My voyage to find a decentralized maybe open source tele-video and voice chat solution while avoiding the tyrannical silicon valley monopoly.

Jabber XMPP

Conversations app

Pros:

Cons:  No video.

WEBRTC

Jitsi Meet:   Magic, great little app and web that anonymously allows room chats.  Voice only. Tiled view.

Matrix

Like this.  UK driven open source communication protocol for client apps.
Riot: Client for Matrix. IM, voice and video.

Cons:  verbose chat logs in interface is messy.

RiotX:  Beta client no voice or video.

Wire Swiss

Pros: Good app and web interface.  Switch from voice/video in call.  clean chat.

Cons: on tablet it’s stuck in portrait mode and the video is the wrong orientation. I read the company refuses to correct this but, with a tool to force landscape, it works fine.

Proteus protocol. Was open source, ended.  Centralized.

 

So-called Free SMS apps

SendaText.co

The website says:  Send free text to United Kingdom using SENDaTEXT. Using internet, you can send free text messages to United Kingdom. Simply enter the phone number on the dialpad and click on “Send”.

So I gave it a try.  I entered a phone number, I wrote an SMS message and clicked “Send” as per the instructions.  A little circle goes 0% to 100% pauses and says  “sorry can’t send text to the UK”,  another scam then.