It’s a relatively complicated question with no “correct answer” but I’ll do my best to boil it down in a quick post.

Signal is probably the best option. It’s easy to use and easily the most widely-adopted, and basically sets the standard for security, with most other private messengers using the same protocol for encryption. The most common criticism is their requirement for a phone #. However this also makes it the easiest to connect with people, and it’s the reason why I regularly communicate with a dozen IRL people like family and friends. I know literally no one else who uses any other private messenger, personally. I’m not sure what you mean by “numbers are blocked”.

SimpleX is also relatively easy to use, feature-complete, decentralized and more private and resilient than Signal. Doesn’t require a phone number and doesn’t really have any identifiers whatsoever. Downsides are you need to know someone already uses it and you need to get an invite code somehow to message them. Upsides are absolutely zero spam, for the same reason.

Next is “chatmail” (DeltaChat, ArcaneChat, etc.). This has tons of cool features and is also decentralized and easy to use.

Matrix I’m going to argue is too difficult to use, both from the user and server standpoint. And I’m not going to argue about it, so don’t @ me.

XMPP is very old and mature, but also fragmented and more complicated to use, with various encryption protocols. It’s fine.

So if you’re looking to add friends and family to a new chat platform, I recommend SimpleX. Otherwise, it’s Signal.

I would love a decentralized p2p social network but no media is an instant dealbreaker.

I agree but I can’t recommend buying an unsupported device just because it has a small screen.

If you’re looking to buy, I’d look at devices 1-2 years old (so P8x or P9x). These will offer steep discounts while also having tons of life left in them, since Google started offering 7 years of updates.

Mine is still supported until October of next year!

https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-lifetime

I’m sure a lot of it is a bunch of Google services that aren’t running and pinging servers constantly.

Well the claims of harassment continue since then. I’m pretty sure he still has his hands on their socials.

Batt life is fine. Still at ~90% SoH.

I still look back at photos from my LG V20 w/ GCam fondly. I really don’t think smartphone cameras have come very far in recent years.

The founder (Micay) is not well mentally. But the team still does an exemplary job of privacy and security.

I’m still running a several year old GOS Pixel 7. Not because I can’t afford to upgrade, but because I don’t care to (at least not until desktop mode becomes good enough to replace my laptop). Not slow or buggy. I don’t really hear about anyone else’s being such either.

GOS accuses a new entity of “targeted harassment” pretty much every day of the week but it’s safe to ignore. I’m sure some of it is legitimate but I’m also sure all of it isn’t.

I already have. Unfortunately I can’t convince anyone else to do the same.

Tunarr

That’s nice. Unfortunately I disabled these alerts due to abuse.

For proton its mostly on proton’s side, their calendars are read-only externally

You can have encrypted or unencrypted, can’t have it both ways.

Cal.com is a for-profit company, so it should be any surprise that they want to make it difficult to self-host.

They remind me of the educational videos I used to watch in Elementary school and middle school. Would have been like early '00s.

This guy is so weird and creepy and I love him.

Right, well, the person I replied to specifically mentioned the Beeper app. My mistake.

It does not work, for reasons I’ve specified in my original reply.

Well you specifically referred to the Beeper app. And hosting your own won’t solve the other problems I mentioned.

My point is it doesn’t work, and you can’t use the Beeper app with your self-hosted server.

I used it a while back. It was completely useless. None of the apps want you to use them this way so you’re dealing with constant intentional roadblocks they put up for you and constantly logging you out.

Further, I see zero point at all in using Signal when all of your metadata is just being logged on Beeper’s servers anyway.

Cool, I just installed a new version of CoMaps!

Extremely annoyed at users who expect FOSS devs to go through the rigamarole of paying the Apple tax, and getting Apple’s permission to have the privilege of making it available to their customers.