Right but Signal has been audited by various security firms throughout its lifetime, and each time they generally report back that this messenger has encryption locked down properly.

Being critical is good, and we should always hold them accountable for our security. We can look to third party audits for help with that.

https://community.signalusers.org/t/overview-of-third-party-security-audits/13243

This entire article is guessing at hypothetical backdoors. Its like saying that AES is backdoored because the US government chose it as the standard defacto symmetrical encryption.

There is no proof that Signal has done anything nefarious at all.

Signal tells me which contacts in my contacts list has Signal. It also alerts me when someone in my contacts installs Signal.

I believe Telegram also does that.

SimpleX does not.

Do not allow http or ftp traffic as this guide suggests, unless you are active as a server for your local network on those particular ports, and you are behind a NAT firewall that your router usually provides.

I love that Mint brings people to Linux, but its users write some silly guides sometimes.