Just a follow up on my WhatsApp / Signal / VSee comparison in reply #92....
I've given Signal some time now and it seems to have mostly recovered from the surge of new users. I wonder if there will be another surge in mid-Feb when Facebook 'clarify' their WhatApp privacy policy!
So what am I left with - I've excluded the Whatsapp and VSee items because nothing has changed (functionally):
Android App UI...
- Notification ticks seem intermittent, sometimes delivered but only shows one tick.
Yep, that was a new user surge issue, now fine.- One case of application hanging (Pixel 4A). Messages shown as delivered (2 ticks) but never arrived or notified, Required Force Stop and run again.
No reoccurrence, fine. - Messaging sluggish compared to VSee.
Yes, another new user surge issue. Usually fine, occasionally phone notification takes rather longer than desktop app.- Video quality poorer than VSee.
Still true (though better), I think VSee just has more efficient video compression.Windows App...
- Startup is slow.
- If messaging has been happening between phones since it was last run, it can take several minutes downloading messages before you can do anything.
The desktop app (itself) is still very slow to startup, compared to other programs. Downloading messages is quicker though (another new user surge issue) - When using a webcam (the reason for using the desktop version in the first place), it only sends a narrow vertical central strip of the camera image to the phone, not the full 4:3 image. There does not seem to be any setting to correct this.
Still a ridiculous problem, that makes the desktop app almost pointless. I did a lot of searching and finally found a reference in the Signal forum, to which the answer was pretty much 'Yeah, it does that, we might fix it some day'. - The video that is transmitted and received was poorer quality (detail and smoothness) than VSee.
Still the case. As mentioned above, it's just down to video compression - not that it matters when you are fighting each other to get into the central letterbox of the webcam!So where does that leave things. I now (thanks OP) need three apps installed on the phone and two on the laptop. Signal so that I can feel all warm an secure, WhatsApp for the people who are never going to bother switching, and VSee so that we can have sensible webcam video chats with our Son! Hopefully that number won't need to increase any further - unless there's somebody who still insists on using Skype.

^ Ok, a little 'tongue in cheek', but it's still a fair representation of a typical usage case.