Comment by drnick1
3 hours ago
Signal is legit. The entire stack is open source, and messages are E2EE.
Telegram is connected to Eastern European and the Middle Eastern countries and not in a good way, and the server-side components are closed source. There is no E2EE by default.
Signal requires a phone number and does not want anonymous users, so I do not want it too.
The phone number is only required to create an account, and is never used again IIRC. The rationale for it was to prevent abuse/spam, but I believe there is now the option to purchase an account for a small fee without needing a phone number.
so does Telegram