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.

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.

Try a different VPN server if you get the “Sign in to confirm you’re not a bot” error. If you’re using Mullvad VPN, the Netherlands Amsterdam 203 server should work.

That likely makes you easier to track. User agents don’t really matter all that much if an advanced tracking script is used. When your IP address is the same, your browser engine is the same, your canvas data stays the same, your window size stays the same, your operating system stays the same, then they will just know that you also use an extension that makes your user agent not reflect your system and track you based on that too.

Use Mullvad Browser without changing anything important (change the default search engine at most) and preferably use a proper VPN to actually avoid tracking during regular internet usage. Or use LibreWolf to at least fool naive scripts.

I would suggest reading this too:
https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/wiki/3.3-Overrides-[To-RFP-or-Not]

Relevant links:
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Neoreactionary_movement
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel

It’s based on Ubuntu 22.04 (the Ubuntu release of April 2022) so it’s really out of date.