Signal has improved a lot. I burnt a lot of the same thing, but it's finally sticking when I ask people to first install it within the last year or so.

"Signal has gotten better" is the new "Linux on the desktop". When I move to a new phone with Signal, is there already an (easy) mechanism to take along all my messages from my old phone? Last time I checked, there wasn't, and this is a core requirement, even if most people don't quite realize it when they start using Signal.

There is a mechanism that works very well and reliably. It involves manually copying an exported backup from the old phone to the new one, and entering a 16 digit (IIRC) passcode. Wheter you consider that easy or not depends on you. For me it was a 5 minute procedure

Right, I used that procedure once, it's completely inadequate. It relies on having access to the old phone, knowing how to get files off it (and onto a new phone; both of which probably assume you know how to navigate the filesystem), and you basically need to follow documentation to do it, it's completely undiscoverable (maybe that last part has changed).

All of which is completely unacceptable in 2021 for a product meant for a large audience. Messaging is integral to people's lives, to the point where people keep 10+ year old phones because they have messages on them from people that passed away and they can't figure out how to move the messages across or to a new system. As much as it pains me to say, there just aren't any production quality alternatives to WhatsApp that can take over. And don't even get me started on Element/Matrix...

this also highlights that somehow it's ok to not be able to easily extract files out of your phone. it's maddening.

You have a point, but one should point out here that WhatsApp makes this easy only if you stick with the same type of phone... if you switch between Android and iOS you're completely SOL with WhatsApp. With Signal on the other hand you can use the (admittedly non-trivial) procedure mentioned in sibling in either case.

Another vote for Telegram here. I tried to get at least the core group of family/friends on Signal or Wire and to their credit they tried but it never stuck. They loved Telegram so much that we now have the entire extended family/friends on it.

Interesting that you had such a different result with Telegram. I'd prefer to use Signal for privacy reasons, but like you I burnt a lot of social capital trying to get my extended family to use it!

It will be a hard sell for me to switch, that's for sure. I am already using Whatsapp for Western contacts, Kakaotalk for Korean contacts, and WeChat for China contacts. I don't have any Japan contacts currently, or else I'm sure I will have to install Line. I installed Signal on my laptop for one heavy-privacy-proponent friend, and had Telegram for a while for another friend's group business chat, but I never really used either.

Telegram has no end-to-end encryption for group chats at all.

And normal chats are not end-to-end encrypted by default. Are you using end-to-end encrypted chats with your contacts?

Another bonus of telegram (as compared to WhatsApp) is you can access the messages even when your phone run out of battery.

This is the case in telegram by default when messages aren't E2E encrypted so they (I assume) sit on a server somewhere.

I had success at least moving my parents and sister to chat with me on Telegram. I was having weird issues with Telegram video call (very low sound on my parent's phones), so I still had to call them on Whatsapp. Also, didn't find any audio call option on Telegram, only video call.

Contrats ! Genuine question: Why don't you use phone call for audio-only calls ? In my experience the quality is better and degrades better. Is it because of bundles quota? In my country most plans includes unlimited voice but not sure what's the "world norm".

Well a 6 minute conversation cost me $21 on Xmas day from USA to Europe.

You can use a web browser aimed at the Skype website to setup a calling card equivalent system to dial out internationally over plain old telephone service for 2 cents per minute. You don't even need an app installed.

Don't get the subscription, pay as you go with Skype credit.

Yeah, and considering every time I call my parents it's 20 to 60 minutes long... I would go broke

Does Android not have the equivalent to FaceTime audio? I get that for x-platform you have to use one of the apps being discussed. I use FT Audio with my sister, who's in UK, all the time (I'm in Chicago). Completely free and excellent sound quality.

Google surprisingly has a raft of telephony options.

You can use Google Duo to make voice or video calls for (other than data costs) free, Google hangouts also has voice-only plus video options and of course Google voice integrates with the classic telephone network and has cheap international rates.

Google Fi has free calling from the US to over 50 countries and otherwise their plans start at one cents a minute depending on destination. https://fi.google.com/about/unlimited-calling/

Most of my friends from Asia tell me WhatsApp was and is popular because it carried voice over data, bypassing the PSTN which apparently has very high per-minute rates.

If you want to go slightly higher tech there are telepresence appliances like 8x8, Amazon or Google IOT devices or you can just use sip phones and call between the devices free of charge using your own pbx software or a free service like Callcentric's IP Freedom plan.

There a million options that either let you opt out of Facebook's data collection and trade it for Google's, or just opt out entirely.

Google was pushing Hangouts heavily for a while, and I think that's still bundled with Android but is now on the way out. It did the job last I checked.

Try Google voice. https://voice.google.com/rates

I call my family for 1 cent per minute.

US only.

No, nothing native for Android

Android (at least used to) has native support for SIP through their phone application. I used it quite a bit 5 years ago or so, but moved over to...well, I can't remember. A 3rd party app that gave better visibility over what was happening with the service. I don't use VOIP too much any more, Signal is fine.

Because making a cellphone call to an overseas cellphone number costs way too much vs free?

Edit: sometimes I also start with an audio call, but midway there's something I want to show them, so we switch to video by just pressing 1 button.