Signal Private Messenger

It's encrypted end-to-end by default. It's free (made by a nonprofit). It's not owned by FB, G, or any other big ad pusher. And it does text, voice, and video. (Missing feature: "Mark as Unread"; I find I often take a quick peek at a message and find that it requires a lengthy reply that I didn't have time to write at the moment, but then forget to come back to it until much later.)

Love signal! however I've noticed a bug to PLEASE FIX♥️: the calls do NOT ring, even with notifications on in the app, and in settings, and the phone in full ring mode. it's very frustrating because I keep missing calls. DEVELOPERS, PLEASE FIX AND I'LL BE VERY VERY GRATEFUL. i use it for a lot of my messaging and it's easy to back up messages.

good app, but asked for a rating. I'll let it pass the first time but it's minus 1 star each time after that. things to know: -it requires a phone number to make an account. -signal is a not-for-profit entity or some kind, they will remind you repeatedly. -you can't find groups, only be invited to them via a link. I have not found a site with public groups. -it is secure enough for most normal people -changing or adding a device will cause some extra steps or confusion for your friends.

Signal is on relatively solid ground for security and privacy. Though they could be stronger on metadata, it's hard to trade that off against convenience. But on features, it feels frozen in amber. The fact that it's still tied to a telephone number is a drag. It's incredible that there is still no way to mark a thread unread from a specific point, just a generic unread designator for the chat, nor a way to flag items for follow-up, nor basic text formatting / Markdown, etc.

A pretty solid interface, I like their mission to make messaging secure. It has issues though. I ran into all sorts of problems migrating from one phone to the other. Plus whenever I use the desktop app, messages that I write on the desktop do not get saved on the phone, and vice versa. Frustrating little details like that.