Is Telegram legitimate and safe to use

HI I have never used Telegram at all so I could use some advice please thanks
Is Telegram free no charge to make video calls.
Is telegram free no charge to use?
Do I need to put in my cell number to make a telegram account. Can I choose not use put my cell number in my telegram account? I do not want my phone number to fall into the wrong hands?
How secure is telegram to use?
Is Telegram a legitment company?
The reason I am asking about security is simply because I do not want to get network hacked or rounter?

Thanks

Telegram is registered over a telephone number - you get a registration code sent to the number. You can use a different number (burner phone number, for example), but people still find you over the number. Also, if you replace your phone and need to re-install Telegram, you’ll need the same number or you will need to make a new account with a new number and find all your contacts again.

It is free of charge for video, audio and messaging.

Telegram’s communications are secure between you and their servers and between their servers and the recipient.

For 1-1 conversations you can chose to end-to-end encrypt the conversation. That should be theoretically secure (they use their own encryption method which has not been tested and it is unknown if there are any backdoors etc. in the algorithm).

Group chats are not secure (just transmission secure, but not encrypted on their servers).

Telegram is legitimate, made by a Russian playboy who ran an equivalent of Facebook in Russia, before the government forced him out. He now lives in Europe.

They are renowned for not complying with law enforcement, when illegal activities are discovered on their service - the French arrested the CEO when his private jet landed their and held him for essentially aiding and abetting illegal activity… He has now promised to comply with legal requests issued by the courts.

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There is no reason to use Telegram if you can use Signal instead. Signal is free, and it uses technologies which are standard and not some proprietary secret that may or may not be secure.

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And is end to end encrypted and that is verifiable. Telegram is, err, not.

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I was going to ask a question can I put someones gives me their name from telegram can I take that name and put into signal and have a video chat with that person.
Thanks

No, unfortunately all of the messenger services are separate silos that generally don’t inter-operate. If you want to talk to someone on a specific platform, you either need to also be on that platform, or convince them to also be on the one you’d like to use.

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