Signal releases their own self-updating apk on their site, and this release doesn't use Google services for push notifications. There are legitimate reasons why publishers sometimes avoid f-droid.

Also there's Molly, which is a signal fork that allows database encryption; or Session, which doesn't require a phone number for account registration and is decentralized. Both of these forks have repos that you can add to f-droid.

I do understand the hesitance to use a platform that has its infrastructure in the US, but I will say that international compliance with the US is a problem even if the infrastructure is located elsewhere. Session is a really promising option, since it's decentralized, and I'd love to see more people using it.

[–] ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org 2 points 8 months ago

It would be better even if they just hosted an F-droid repo for their app. If they don't trust the f-droid organization with building the app, that's fine I guess. But as I'm aware, they had said no to allf of what is f-droid.