Signal then SimpleX. SimpleX is really cool and new but you can’t have groups larger than 50 people. It was recently smeared by Wired as being a haven for neo Nazi’s but that’s bullshit unless you want to accuse Monero of being solely for illicit deeds and money laundering.

Also, there’s Matrix which is like a federated Discord and NOSTR which is also being smeared but is a quite promising technology that Jack Dorsey was looking into and Edward Snowden uses.

Signal

For my family member who moved out of country, signal’s voice quality was not very good. WhatsApp’s quality was better than a regular phone call, very impressive.

Also, outside the US WhatsApp is some kind of standard the way rich Americans think iMessage is. Companies will ask her to contact them on WhatsApp, so she’ll have to have it regardless of your personal involvement.

There’s also jitsi.

XMPP. Oh, wait, company based.

• Signal if you want phone number based signups.
• SimpleX Chat if you want to experience full privacy.
• Threema if you want basically the same as SimpleX Chat, but want to give them money first.

But XMPP would be the best option. Snikket is recommended for easy setup.

Signal or XMPP are good option

XMPP may be a bit overwhelming as you need to select a provider and a client. Doesn’t require phone number.

Signal is private and easy to use like whatsapp. Needs phone number to use.

Telegram is cool but encryption isnt enabled by default, would like to avoid it for this. Cool for public groups.

Edit: Teleram isnt good at all, dont use it. Look reason in the replies

I’d recommend just regular texting, but if for whatever reason you can’t/don’t want to the. matrix should work, it’s basically foss discord.

Signal. Though SimpleX is growing as a superior private messenger.

Signal, Matrix/Element, Wire

Lemmy