don't know if this is an appropriate community

I don't particularly like this application, but my whole family uses and they simply won't use any foss alternative I've proposed so far.

I'm even thinking about joining them.

I only need audio, no video calls, no file transfers.

ETA: what free droid apps can do simply that, not needing for me to provide a phone number or my current location / country?

No, you can't. And there are messaging apps available on FD. The problem is not so much their availability there but whether or not the people you want to talk to also use them.

How would that even work? You need an account to use a messaging app.

Don't let your family set your standards, if they don't have any.

Not true. Don't need one to use SimpleX.

what free droid apps can do simply that, not needing for me to provide a phone number or my current location / country?

There's an endless list, but here's a few:

• SimpleX
• Briar
• Cwtch
• Jami
• ArcaneChat/DeltaChat
• XMPP
• Matrix
• Zulip
• Fluxer
• Chatto
• BitChat

Unfortunately you have to create an account and provide phone number to WhatsApp for communication with your family.

You can disable cloud backups, set auto destruct message timers, not use metaAI and not put any extra info, but not much else to mitigate. At least message or voice content is end to end encrypted, but Meta sure collects a lot of metadata.

Also if you are on grapheneos, you can set up contact scopes, to only include people you communicate with on the service.

Matrix was so basic and nice for privacy and now became so complicated to create account and use it. Can anyone who has it help me test if it's working?

you can also not givr whatsapp permission to contacts at all, with apps such as https://f-droid.org/packages/dev.theolm.wwc and https://f-droid.org/packages/com.harshalbhatia.whatsopen

Can you just join some public "rooms"?

One rather complicated method of accessing whatsapp:

• Install the whatsapp app within an android emulator on your computer (such as waydroid).
• Create an account using a throw-away number (I got a £10 pay-as-you-go sim just for that, though you will need to put the sim in a phone to get the verification sms).
• Access whatsapp on your computer or phone through web.whatsapp.com (there seems to be an f-droid app for that too) (They recently added support for voice+video calls).
• You will need to boot up the android emulator every 2 weeks to sign in to whatsapp web.

WhatsOpen lets you start whatsapp conversations without needing to give meta access to your contacts. Although you still need to have the official whatsapp app and an account there.

I mean mainstream messaging apps actually used by everyday users. Whatsapp, telegram, etc. While you can use SimpleX without creating an account. It still relies on SimpleX servers to relay to your message.

Briar can work without relays or central servers only using Tor for internet connections if enabled.

It still relies on SimpleX servers to relay to your message.

Wrong again, it's decentralized. You can run your own relay.

No, stand firm on not using this fucking garbage. If they don't want to contact you because their beloved spyware is more important to them than you then so be it.

If it helps, Signal is very similar to WhatsApp, and is both FOSS and much more secure.