"Or the insistence that Google is the only place you should get the apk from?" No, you can but are not forced to. There is compiled apk (that autoupdates) whic

"Or the insistence that Google is the only place you should get the apk from?" No, you can but are not forced to. There is compiled apk (that autoupdates) which you can get directly from their website. https://signal.org/android/apk/ https://signal.org/android/apk/