There's privacy/security considerations for different messaging/VOIP applications.
Thread comparisons-of-xmpp-signal-mqtt-tox-telegram.65834 has links to a few articles and discussion to give an idea about security or privacy between different communication technologies.
Some don't want to use their phone number, because that's a concern in itself. Even in cases like that, Signal has use, that it's more secure than default SMS, Telegram and Whatsapp. Signal can be used for a short time after a phone number is no longer in use. I see Signal as, communicating with people who you would give your phone number to. For a few reasons, I use Signal, but I also use XMPP. I'm also still learning about other messaging/VOIP/communication technologies.
There's other considerations, as Signal is easier to be blocked, but that only happens in certain countries, and a few of those countries try to make privacy chats illegal anyway.
I am not an opponent of Signal. Nor am I saying that Signal is more insecure than Telegram. I'm saying that Signal probably has better privacy, but that we don't know for sure because there are many things we don't know about.
From what I've looked into, Signal is more secure and has better privacy than Telegram. There's a few links and discussions about it in that thread to determine which ones are more secure for a few types. This thread is about using Signal though, and it's useful, even if it's not the best application. Signal is the best or one of the best applications for privacy that uses phone numbers. Unless Signal was worse than Telegram, I don't see a reason to bump Signal down for something not as good. As for exploits, because Signal has a lot of attention and is a high value target, that more work was done to find exploits. The article you linked, claimed Signal was one of the most secure, and thus a bounty was issued to find exploits for bad purposes.
Topics about which is better or problems about one are better off on that other thread. There seems to be a bias in the way Signal is criticized constantly, when the linked articles vary from the message itself. Link posts, because we need to see them, but be more accurate to what the problem is according to those posts. Potential exploit problems with Signal are relevant to all other messengers. Russia already has keys to Telegram (according to a link in that thread), so this is one reason for the bounty on Signal.
A good quality about Signal, is that OMEMO for XMPP is based on its encryption transport protocol.
I understand your concern about security, keep in mind that signal-desktop uses a 1.6GB of yarn modules and electron16. So if you really care about security I wouldn't use it. The linux version uses a prebuilt binary for : libcrypto.a, ringrtc, libsignal-client.
Is another consideration for Signal use on FreeBSD.
Signal use is interesting on my computer, especially on the text client. It prints out a scan code. In my case, this code took up more than the screen itself, so I had to resize it, to use my camera phone on it, then bind my computer (FreeBSD) client to that Signal account. I could only use Signal with either my computer or phone at a time. I stuck with leaving Signal on my phone from then on.
www.statista.com
