SimpleX Chat is an instant messenger that is decentralized and doesn’t depend on any unique identifiers such as phone numbers or usernames. Users of SimpleX Chat can scan a QR code or click an invite link to participate in group conversations.
-privacyguides.org
It’s clearly proving to be the most innovative technology when it comes to decentralized communication, in my opinion.
originally it was. but it was given to the larger community as an open project, because they realized that without public use, it would be useless.
There is endless discussion on whether tor software is backdoored or not, but I severely doubt this with all the eyes on the open source code
There is also debate on how many nodes are owned by the feds, but the largest estimates at the peak were about 20%ish iirc. i doubt it’s a significant number enough to worry about, from what I’ve seen.
tldr I’d recommend to look up all the opinions online yourself.