Source? And fyi, if you use Signal you are generating your own encryption keys. Your private keys are generated on your phone and stay on it. So what gives you the idea that

the US government has all the keys

?? Sounds a lot like a conspiracy theory

Ah nice, I didn’t know that was possible

True! But then Simplex / Signal are no real alternatives to Telegram, are they?

I’ll give it a try, thanks! Sadly it doesn’t seem to be well maintained though :/

I already use an ad blocking DNS, but that’s not how they distribute ads, sadly

Which one? There’s three in my post. And I do use an ad blocking DNS, but this can’t block message-like ads from Telegram. Otherwise it would have to somehow read the encrypted message content…

I know! But I don’t really have a choice currently; which app would you suggest for tickers / info channels? Mastodon would be an option, but it’s not quite the same. Abd I’d first have to convince everyone to use it :/

I use telegram mainly for info channels and tickers. To my knowledge that’s not possible in Signal, because you can’t restrict participants to be read-only (right?)

Just use librewolf or any other installation method