Signal was superb for a long time, and then received a hefty chunk of funding, and, although I may be wrong, has declined since then, and in fact jumped the shark about a year ago.
They attempted ever more forcefully to make users to set a PIN to protect server-side state; it started with a dialog at the bottom of the screen, obscuring about 20% of the user list, which could not be dimissed, and then after a few weeks progressed to the a full page dialog, which could not be dismissed - rendering the app unusable.
All you saw upon starting was the full page dialog demanding you set a PIN to continue using Signal.
I did not want any server-side state, and so did not set a PIN, and stopped using Signal. After a few weeks, the full-page dialog went away, and I found I could use Signal again.
Signal actually blocked usage of the app to force users to adopt unwanted new functionality. It's hard to imagine any app doing well with such mis-management.
I opened a thread discussing the problem on their support/public discussion forum, which was deleted. I also at first opened a bug report on Git, before I understood it was all intentional, this was also deleted.
Since this experience, I've regarded Signal as on the way out, but it's still the best there is right now.
They attempted ever more forcefully to make users to set a PIN to protect server-side state; it started with a dialog at the bottom of the screen, obscuring about 20% of the user list, which could not be dimissed, and then after a few weeks progressed to the a full page dialog, which could not be dismissed - rendering the app unusable.
All you saw upon starting was the full page dialog demanding you set a PIN to continue using Signal.
I did not want any server-side state, and so did not set a PIN, and stopped using Signal. After a few weeks, the full-page dialog went away, and I found I could use Signal again.
Signal actually blocked usage of the app to force users to adopt unwanted new functionality. It's hard to imagine any app doing well with such mis-management.
I opened a thread discussing the problem on their support/public discussion forum, which was deleted. I also at first opened a bug report on Git, before I understood it was all intentional, this was also deleted.
Since this experience, I've regarded Signal as on the way out, but it's still the best there is right now.