[NoBox]

aiharkness-I agree,everyone needs to make as informed a choice as they can.

As for metadata, the question is who you are protecting the metadata from. If it is one of the various data carriers or a governmental agency the answer is simple. You can't. So, don't worry about it. There are various redirect sites that will help with specific commercial interests, but that is all.

Not a Whatsapp expert yet. But, when I installed it all default settings were to maintain all data on that device and to use only the phone contact list on that device. So, in my case, for example, I have multiple contact lists. Whatsapp only accesses the one associated with my phone. Backing up to Drive is an option that must be selected. That is the case for each of the devices individually. In essence Whatsapp is a more secure replacement for the usual texting app on a phone.

From what I read, earlier versions of Whatsapp had some security flaws and were closely associated with Facebook. In the current iteration the only association is corporate. Claims that somehow everything on Whatsapp is posted to Facebook are fraudulent. This is not a Cloud app as it comes out of the box, so to speak.