Same here in Malaysia, though many institutes have been making the switch to Telegram. Our Ministry of Health and National Security Council who release daily updates concerning COVID-19 both have Telegram channels with over a million subscribers. Many schools/classes prefer to use Telegram channels for information dissemination. Some houses of worship also use Telegram channels to promote their weekly activities. Slowly but surely, more and more people are using Telegram.

I loaded it onto my phone last night and started using it today. Elon said it was good so....

I’ll try this Signal app for a while and if it’s not good I’ll try Telegram. Downloaded that one too. Thanks to people who provided input.

Here's some final input for you 🤣

Not to argue, but I wouldn't really trust Elon. He did say and do a bunch of dumb things at the beginning of the pandemic. His opinion on what's good or not isn't really that reliable.

Elon Musk is dangerously wrong about the novel coronavirus"The coronavirus panic is dumb"www.theverge.com

How about Edward Snowden, then? He's recommended it for journalists that need encrypted communications.

Main reason?

I agree with much of what you said but I do think he’d know security. In his wheelhouse.

It's just a more all-around messenger app. You can use it on multiple devices, it has cloud sync so you'll never lose your messages, and it offers a bunch of other features that make messaging more practical.

Signal may prioritise security, but as a result of that it's a much more bare bones messenger that lacks some basic utility (like multi-device support and cloud sync that I mentioned earlier).

Appreciate the feedback!