It didn’t affect me, due to using startallback. It replaces start menu, taskbar and explorer. So my start menu is Win7 and my task and explorer are Win10.
It used to have a 100 day all access free trial and was 5 bucks, but I haven’t checked lately. I gotta keep a Windows machine around for art. My Gaomon tablet was able to use wacom drivers on Linux with some terminal tinkering, but it couldn’t map the scroll wheel by design, which was a deal breaker.
I ran into one called SimpleX recently. No accounts or anything and you can host your own chat instance. Downside: The app either needs a constant spot in your notifications or will otherwise only check for messages every ten minutes.
The desktop app is pretty rough to use, as well.