[aeturnum]

Signal has repeatedly been audited[1] so there's more reason to believe the protocol has the capacity to be secure than other options. Obviously if you believe the company is actively subverting their goal, you should use your own fork.

Edit: to be clearer - signal both publishes a protocol (that is thought to be secure) and provides a public service (that claims to use the signal protocol). Signal has claimed that the binary blobs they add to their public client (and the other restrictions) are required to run a public service (anti-abuse, etc). You are free to believe them or not - I do.

At the protocol level, which you are free to use, none of the problems you or the ancestors have pointed to apply. All of the alternatives people are pointing to here are at the "protocol" level - accessible only if you or someone you trust has setup a node. There's nothing wrong with that - it's a good idea - but it's no reason to attack signal's service for not being a protocol (which they also provide).

[1] https://community.signalusers.org/t/overview-of-third-party-...