as well as secure application that

allows users to share text, media i.e. pictures and videos, free

of cost.

2.1 OBJECTIVE

The feature of authorization allows the user to sign up or

mobile phones. The user after login can search other users in

the search menu which will then be redirected to the chat

room on selection of the username.

3. PROPOSED WORK

This is an internet based instant messaging android

application, which provides the users to text other users in a

fast, convenient and secure way.

Both users' devices must have an active internet

connection for communication to take place. Numerous chat

applications such as WeChat, Hike, WhatsApp,

Telegram, Facebook messenger, Line etc. are used for

International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056

Volume: 09 Issue: 04 | Apr 2022 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

messaging purposes but this android application is capable of

storing files, images, videos and photos. Thus, the user does

not need to worry about his/her local storage. The users get

their personal information stored on the cloud. Using this

application, users can communicate with any user within the

country who has signed-in the application successfully. The

application uses Google Firebase for storage of files, images

and videos and Google Firestore for the storage of texts. Users

have to register or sign-in through their respective Gmail Id

in order to access the application. When the user signs-in to

the application, the user can search for another user for the

communication to take place.

This application is designed for android mobile users.

Users can respond to the messages received by just typing the

reply message and press the send button. Users can also sign-

out from their present device and can sign- in through

another account if they feel the need to do so.

4. PROPOSED ARCHITECTURE

An online text messaging app that allows the user to

communicate with other users in a fast and easy way. Both

should be having an active Internet connection for

communication. For any day to day activities or needs the app

also features a cloud storage which helps users to store and

retrieve data. The system is divided into different modules,

each module has a different function and works in sync with

other modules without conflicts. Major modules are as

follows:

Fig.4.1 Block Diagram

4.1 REGISTER MODULE

When a new user tries to use the app for the first time

he/she has to sign in using a google account or Gmail id. If

Gmail is not available then the user has to create a new

google account and register using Gmail id.

4.2 LOGIN MODULE

This module is introduced when a user tries to sign in to

the system. The user must enter the Gmail id and password

and the Firebase system will check whether the account is

correct or not. The password is stored as a hash that ensures

System security.

Fig.4.2 Login module

4.3 CHAT MODULE

This is the main program module that will handle the

messaging function of the system. This module starts when a

user chats with other users on the network. The following

flow chart explains the chat room workflow.

Fig.4.3 Chat Module

4.4 BACKEND MODULE

For messenger application we need to have a real time

cloud database .For this purpose we have used Google

Firebase .

There are various methods available but the firebase is

the easiest and developer-friendly environment to create a

database. To create firebase database and link it with the

application

International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056

Volume: 09 Issue: 04 | Apr 2022 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

We need to create the project on the firebase. Following

are the steps to create and link the dataset to the android

studio ide: to the android studio ide:

Create Firebase project

as the one which you used to create firebase project.

Authenticate your login credentials.

Make sure the package name of the firebase project

and the android applications are the same.

Make sure the name of firebase package is correct in

the gradle.build file

Now configure database authentication and storage

settings.

Enable the google sign in method in the sign in

method tab.

For the database, create the database in test mode.

When done, we can make more rules for the database

in future as per requirement.

4.5 STORAGE MODULE

This module in the program is used for uploading and

downloading files from the firebase database. The

messenger app has this cloud storage feature which helps

users to store and retrieve data from firebase cloud storage.

So users can store images, documents, videos on the cloud

and download them anytime, saving disk space on local

devices.

5. RESULTS

Following images show different pages and parts of

implemented application . The messenger application has all

the implemented parts including sign in , registration , user

search page , chat room and file upload and download pages

which helps user to store and retrieve files from firebase

cloud .

Fig.5.3 User search screen Fig.5.4 Chat Screen

Fig.5.1 Sign In Screen Fig.5.2 Registration

International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056

Volume: 09 Issue: 04 | Apr 2022 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

The application will be used for users to connect and

communicate with each other . The application has sign up

option by which users can register them using a google

account .Users can search other users by their emails also

and send them requests and communicate with them. The

feature of authorization allows the user to use their account

anywhere anytime with the use of any mobiles phone.

Users have to login to their application with their email id

and password as there is no need for an OTP. There is in

every case some spot for improvements in any product

application, how great and proficient that application might

be. At this moment, we are managing just the texting

between the friends.

In future the application may add more features to

incorporate a few highlights, for example,

1. Voice calling.

2. Video calling

3. Messages auto delete after a certain time.

7. REFERENCES

[1] Sabah, N., Kadhim, J.M. and Dhannoon, B.N., 2017.

Developing an End-to-End Secure Chat

Application. IJCSNS, 17(11), p.108.(2017)

[2] M. Bahrami, "Cloud Computing for Emerging Mobile

Cloud Apps," 2015 3rd IEEE International Conference on

Mobile Cloud Computing, Services, and Engineering,

2015, pp. 4-5, doi:

10.1109/MobileCloud.2015.40.(2015)

[3] Emmadi, S.S.R. and Potluri, S., 2019. Android based

instant messaging application using firebase.

International Journal Recent Technology and

Engneering, 7(5), pp.352-355.(2019)

[4] R. Sanjaya and A. S. Girsang, "Implementation

application internal chat messenger using android

system," 2017 International Conference on Applied

Computer and Communication Technologies (ComCom),

2017, pp. 1-4,

doi:10.1109/COMCOM.2017.8167092.(2017)

[5] M. A. Shahid, N. Islam, M. M. Alam, M. M. Su’ud and S.

Musa, "A Comprehensive Study of Load Balancing

Approaches in the Cloud Computing Environment and a

Novel Fault Tolerance Approach," in IEEE Access, vol. 8,

pp. 130500-130526, 2020, doi: 10.1109/

ACCESS.2020.3009184.(2020)

6. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE SCOPE

Fig.5.5 Upload Files Fig.5.6 Select Files