Signal

I have a lot of gripes about Signal. Most of them are small. The larger ones generally revolve around its bizarre security theatre.

A prime example happened just now (2026-09-26, evening):

• I had bought a new used phone to replace my existing one, which was slowly dying in various different ways -- but then discovered that I couldn't use it with the same SIM, because it was locked to another carrier. (I thought I was buying an unlocked phone; probably my mistake.) I tried to transfer Signal over, but it refused. I chalked it up to the new phone having the wrong number (I had found a SIM that worked with it.)
• I bought another new used phone (unlocked this time) and successfully moved the old phone's SIM over to it -- but every time I tried to link it from my old phone, Signal said the QR code was invalid. It wouldn't say what was wrong with it, either.
• I finally tried Signal's newish export feature (hurrah for finally creating that) -- which allowed me to finally set Signal up on the new phone (yay!)...
• ...but then it locked me out of Signal on my desktop, which is where I exported the data from -- until I linked the desktop (the existing device) to the new phone (the device which should have been regarded with the most suspicion, from a security POV).
• I wish I had been in less of a hurry so I could have taken a screenshot of the message, but I think what it was telling me is that unless I have a paid subscription, I've now lost everything older than 90 days on desktop -- even though it is where most of my history is, and where the new device got it from.

If this makes me more secure, I really want to understand how. ...and I want the option to override it.

If that's not what actually happened, then the messages need to be clearer.