Depending on your perspective, Signal is actually a worse Telegram. Telegram has the best UX and feature set ouf of all messaging apps, and privacy does not outweigh convenience for the vast majority of people.
I'm still confused as to why Telegram doesn't have message reactions which every other platform has. I understand that some peoeple feel like it's not needed but if they don't want they wouldn't have to use and in my workflow when talking in groups is to use them extensively and replying with stickers is a terrible experience.
I think the UI is better. Encryption is worse. But I like how they structured their data centers. They have sprinkled them into different countries and they claim that servers from different jurisdictions are necessary to access the data. So if an agency wants to access it, they have to get warrants from different countries. With all the war on encryption going on, e.g. forcing companies to include backdoors, I think this is the way to go.
> They have sprinkled them into different countries and they claim that servers from different jurisdictions are necessary to access the data. So if an agency wants to access it, they have to get warrants from different countries.
That's a neat trick, but not as neat as Signal's "sure, here's all the data we have - the time and ip address of their last use."
(I'm sure a bunch of the "better UX, UI, and features" people like in Telegram rely on them storing more data on their servers, so that comes down to a privacy/convenience tradeoff, which as others have pointed out almost always comes down on the convenience side for 99.99% of people...)
Signal is good for privacy and that's about it. Telegram has voice calls, videos calls, stickers and easy sticker creation, super convenient in-line gif/pic/video search, video and voice messages, and you can add people without sharing your phone number...