last i checked, Telegram was not end-to-end encrypted by default. has this changed?

HN doesn’t like hearing this, but e2e encryption is kind of an anti-feature for the vast majority of users. The usability tradeoff is real, and most folks don’t care at all about the privacy/security side.

Thing is, both can be achieved, but tg doesn't want to implement e2ee by default and signal doesn't want to implement a proper sync mechanism bc of some extra security(imo it's bs, extra security can be achieved with a proper implementation)

Telegram at least offers end-to-end encrypted “Secret Chats”

These are worse compared to signal chats. In signal, after login on say phone+ desktop, you'll have access to messages in secret chats on both devices(wish it would sync even if login on second device was later), on tg you are limited to only one

Nope.