That is not the official Telegram app. It is a fork called "Telegram-FOSS". If you go to the F-Droid page and click on 'Source code', you will see that it links to this repo: https://github.com/Telegram-FOSS-Team/Telegram-FOSS
This is the description of that GitHub repository:
Unofficial, FOSS-friendly fork of the original Telegram client for Android
Thunder is another great app
That's unfortunate
The old version of Element ain't great, but it is currently being replaced with a complete new, rewritten app called Element X. Check it out, it's really awesome. Session isn't good at protecting metadata, as it removes important parts of the Signal protocol, in order to work on a decentralized network. Just using Signal is probably the best solution for private communications.
Decentralization
I hope this becomes more common
I mean, sure, you can use Matrix for personal chats. It's perfectly secure, but it's not as easy to use as Signal. For example, if I told my grandma to install Element and send me her Matrix ID, she would be really confused. Signal is very easy to use, and the user experience is basically the same as on mainstream platforms like WhatsApp. I also don't think that the phone number requirement is a US thing, as Telegram also has it. Signal only requires phone numbers to prevent spam, but they recently introduced usernames, so you don't have to give people your phone number in order for them to message you.
No I think you are just stupid. I'm not even American lol. What does this have to do with racism? I don't care about the nationality or ethnicity of the developers, but about the country from which the company operates or has ties to.
Plus Messenger looks proprietary. You might be interested in Beeper once it's released, it let's you use all your messaging platforms in one app. And it's supposed to be secure and open-source.