It still does, but they did add a username system so you don’t need someone’s phone number to contact them.

The lack of PFS and 256bit encryption in Session is a little concerning, and one other advantage of SimpleX is that it has no unique identifiers at all while Session uses random IDs and Signal requires a phone number.

Please don’t use Linux Mint with KDE, you will just get a much worse experience. Cinnamon is very customizable. I don’t know what the OP means by “layout”, but if they’re talking about the taskbar that can be customized too.

Relevant link: https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=426770

I would also use Signal instead, but Session’s situation is not that bad unless one needs to accommodate the CIA or Mossad as part of their threat model, in which case I think SimpleX would be a better option. This is also in the article you posted:

Edit: I didn’t notice that the original commenter had said they “switched from Signal” at first, which is definitely worse.

It’s based on Ubuntu 22.04 (the Ubuntu release of April 2022) so it’s really out of date.