KitKat update has totally destroyed my phone, in particular google voice integration...

A

AC Question

Hello,

I updated to Kitkat a few months back on my Samsung Galaxy S4. Ever since, my phone has been buggy. The main problem I have with it is that there is absolutely no google voice over wifi integration and it disabled or handicapped several of my paid apps. I use google voice because I have no cell reception where I live and so I depend completely on VOIP and texting over wifi... but with kitkat absolutely no SMS app works for this -- only the google voice app, which I've been using... but it crashes CONSTANTLY and I have to restart my phone countless times per day now. I've only managed to retain one of my phone apps, the GV Mo+ app which is really not my favorite for various reasons (primarily that there are almost no settings to tell it when /what to do)... the phone calls are OK but sometimes delayed. My favorite app before for calling was Spare Phone but that one no longer works and I've had bad luck with GrooveIP, Talkatone, etc... on my connection for whatever reason.

I have managed for a few months with this poor texting/phone calling situation... but recently, other apps have been freezing and causing me to need to reboot, and the phone even reboots on its own sometimes inexplicably. My phone is just over a year old and it's frustrating to me that it's now developing all of these problems. I've tried researching about the GV integration but there's nothing useful for my particular situation (use over Wifi).

Is there anything I can do to either integrate google voice AT LEAST with texting (hangouts does not work at ALL), fix all of these bugs, or simply reset the phone to the original jellybean OS so I can use it like I used to without all of these problems? I've never found an "update" to be such a downgrade, even the ones I see people complaining about all of the time. Sorry if this is redundant, I've just been researching since I upgraded this thing and haven't found the answers I need.