Signal is free software. However, there are two problems with Signal that may make it less worth it for free software enthusiasts: - Signal for Android is buil

Signal is free software. However, there are two problems with Signal that may make it less worth it for free software enthusiasts: - Signal for Android is built with Google proprietary libraries (Firebase). Signal binaries therefore contain non-free parts. - Moxie does not want to see non-official clients connect to the official servers of Signal, including forks that only get rid of the Google part. Understandable but annoying. LibreSignal was doing that, and was stopped for this reason. I would add something else that bothers me, and it's the requirement to tie one's account to a phone number (and the inability to run Signal on several phones I guess). Moreover, one can avoid smartphones (to avoid binary blobs that come with every smartphone of today on which Signal is supported for instance) with a little bit of hacking with signal-cli, but this is not straightforward and the Signal desktop application is limited. By encouraging the use of Signal, you are basically making people depend on smartphones. Not good as far as I am concerned, but still far better than WhatsApp and you can, if you really want to, compile the Android application yourself by removing proprietary dependencies. I did it recently, it's a few hours of work, it seems to work and it's supposed to, but I don't actually use it so don't take my word for it. So, with Signal, it is: - give your phone number - run proprietary software (and the developers highly recommend Google Play on Android), or edit, compile the app for yourself and manage your own updates (and live with your phone's binary blobs anyway), or accept to only use the limited desktop client. In any case you need a phone. So close to a very good solution…