That was my thought process evaluating alternatives this morning. Signal is apparently lauded by the privacy crowd, but I took one look at it and said "no way is Mum going to use this".
I went with Telegram because the usability was good, WhatsApp-like functionality, and I saw a few people I know already on it - non-techies in particular, which is vital if we're going to disrupt WhatsApp.
When I tried Signal, I saw an empty list and had to add numbers / find people myself. Not much in the way of onboarding IMO. My complaints are likely met with "duh, that's how it works, idiot", I believe that's just how Signal is designed as it's a privacy-centric app.
I'm just looking for a non-Facebook WhatsApp alternative, rather than a complete focus on privacy and E2E messaging, so I don't think Signal is "bad" but it's not what I'm looking for. I just want Facebook out of my life and its grubby hands off my data.
There were some permissions settings that I didn't pay close attention to, but maybe you didn't allow the app to control your calls or see your contacts on setup?
That's not how it works; Signal directly gives you the list of contacts that are available, just like Whatsapp or Telegram.
The most likely is that you had an empty list because no-one in your contacts have it.
Here in the UK WhatsApp and messenger are the only ones that most people I know are using.
and now some of them are almost exclusively on telegram and some on whatsapp
and whats worse is,now there are some half-and-half conversations in both
and on top of that whatsapp rolled out business accounts and every mom and pop store has whatsapp and thats the only way you can communicate with them in real time
i dont think im gonna be switching out