700M users and Premium(telegram.org)
telegram.org
700M users and Premium
https://telegram.org/blog/700-million-and-premium
321 comments
> Say what you want about their security; they have the absolute best UX of any (primarily 1-on-1) messaging app, bar none.
That is precisely because they don't give a shit about security. While others like Whatsapp bother with e2ee and resulting device sync problems and inability to do server-side search, Telegram just stores everything on a server without (meaningful) encryption and boldly claims that 'it is the most secure messenger'. And, imagine that, users just believe that it is the most secure! (I did talk to MANY people who repeated this word for word, 'Telegram is the most secure and encrypted messenger app!', and yes, nobody of them used Secret chats, - it doesn't nicely sync, and nobody needs disappearing messages anyway.
That is precisely because they don't give a shit about security. While others like Whatsapp bother with e2ee and resulting device sync problems and inability to do server-side search, Telegram just stores everything on a server without (meaningful) encryption and boldly claims that 'it is the most secure messenger'. And, imagine that, users just believe that it is the most secure! (I did talk to MANY people who repeated this word for word, 'Telegram is the most secure and encrypted messenger app!', and yes, nobody of them used Secret chats, - it doesn't nicely sync, and nobody needs disappearing messages anyway.
>...and yes, nobody of them used Secret chats...
Pretty much no one does any sort of identity verification anyway on any E2EE messaging system. So that means that the people running the servers can MITM if they feel like it to get the content. So in practice Telegram might be the best of something or another for all it matters. It's sort of a con. Yes our E2EE encryption app is perfectly secure assuming you do this thing that we know you won't bother with and will not be able to figure out anyway.
Study based on Signal, but applicable to pretty much all of them:
* https://www.ndss-symposium.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/09...
Pretty much no one does any sort of identity verification anyway on any E2EE messaging system. So that means that the people running the servers can MITM if they feel like it to get the content. So in practice Telegram might be the best of something or another for all it matters. It's sort of a con. Yes our E2EE encryption app is perfectly secure assuming you do this thing that we know you won't bother with and will not be able to figure out anyway.
Study based on Signal, but applicable to pretty much all of them:
* https://www.ndss-symposium.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/09...
> Pretty much no one does any sort of identity verification anyway on any E2EE messaging system. So that means that the people running the servers can MITM if they feel like it to get the content.
The fact that anybody can verify keys raises the stakes of attempting a MITM attack significantly and thus protects the majority that doesn't verify keys themselves.
The fact that anybody can verify keys raises the stakes of attempting a MITM attack significantly and thus protects the majority that doesn't verify keys themselves.
Sure it is a good feature to have, but this sort of attack is going to be targeted. You don't do it to everyone. In the unlikely event you do get caught then you can act dumb in almost all cases. Blame Pegasus or whatever...
I have no illusions about being able to keep a nation state attacker off my devices, but not having all of my correspondence shared with all kinds of third parties by default sure feels nice.
Don't forget anonymity with temporary/throwaway devices and handles combined with E2EE PFS protocols can be very powerful to thwart such surveillance.
Except that if your target finds out, it would undoubtedly increase their paranoia level, making future attacks against him harder and compromising future operations. There's a reason why law enforcement keeps wiretap warrants sealed.
> Pretty much no one does any sort of identity verification anyway on any E2EE messaging system.
Even my tech-illiterate mother asked if I was hacked or just got a new phone (I got a new phone). The study you link is from 2018, I think it's not a bad assumption to say that people have had some education since then. In 2018 I just started using Signal, nowadays everybody is on it, in my various circles.
Even my tech-illiterate mother asked if I was hacked or just got a new phone (I got a new phone). The study you link is from 2018, I think it's not a bad assumption to say that people have had some education since then. In 2018 I just started using Signal, nowadays everybody is on it, in my various circles.
strong second.
literally no one cares for the 'secret key of x has changed' on whatsapp, so i might as well enjoy the supperior useability of telegram.
literally no one cares for the 'secret key of x has changed' on whatsapp, so i might as well enjoy the supperior useability of telegram.
One day I'll write a post about how NL police busted Ironchat and how I discovered their MitM...
> Pretty much no one does any sort of identity verification anyway on any E2EE messaging system. So that means that the people running the servers can MITM if they feel like it to get the content.
Signal makes some cruddy decisions that makes identity verification happen way more often than necessary. Keybase did it better, too bad Zoom bought them just to kill them. Here's their blog post: https://keybase.io/blog/chat-apps-softer-than-tofu . TL;DR:
> Is there a good solution, one that doesn't involve trusting servers with private keys? At Keybase, we think yes: true multi-device support. This means that you control a chain of devices, which are you. When you get a new device (a phone, a laptop, a desktop, an iPad, etc.), it generates its own key pair, and your previous device signs it in. If you lose a device, you "remove" it from one of your remaining devices. Technically this removal is a revocation, and there's also some key rotation that happens automatically in this case.
> The net result is that you don't need to trust the server or meet in person when a partner or teammate gets a new device. Similarly, you don't need to trust the server or meet in person when they remove a device, unless it was their last. The only time you need to see a warning is when someone truly loses access to all their installs. And in that case, you're met with a serious warning, the way it should be:
Signal makes some cruddy decisions that makes identity verification happen way more often than necessary. Keybase did it better, too bad Zoom bought them just to kill them. Here's their blog post: https://keybase.io/blog/chat-apps-softer-than-tofu . TL;DR:
> Is there a good solution, one that doesn't involve trusting servers with private keys? At Keybase, we think yes: true multi-device support. This means that you control a chain of devices, which are you. When you get a new device (a phone, a laptop, a desktop, an iPad, etc.), it generates its own key pair, and your previous device signs it in. If you lose a device, you "remove" it from one of your remaining devices. Technically this removal is a revocation, and there's also some key rotation that happens automatically in this case.
> The net result is that you don't need to trust the server or meet in person when a partner or teammate gets a new device. Similarly, you don't need to trust the server or meet in person when they remove a device, unless it was their last. The only time you need to see a warning is when someone truly loses access to all their installs. And in that case, you're met with a serious warning, the way it should be:
The problem is that these messengers don't encourage it.
People are more likely to do verification if the app has an inbuilt process giving visual incentives for verification, see Element and Threema.
There’s probably a lesson to be learned here.
People care about these features. Tell you what: I care about these features! And I also care about e2ee but I care more about all the things I can’t do with e2ee enabled.
When it matters, I enable secret chats. In the early weeks of the war I used secret chats a ton to organise things (and I echo your observation that most people don’t know about them).
But it doesn’t matter all the time.
Messenger also has e2ee secret chats; they’re awful and don’t have 1/10th the features telegram’s chats have. Hell even telegram’s secret chats are more featureful than WhatsApp chats (which are all e2ee)
People care about these features. Tell you what: I care about these features! And I also care about e2ee but I care more about all the things I can’t do with e2ee enabled.
When it matters, I enable secret chats. In the early weeks of the war I used secret chats a ton to organise things (and I echo your observation that most people don’t know about them).
But it doesn’t matter all the time.
Messenger also has e2ee secret chats; they’re awful and don’t have 1/10th the features telegram’s chats have. Hell even telegram’s secret chats are more featureful than WhatsApp chats (which are all e2ee)
I care more that my intimate chats and pictures aren't stored plaintext in corporate and government servers for them to do god knows what than I care about some (cue soyjak face) heckin' stickerinos. But to each his own.
Yeah same, that’s why I have my intimate chats in a secret chat and not a regular one.
I don’t know why this is so hard to understand. With telegram, you have both.
I don’t know why this is so hard to understand. With telegram, you have both.
I can't use secret chats because they're only available on mobile, possibly macOS (and Unigram if you use Windows 10), not Windows or Linux, and I like accessing my chats across devices and typing on a physical keyboard.
Secret chats are available on Linux, they’re just not accessible across devices. You’re finding out about the issues with e2ee.
There's now a desktop application for Whatsapp (at least on Windows). It claims to support ee2e, and the sync is instant.
Telegram is not a tool for sensitive communications, there are far better options if you don't trust some company or have serious adversaries (Signal comes to mind).
But it does aggressively surface the P2P AES256 text chat feature, it does P2P AES256 encrypt voice and video by default (unless I'm badly mistaken), it's got the cute emoji key-verification affordance in voice and video, it does aggressively surface features for allowing people to contact you or not, which is the exact opposite of what a "growth-hacker" PM would do.
How it stands up to a serious security audit is beyond my pay-grade, Moxie seems to think it's weak-ish, and again, that makes it a bad choice if you have credible adversaries.
But I've worked in privacy-hostile settings. Telegram is not privacy-hostile.
But it does aggressively surface the P2P AES256 text chat feature, it does P2P AES256 encrypt voice and video by default (unless I'm badly mistaken), it's got the cute emoji key-verification affordance in voice and video, it does aggressively surface features for allowing people to contact you or not, which is the exact opposite of what a "growth-hacker" PM would do.
How it stands up to a serious security audit is beyond my pay-grade, Moxie seems to think it's weak-ish, and again, that makes it a bad choice if you have credible adversaries.
But I've worked in privacy-hostile settings. Telegram is not privacy-hostile.
Still seems like a good thing. I can use the same app with the same contacts for e2e chats too. Also the calls are e2e encrypted. For now: Telegram is fast with good UX, many contacts, works just fine and is reasonably secure (with their own "credo"). The mentioned above WhatsApp is a closed source client program that can do whatever it wants on your phone, who said that it is not secretly sending any word you type to some telemetry address, while e2e encrypting your chat traffic...
I see this opinion often on HN but it is BS.
If I were a dissident then given the choice between whatsapp and telegram, telegram wins
"Secret chats use end-to-end encryption, thanks to which we don't have any data to disclose.
To protect the data that is not covered by end-to-end encryption, Telegram uses a distributed infrastructure. Cloud chat data is stored in multiple data centers around the globe that are controlled by different legal entities spread across different jurisdictions. The relevant decryption keys are split into parts and are never kept in the same place as the data they protect. As a result, several court orders from different jurisdictions are required to force us to give up any data." https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests
Telegram is more convenient by default and it can provide security for those who need it.
If I were a dissident then given the choice between whatsapp and telegram, telegram wins
"Secret chats use end-to-end encryption, thanks to which we don't have any data to disclose.
To protect the data that is not covered by end-to-end encryption, Telegram uses a distributed infrastructure. Cloud chat data is stored in multiple data centers around the globe that are controlled by different legal entities spread across different jurisdictions. The relevant decryption keys are split into parts and are never kept in the same place as the data they protect. As a result, several court orders from different jurisdictions are required to force us to give up any data." https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests
Telegram is more convenient by default and it can provide security for those who need it.
You must have missed all the very suspicious information about Durov's close ties with Russian authorities, and that Telegram developers worked from the same office with VK in Saint-Petersburg when he claimed that they are in Germany. [1]
Good choice for a dissident! (No)
[1]: https://medium.com/@anton.rozenberg/friendship-betrayal-clai...
Good choice for a dissident! (No)
[1]: https://medium.com/@anton.rozenberg/friendship-betrayal-clai...
I quickly skimmed through the article (it's pretty long) and its main gist is that the author had a conflict with Pavel Durov's brother about his girlfriend, can you elaborate why you think Durov has ties to authorities? I don't see why working in St.Petersburg makes you a Putin ally.
Because the authorities will kill his or some employees' relatives if they won't cooperate.
Only two things matters in the security communication business: is the security verifiable, and the reputation of the service provider.
Of these two, Telegram is hardly verifiable: its clients are open-source, BUT the sources in the public repository are updated very rarely, so if T. wants to slip in some malicious code aimed at a specific user to compromise their Secret messages, they can very well do it in a number of ways.
But, given that the vast majority of Telegram users do not even user the secret chats, they can just accest all their chat history without any efforts. Since you can log in to your chat history with just a login and password, the even if chat history is indeed encrypted 'in storage', it is clear that Telegram can decrypt your messages for you. Consequently, they can decrypt it for themselves or for anyone else. (I personally think that they don't even bother, what's the point of doing extra work if nobody sees that anyway?)
Thus, the only thing that users can rely on is Durov's reputation, as a fearless modest person with few material possessions, who was pressured by Russian government to sell his business to Putin's cronies. And here is the problem:
Rosenberg in his series of posts alleges a lot of things. First, that Durov has quite a few material possessions, of which he lied (not a big deal in itself, but it adds up). Then, Durov has lied that once he launched Telegram, T's developers were located in Germany. But they turned out to be working from the same office as his old business, which was taken from him in a rather hostile way. These allegations were never addressed by Durov, the only comment he made was the attack on Anton's personality ('This man is a jerk', basically), and Rosenberg has even won his case in court, proving that his claims for payments, etc were solid and he really did work for Telegram in Russia. Do you have a feeling that Durov's reputation is kinda besmirched by now?
Then, this famous case when Russian censorship agency, Roscomnadzor, has tried to ban it in Russia, and couldn't. For some reason, the most obvious thing you do when banning an app was not done: Telegram had remained on Google Play and Apple's AppStore. We know that Google and Apple have previously complied with Russian government requests to ban apps (as proven in the case of Linkedin), but with Telegram it wasn't done - and all sources claiming that Roscomnadzor has demanded the ban were sourced to Roscomnadzor's own post (I have personally verified about 40 news articles, they all linked either each other or RCN's post) - and it is unclear if this demand was ever officially sent to Google/Apple, neither of them have ever confirmed or denied it. (btw if somebody has a congressman or district attorney pal, it would be good to send an official inquiry to Google and Apple to put this question to rest! Anyone?)
And then we have the 'unban' of Telegram by Russian authorities. This is in itself is unprecedented, for a russian government agency to back down from earlier demands 'because they were unable to make it stick'. Nothing like this has never ever happened, russian government officials just don't function like that, under no circumstances! And the week after the ban, Telegram's top manager sat on the same board with russian government officials! This alone makes me think that all this 'telegram's ban' was a successful special PR operation to build up Telegram's reputation, at the expense of Roscomnadzor reputation, which is below the lowest anyway.
So we have questionable reputation by Durov whom we know to lie about vital things, and we have very suspicious block-unblock story, and nobody really knows anything about Telegram the company and where it is incorporated, etc.
Of these two, Telegram is hardly verifiable: its clients are open-source, BUT the sources in the public repository are updated very rarely, so if T. wants to slip in some malicious code aimed at a specific user to compromise their Secret messages, they can very well do it in a number of ways.
But, given that the vast majority of Telegram users do not even user the secret chats, they can just accest all their chat history without any efforts. Since you can log in to your chat history with just a login and password, the even if chat history is indeed encrypted 'in storage', it is clear that Telegram can decrypt your messages for you. Consequently, they can decrypt it for themselves or for anyone else. (I personally think that they don't even bother, what's the point of doing extra work if nobody sees that anyway?)
Thus, the only thing that users can rely on is Durov's reputation, as a fearless modest person with few material possessions, who was pressured by Russian government to sell his business to Putin's cronies. And here is the problem:
Rosenberg in his series of posts alleges a lot of things. First, that Durov has quite a few material possessions, of which he lied (not a big deal in itself, but it adds up). Then, Durov has lied that once he launched Telegram, T's developers were located in Germany. But they turned out to be working from the same office as his old business, which was taken from him in a rather hostile way. These allegations were never addressed by Durov, the only comment he made was the attack on Anton's personality ('This man is a jerk', basically), and Rosenberg has even won his case in court, proving that his claims for payments, etc were solid and he really did work for Telegram in Russia. Do you have a feeling that Durov's reputation is kinda besmirched by now?
Then, this famous case when Russian censorship agency, Roscomnadzor, has tried to ban it in Russia, and couldn't. For some reason, the most obvious thing you do when banning an app was not done: Telegram had remained on Google Play and Apple's AppStore. We know that Google and Apple have previously complied with Russian government requests to ban apps (as proven in the case of Linkedin), but with Telegram it wasn't done - and all sources claiming that Roscomnadzor has demanded the ban were sourced to Roscomnadzor's own post (I have personally verified about 40 news articles, they all linked either each other or RCN's post) - and it is unclear if this demand was ever officially sent to Google/Apple, neither of them have ever confirmed or denied it. (btw if somebody has a congressman or district attorney pal, it would be good to send an official inquiry to Google and Apple to put this question to rest! Anyone?)
And then we have the 'unban' of Telegram by Russian authorities. This is in itself is unprecedented, for a russian government agency to back down from earlier demands 'because they were unable to make it stick'. Nothing like this has never ever happened, russian government officials just don't function like that, under no circumstances! And the week after the ban, Telegram's top manager sat on the same board with russian government officials! This alone makes me think that all this 'telegram's ban' was a successful special PR operation to build up Telegram's reputation, at the expense of Roscomnadzor reputation, which is below the lowest anyway.
So we have questionable reputation by Durov whom we know to lie about vital things, and we have very suspicious block-unblock story, and nobody really knows anything about Telegram the company and where it is incorporated, etc.
I maintain a third party telegram client and I am curious how you find the Bs about rarely update source
Last update of Android version of Telegram on Github: 2022-04-29 [1]
Last update of Telegram on Google Play: 2022-06-17 [2]
[1]: https://github.com/DrKLO/Telegram/commits/master
[2]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.telegram.m...
Last update of Telegram on Google Play: 2022-06-17 [2]
[1]: https://github.com/DrKLO/Telegram/commits/master
[2]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.telegram.m...
>You must have missed all the very suspicious information about Durov's close ties with Russian authorities
That's rather fine in the event you don't want the Five Eyes to spy on you and you don't care if Putin reads your messages when he eats his breakfast.
That's rather fine in the event you don't want the Five Eyes to spy on you and you don't care if Putin reads your messages when he eats his breakfast.
agree.
messenger privacy is not a function of technology unfortunately.
the only real choice is which powerblock (us,ru,ch) can read your conversation
messenger privacy is not a function of technology unfortunately.
the only real choice is which powerblock (us,ru,ch) can read your conversation
Since when is Switzerland a powerblock, however thank you!
Well, I am afraid Switzerland can read our messages and then jack up the prices on watches and chocolate!
??? CN is China (mainland), CH is Switzerland, but have fun with our watches...and chocolate...we jack the joe out of it.
Except that the message they replied to said ‘ch’, not ‘cn’.
No BS? Like i said, Switzerland is now a power-block like the US ;)
That's a defeatist attitude. Use Signal and you're protected from sub-Pegasus attacks.
Btw, only 1:1 chats can be used for Secret Chats in Telegram. It does not support group chats.
> To protect the data that is not covered by end-to-end encryption
No data (so Signal) is better than whatever legal hoops you're going through to supposedly avoid giving out the data you have. Plus if you look up "telegram data germany", it's not clear that it's actually working and that they're actually true to their word.
No data (so Signal) is better than whatever legal hoops you're going through to supposedly avoid giving out the data you have. Plus if you look up "telegram data germany", it's not clear that it's actually working and that they're actually true to their word.
Why only the choice between WhatsApp and Telegram?
What about Signal, Wire, Threema?
What about Signal, Wire, Threema?
Threema costs money, which is a showstopper for mass adoption.
"Costs money" sounds nice - I would prefer a service where I am a customer rather than a commodity.
Element
Well good thing you don't have to choose either of them...
Pretty much none of the features mentioned here have anything to do with E2EE security. How did you even try to get to such conclusion (besides really really trying to use it as a segway into your encryption rant)?!
I'm actually very opposing this e2ee everywhere crowd, because we're developing an XMPP app and we're annoyed to death by people who demanding us (ordering even!) to deliver them encryption above anything else and always asking this as a first question.
The comment was more related to a puzzling observation that a really serious promise of security makes people more happy than actual security. Why bother with providing safety to people if all they need is to feel safe?
The comment was more related to a puzzling observation that a really serious promise of security makes people more happy than actual security. Why bother with providing safety to people if all they need is to feel safe?
> The comment was more related to a puzzling observation that a really serious promise of security makes people more happy than actual security. Why bother with providing safety to people if all they need is to feel safe?
It's called security theater. The TSA is my favorite example of this phenomenon.
It's called security theater. The TSA is my favorite example of this phenomenon.
[deleted]
While it may not be the most secure, for many casual users the level of encryption provided in cloud chats is good enough for the convenience of smooth cloud sync, which generally doesn't work with E2E messengers and I frequently lose messages when I restore my phone or get a new one. At least they say the encryption keys for cloud chats are scattered across multiple jurdistictions so they wouldn't be able to hand over anything (other than public chats) unless someone got a court order in bunch of different countries at the same time. I would definitely trust them more than WhatsApp even though the latter uses the Signal protocol, but I don't trust Meta to not collect metadata or possibly have other backdoors as well.
> smooth cloud sync, which generally doesn't work with E2E messengers
Wrong, see Element or Matrix generally
Wrong, see Element or Matrix generally
Smooth is not the word I would use for them. Though it may very well be only a “frontend” problem and the underlying tech/theory is probably good. But the current implementations are not yet there unfortunately.
> That is precisely because they don't give a shit about security
Well, it's not like other messengers excelled at UX before they introduced e2ee (which is not implemented very well either)
Well, it's not like other messengers excelled at UX before they introduced e2ee (which is not implemented very well either)
Server side search is possible with E2EE: https://matrix-org.github.io/gsoc/#/projects?project=impleme...
The most secure messenger...that just so happens to be developed by a Russian company headquartered in the same building as VK, a known Kremlin-controlled social media network!
https://theoutline.com/post/2348/what-isn-t-telegram-saying-...
https://theoutline.com/post/2348/what-isn-t-telegram-saying-...
> developed by a Russian company
Yeah. And WhatsApp/FB/MSNMessenger/GChat by US companies. Both are detrimental for your privacy.
Yeah. And WhatsApp/FB/MSNMessenger/GChat by US companies. Both are detrimental for your privacy.
[deleted]
e2ee in whatsapp is a joke. e2ee with close source clients, closed protocol, backup functions, sorry... that's not real e2ee, that's a marketing ploy.
signal does marginally better.
real e2ee is possible with XMPP and Omemo iirc. but as others have pointed out that's not UXy enough to compete with Telegram for the mainsteam.
signal does marginally better.
real e2ee is possible with XMPP and Omemo iirc. but as others have pointed out that's not UXy enough to compete with Telegram for the mainsteam.
WhatsApp is not e2ee. When Facebook displays advertising based on conversations in what’s app. You will never convince me it’s e2ee. It’s fake privacy.
WA was E2EE, at least at one point. Its key weakness was not notifying of key changes by default.
Before being bought by Facebook I would believe it was e2ee. But believe it’s not e2ee between the client and Facebook. They just decrypt analysis and reencypt and forward. Since communication is not peer to peer and goes via FB the key exchange is prob with Facebook not the users.
>They just decrypt analysis and reencypt and forward. Since communication is not peer to peer and goes via FB the key exchange is prob with Facebook not the users.
Do you have any evidence for this, or is this your "better safe than sorry" assumption for every e2e messenger that doesn't allow you to verify keys?
Do you have any evidence for this, or is this your "better safe than sorry" assumption for every e2e messenger that doesn't allow you to verify keys?
After FB bought WhatsApp I’ve had multiple occasions where shortly after having conversations with people about products I haven’t searched for. The only place I’ve discussed it. Is in a whats app conversation. I got advertising in Facebook for those products.
For example when looking for an apartment I told my agent (non business account) that I wanted safety catches on the windows. I immediately got advertising for safety catches and window gates.
I don’t own cats but in a conversation with a friend who owns cats I said she should get one of those cat tree things and scratch poles. Right away Facebook starts showing me adverts for cat toys.
This is not stuff I’ve searched or googled or anything. Just mentioned in WhatsApp. Maybe WhatsApp whats differently in America but in Singapore I get advertising in Facebook from conversations.
For example when looking for an apartment I told my agent (non business account) that I wanted safety catches on the windows. I immediately got advertising for safety catches and window gates.
I don’t own cats but in a conversation with a friend who owns cats I said she should get one of those cat tree things and scratch poles. Right away Facebook starts showing me adverts for cat toys.
This is not stuff I’ve searched or googled or anything. Just mentioned in WhatsApp. Maybe WhatsApp whats differently in America but in Singapore I get advertising in Facebook from conversations.
That's... not really good evidence. Your story sounds almost identical to the "facebook/google is eavesdropping on me" stories that frequently make the rounds on popular discourse. Unfortunately, that's basically the Sasquatch of the privacy world (ie. there are many people with anecdotes claiming it exists, but very little in the way of actual evidence like network captures or decompiled binaries). If anything, it's worse than Sasquatch because at least with Sasquatch you could claim that there aren't many of them and/or they're actively avoiding humans so they're hard to photograph, but the "facebook/google is eavesdropping on me" stories implies it's happening to everyone so capturing an instance should only be a matter of technical skill rather than luck.
Can you explain why advertising shows only in facebook, for keywords only used inside an apparently private conversation?
Unless WhatsApp is audited completely, not just looking at some source code but also how all information passes through facebook and back to a receiver. Then we can only assume the e2ee is just marketing fluff and not something that is done in favour of privacy.
Unless WhatsApp is audited completely, not just looking at some source code but also how all information passes through facebook and back to a receiver. Then we can only assume the e2ee is just marketing fluff and not something that is done in favour of privacy.
> Can you explain why advertising shows only in facebook, for keywords only used inside an apparently private conversation?
obvious explanations:
1. coincidence/luck + confirmation bias. this can also be aided by demographic/interest factors. For instance, suppose there are 10,000 "interests" that facebook tracks. You'd think that for a given conversation that contained such a topic, the chance that you'd see ads for it was 1 in 10,000. However, if the conversation topic was "mechanical keyboards", and facebook knew that you were male, 18-35, and are interested in video games, then it might be able to infer that you're much more likely to be interested in mechanical keyboards and therefore show you ads for mechanical keyboards 1 in 50 times rather than 1 in 10,000 times.
2. the other side ended up leaking the information to facebook (eg. through a search or clicking on an ad)
obvious explanations:
1. coincidence/luck + confirmation bias. this can also be aided by demographic/interest factors. For instance, suppose there are 10,000 "interests" that facebook tracks. You'd think that for a given conversation that contained such a topic, the chance that you'd see ads for it was 1 in 10,000. However, if the conversation topic was "mechanical keyboards", and facebook knew that you were male, 18-35, and are interested in video games, then it might be able to infer that you're much more likely to be interested in mechanical keyboards and therefore show you ads for mechanical keyboards 1 in 50 times rather than 1 in 10,000 times.
2. the other side ended up leaking the information to facebook (eg. through a search or clicking on an ad)
1. So it's coincidence luck that I get advertising for 'window safty latch for children', as an 'interest' for '18-35'? They knew that I was looking for an apartment and had a kid that was 1yo and thought 'oh you know what that guy needs, window safty latch for his kid'
2. So facebook leaked information that a conversation happened between me and a friend and they thought, oh you know what, Phillip had a conversation with X, and X just search for 'cat toys' so Phillip must want cat toys right now!
No, neither of those are 'obvious' explanations.
2. So facebook leaked information that a conversation happened between me and a friend and they thought, oh you know what, Phillip had a conversation with X, and X just search for 'cat toys' so Phillip must want cat toys right now!
No, neither of those are 'obvious' explanations.
> 1. So it's coincidence luck that I get advertising for 'window safty latch for children', as an 'interest' for '18-35'? They knew that I was looking for an apartment and had a kid that was 1yo and thought 'oh you know what that guy needs, window safty latch for his kid'
It seems doubtful that you can hide the fact that you had a 1 year old kid from facebook, unless you're a very sporadic/careful user. Besides, it's not too hard to imagine one of your friends outed you to facebook (eg. posted photo of you with a baby, or mentioning the fact that you have a baby on a post/comment somewhere). From there it doesn't seem too implausible that "had 1 year old kid" was a targeting factor for "window safty latch for children". As for the "looking for an apartment" part, I don't really think that's necessary for sending you ads for safety latches. Even if you live in a house you'd need latches to secure room windows that are on the second floor.
>2. So facebook leaked information that a conversation happened between me and a friend and they thought, oh you know what, Phillip had a conversation with X, and X just search for 'cat toys' so Phillip must want cat toys right now!
e2e provides zero assurances about metadata/social graph. that's been the case since PGP days.
It seems doubtful that you can hide the fact that you had a 1 year old kid from facebook, unless you're a very sporadic/careful user. Besides, it's not too hard to imagine one of your friends outed you to facebook (eg. posted photo of you with a baby, or mentioning the fact that you have a baby on a post/comment somewhere). From there it doesn't seem too implausible that "had 1 year old kid" was a targeting factor for "window safty latch for children". As for the "looking for an apartment" part, I don't really think that's necessary for sending you ads for safety latches. Even if you live in a house you'd need latches to secure room windows that are on the second floor.
>2. So facebook leaked information that a conversation happened between me and a friend and they thought, oh you know what, Phillip had a conversation with X, and X just search for 'cat toys' so Phillip must want cat toys right now!
e2e provides zero assurances about metadata/social graph. that's been the case since PGP days.
None of this is evidence of decryption.
At best it’s circumstantial anecdotes pointing to Facebook extracting topic metadata out of your convos. This can be done clientside, no decryption necessary. (And it’s easy to prove that it’s being done if that’s the case)
At best it’s circumstantial anecdotes pointing to Facebook extracting topic metadata out of your convos. This can be done clientside, no decryption necessary. (And it’s easy to prove that it’s being done if that’s the case)
E2EE plus arbitrarily invasive clent-side sniffing/reporting should not be considered "E2EE" by any means. Even if reports to the mothership are strongly encrypted (at which point it becomes harder to determine what's in the reports).
I agree with you, but the claim that Facebook is decrypting and reencrypting things is a very very very severe one.
I didn't claim they are. But they can. And without transparency, I have very little inclination to trust. I find it plausible that they'd scan for keywords and phone home when they get hits -- advertising businesses are not known for their scruples and fb has not distinguished itself in that regard. Once that machinery is in place, it's ripe for abuse. I don't claim any proof it's happening, but it would be naive to blindly trust that it isn't.
The person you talked about may have searched for the term, and knowing that you are friends facebook can easily assume that you would be also interested in this thing. It may also operate based on metadata of you have talked recently.
What's more is that the quality of UX manages to be mostly consistent across clients with entirely disparate codebases written in different languages with different UI toolkits.
That's awesome. You have your pick of a massive variety of clients… one of them bound to fit your device setup like a glove. No lowest-common-denominator one-size-fits-all compromises like is so common with cross platform software these days.
That's awesome. You have your pick of a massive variety of clients… one of them bound to fit your device setup like a glove. No lowest-common-denominator one-size-fits-all compromises like is so common with cross platform software these days.
Telegram's Linux client is simply Amazing.
It's one of the worst Linux desktop programs I use daily. It gets scaling a bit wrong so all the icons look blurry, scrolling in chats regularly breaks (scroll wheel just does nothing but is fine in all other programs), and the one time I tried to video call in it it crashed. Discord's client is much better.
Are you using the Telegram-provided build instead of a distro build? Distro builds of it are often broken IME.
Flatpack and Snap versions both work ok.
I'm using the distro (manjaro) build, which is also pretty good. No idea how good the AUR versions are.
I'm using the distro (manjaro) build, which is also pretty good. No idea how good the AUR versions are.
I'm using the manjaro build, I'll try Telegram's own build, thanks.
Yes their API is one of the best. A simple curl request is enough to send a message and it has been so useful (sentry, uptime, door bell notifications(1), etc).
(1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrkAWSemDC8
(1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrkAWSemDC8
They also publish a fully functional C library that makes building fully (!) featured 3rd party clients easy. They support everything - from Linux, Windows all the way to Tizen. You compile it into your app and it "just works" with all the features of the main client.
As a result, you have a large set of very good clients for pretty much all platforms.
Imagine if the FLOSS darlings like Signal would make something as amazing as this - a library any plaform (from RPi, watches, etc.) to implement the best possible secure client that fits the user.
As a result, you have a large set of very good clients for pretty much all platforms.
Imagine if the FLOSS darlings like Signal would make something as amazing as this - a library any plaform (from RPi, watches, etc.) to implement the best possible secure client that fits the user.
Signal's stance on third party clients is so disappointing. Telegram really has them beat there, although it has to be pointed out that Signal actually publishes server source, while Telegram doesn't.
Honestly I found their API one of the worst ones I've ever used. The documentation is lacking, and they have some unintuitive quirks like posting messages with http GET requests and randomly concatenating strings in params (botNAMEOFBOT anyone?).
I didn't enjoy using it without a third party library [1].
Sending a single message is easy, but using the rest of telegram's features is "meh" when using pure API calls.
If you want to see a well designed API, you should take a look at FTX or Stripe. I love those two :)
[1] https://telegraf.js.org
I didn't enjoy using it without a third party library [1].
Sending a single message is easy, but using the rest of telegram's features is "meh" when using pure API calls.
If you want to see a well designed API, you should take a look at FTX or Stripe. I love those two :)
[1] https://telegraf.js.org
"A simple curl request is enough to send a message and it has been so useful (sentry, uptime, door bell notifications(1), etc)"
hmmm ... could I participate fully on Telegram without ever installing the app anywhere ?
That would be compelling ...
hmmm ... could I participate fully on Telegram without ever installing the app anywhere ?
That would be compelling ...
Yup, install any third party client or even just use the web client (web.telegram.org).
I’m not sure the signup is available without the app, that’s the only thing.
I’m not sure the signup is available without the app, that’s the only thing.
You can use their web client, so technically no need to install anything except a browser.
Of course. Telegram seems to be the clear winner here at convincing the masses to move off of WhatsApp and have them stick around in Telegram. 700M tells us that it is a viable alternative for many users.
Signal on the other hand seems to have failed to stick with the rest of the users and instead of trying to attract users from WhatsApp, not only they can't get backing up messages working properly, they instead were focused on introducing a scam cryptocurrency and wallet only usable on their app that no-one wants, and probably scared everyone off.
Perhaps Signal is only good for getting users to keep using WhatsApp or Telegram, since there are too many missing basic features that the end users keep complaining about when trying it out.
Signal on the other hand seems to have failed to stick with the rest of the users and instead of trying to attract users from WhatsApp, not only they can't get backing up messages working properly, they instead were focused on introducing a scam cryptocurrency and wallet only usable on their app that no-one wants, and probably scared everyone off.
Perhaps Signal is only good for getting users to keep using WhatsApp or Telegram, since there are too many missing basic features that the end users keep complaining about when trying it out.
The main thing keeping me from using Signal is that their Linux client is really really bad. In contrast Telegram has a great Linux client.
"it’s the only popular messenger that is actually easy to programmatically interact with."
Let me introduce you to Matrix SDKs https://matrix.org/sdks/
Let me introduce you to Matrix SDKs https://matrix.org/sdks/
Keyword is popular.
I’m a proponent of matrix, but it’s absolutely not popular.
I’m a proponent of matrix, but it’s absolutely not popular.
It's very popular with people who value not having their data stored in plaintext.
I use Discord for public communications and I don't mind plaintext storage at all - on the contrary, on public chats, I personally value public history.
The last time I've used Matrix actually, usability was a disaster; took me a while to figure out even just how to login, and that wasn't the only problem.
The last time I've used Matrix actually, usability was a disaster; took me a while to figure out even just how to login, and that wasn't the only problem.
The login screen was too complicated for you, eh?
I was asked to login concurrently from two different browsers, every time I wanted to login. It was a very puzzling experience, and took me a while to figure it out, because it was something I've never experienced before in chat systems, and it wasn't spelled clearly, like "you must login from two browsers", in order to compensate for the unusualness.
The UX of communicating with other users was problematic as well. I've tried to establish communications with a certain user, and I have no idea if I succeeded or not (likely not); two separate communications "channels" (I don't know the terminology) were opened with the same user, which is perplexing, since again, this is something I've never experienced before.
I think those two weren't even the only problems I've had.
The UX of communicating with other users was problematic as well. I've tried to establish communications with a certain user, and I have no idea if I succeeded or not (likely not); two separate communications "channels" (I don't know the terminology) were opened with the same user, which is perplexing, since again, this is something I've never experienced before.
I think those two weren't even the only problems I've had.
Did you file a bug? That doesn't happen. Normally you log in. And that's it. On a new device, you can (optionally) verify your account to see previous encrypted comversations. But you don't have to do that.
As for the chat rooms, they work exactly like Discord, which is exactly like every chat client with chat rooms has since the dawn of IRC. You can send a message to one person, or you can join a room and message everyone at the same time.
Easy peasy!
As for the chat rooms, they work exactly like Discord, which is exactly like every chat client with chat rooms has since the dawn of IRC. You can send a message to one person, or you can join a room and message everyone at the same time.
Easy peasy!
Do you remember using Riot pre-cross signing?
If you don't, then you have no idea how bad it used to be.
If you don't, then you have no idea how bad it used to be.
I do and it wasn't bad. And for literally years now its been great.
Do you know how much comments like that help Matrix gain a foothold in the closed source messaging space?
Not all all, that’s how much.
Seriously. Again, huge proponent and financial supporter of matrix efforts here; I think they do an a amazing job. But comments like yours are detrimental to what they do.
Not all all, that’s how much.
Seriously. Again, huge proponent and financial supporter of matrix efforts here; I think they do an a amazing job. But comments like yours are detrimental to what they do.
Nah, they do help the folks who don't know about it.
People don't value that, they value a good UX and the fact that all of their contacts have the app. Matrix has neither of these.
People do value that, and they also value a great UX, which Matrix also has. Additionally, matrix, doesn't forcefully associate your plaintext account with your phone number! People with a clue value that.
700,000,000 users disagree with your statements. You can’t make something true by just saying it’s true.
Also your attitude is super toxic. You’re calling people who don’t value the same things you do, “clueless”.
You don’t really get to bullshit people on HN — you can be super smart and skilled in your field, you’ll far too often come across people with vastly more experience than you. I invite you to think about that.
Again, matrix is great, and I see it as the future of messaging. But it’s absolutely not the “present” of messaging; it’s years behind telegram, and the UX of most clients including the more popular ones is garbage.
Also your attitude is super toxic. You’re calling people who don’t value the same things you do, “clueless”.
You don’t really get to bullshit people on HN — you can be super smart and skilled in your field, you’ll far too often come across people with vastly more experience than you. I invite you to think about that.
Again, matrix is great, and I see it as the future of messaging. But it’s absolutely not the “present” of messaging; it’s years behind telegram, and the UX of most clients including the more popular ones is garbage.
A lot of users of Telegram are those who lost WhatsApp for few hours and was looking for alternative btw... I'm not sure about values honestly.
Its not years behind. That's a lie. In fact Id say it's ahead because you don't need to use a phone number (huge liability), you can choose to use e2e if you want and theyre not storing your data in plaintext!
Oh and all of matrix is totally open source! Wow. That's how you know you can trust it. If they decide to pull a WhatsApp and move to Facebook, you can just fork and get on with your life.
I like that the telegram client is open, but the sever isn't. Which means I don't really trust them. Same problem as Signal.
Oh and all of matrix is totally open source! Wow. That's how you know you can trust it. If they decide to pull a WhatsApp and move to Facebook, you can just fork and get on with your life.
I like that the telegram client is open, but the sever isn't. Which means I don't really trust them. Same problem as Signal.
Just because it's open source doesn't mean I can trust it, I don't have the time to audit the code myself. Being open source is not a feature.
Mabye you wont, but someone else do it. It would be pointless to open code with unwanted tricks behind.
Yes it is, because you can. Just because you personally wont doesn't remove it as a feature.
Which client has a good UX in your opinion?
I used to really like ICQ's floating usernames and email-like modal. A message came in and a little icon appear beside the username (which I used to float in the unused part of my menu bar) along with an audible notification "uh oh!" You double click it, a small chat window opened up with your conversation history and a place to type. You then typed and send your message and the window disappeared until they replied. It was great because you could see who the messages were from without having to use any screen real estate.
Then things like MSN Messenger got popular. Protocols got locked down and screen real estate got consumed. For some reason everyone wanted to use Google Talk (which was horrible but at least spoke XMPP so folks on Pidgin could still chat with their friends). BB messenger taught a few tricks to Apple. Then facebook messenger happened, whatsapp, wechat, etc.
In the background, there were programs like teamspeak and mumble that were trying to do voice chat for gaming reasons. In a way, these were the precursors to Discord who now, for some reason, dominates what people consider a good chat UI. I personally think it's a bloated mess. In my opinion, ICQ had the best chat UI. Because it stayed out of the way.
It's too bad it turned out to be spyware! Hah
Then things like MSN Messenger got popular. Protocols got locked down and screen real estate got consumed. For some reason everyone wanted to use Google Talk (which was horrible but at least spoke XMPP so folks on Pidgin could still chat with their friends). BB messenger taught a few tricks to Apple. Then facebook messenger happened, whatsapp, wechat, etc.
In the background, there were programs like teamspeak and mumble that were trying to do voice chat for gaming reasons. In a way, these were the precursors to Discord who now, for some reason, dominates what people consider a good chat UI. I personally think it's a bloated mess. In my opinion, ICQ had the best chat UI. Because it stayed out of the way.
It's too bad it turned out to be spyware! Hah
Telegram is on another level, honestly. You can do anything from a bash script with curl.
That is cool. I love FOSS with good APIs. It's too bad the sever is closed. Makes it hard for me to trust.
Checkout it's memory footprint on desktop. It is not using typical web tech (aka electron). It's just C++ & QT.
List of third-party tech in their desktop stack listed here:
https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop
List of third-party tech in their desktop stack listed here:
https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop
The Mac client leaks a lot of memory when you run it for a while. Yesterday I had to restart it because it was using 2GB of RAM.
> Say what you want about their security; they have the absolute best UX of any (primarily 1-on-1) messaging app, bar none.
> Discord is a close second. But the quality and polish of telegram blows me away to this day.
User experience is, well, subjective to the user. For tech savvy, primarily desktop users, Telegram and Discord can be great choices.
This is however probably not true for the majority of the population.
> Discord is a close second. But the quality and polish of telegram blows me away to this day.
User experience is, well, subjective to the user. For tech savvy, primarily desktop users, Telegram and Discord can be great choices.
This is however probably not true for the majority of the population.
>This is however probably not true for the majority of the population.
Apparently it is true for 700M people
Apparently it is true for 700M people
And they do all that with a tiny tiny team. They are the epitome of shut up and take my money.
Discord is much, much better IMO and I've never enjoyed Telegram. Probably is better for the general public though
In browser or on mobile? I really don’t like either, but it is especially buggy/unintuitive on ios.
Both desktop app and android, also had issues signing up. It didn't like my number
>And it’s lots of small features and details such as built in translation for messages in a foreign language
Is "automatically sends your message text to google" supposed to be a plus?
Is "automatically sends your message text to google" supposed to be a plus?
Who said automatically? You have to enable it. And all it does is save me the round trip to a Google translate prompt anyway so what exactly is the difference?
Seriously, sometimes people are so cynical here it makes my blood boil. Give people some credit, ffs.
Seriously, sometimes people are so cynical here it makes my blood boil. Give people some credit, ffs.
Telegram UX still has a lot of place to improve. E.g. I hate being unable to pin more than five chats an having to hunt the rest as they jump around.
You can pin more chats with premium; it’s in the announcement.
Many people are asking what are in Telegram that aren’t anywhere else?
I can provide some answers. Telegram is my primary chat app.
- It offers you to simply share an alphanumeric handle and you can connect with anyone in the world. I can do a voice chat or normal chat really quickly and easily. It is the only famous truly Instant Messenger there is. And I can do it without sharing my name (unlike FB), email address, or phone number (unlike WApp).
- It is the only app where I add any woman to any group outside of family or other close-knit groups. When creepy dudes get women's cell numbers, it sometimes becomes very difficult for the women to handle. In Telegram, you can be part of large or large-ish groups without the women having to share phone numbers or real names. Blocking is really easy and tension-free.
- The video quality in chats is really high. In Android, only Google Duo came close.
- ONLY chat app in market with an excellent desktop app for Linux. Also Windows.
- I love their non-SJW-everything approach to allowed stickers. Emojis can only be PG-13 and "wholesome" (like banning gun emoji and replacing it with water gun- where I live no one owns guns - and guns are irrelevant to my politics and everyone else's). Telegram's stickers are really fun and creative.
- UI/UX is excellent. Really love chat themes and how I can edit them. Many components are customizable. Chat bubble colors, radii of rounded corners, etc.
- I like the fine-grained control over notifications from different chats (groups and persons).
- I like the lack of E2EE. I just like logging in and having access to all my chats. I don't have to be with the same device to be on the same chat.
- The simple yet effective image editor is nice. So is the text formatting with no fuss.
- I often use the auto image resize feature to downscale images.
- It is so seamless. It has replaced email when I want to transfer small files to my own devices.
- I am a selectively social person. It's good that even with 700 mn people, not many people are in it. The people with whom I don't want to interact more aren’t yet in Telegram. That's an appeal to me.
- Developing bots is a bliss. So easy and effective.
- SO helped a bunch of HS kids with their Bio study before a big test, the quiz feature was great. SO is not a technical person, and it was easy for her to set up a group, no phone numbers, create quizzes and so on. She loved it.
I can provide some answers. Telegram is my primary chat app.
- It offers you to simply share an alphanumeric handle and you can connect with anyone in the world. I can do a voice chat or normal chat really quickly and easily. It is the only famous truly Instant Messenger there is. And I can do it without sharing my name (unlike FB), email address, or phone number (unlike WApp).
- It is the only app where I add any woman to any group outside of family or other close-knit groups. When creepy dudes get women's cell numbers, it sometimes becomes very difficult for the women to handle. In Telegram, you can be part of large or large-ish groups without the women having to share phone numbers or real names. Blocking is really easy and tension-free.
- The video quality in chats is really high. In Android, only Google Duo came close.
- ONLY chat app in market with an excellent desktop app for Linux. Also Windows.
- I love their non-SJW-everything approach to allowed stickers. Emojis can only be PG-13 and "wholesome" (like banning gun emoji and replacing it with water gun- where I live no one owns guns - and guns are irrelevant to my politics and everyone else's). Telegram's stickers are really fun and creative.
- UI/UX is excellent. Really love chat themes and how I can edit them. Many components are customizable. Chat bubble colors, radii of rounded corners, etc.
- I like the fine-grained control over notifications from different chats (groups and persons).
- I like the lack of E2EE. I just like logging in and having access to all my chats. I don't have to be with the same device to be on the same chat.
- The simple yet effective image editor is nice. So is the text formatting with no fuss.
- I often use the auto image resize feature to downscale images.
- It is so seamless. It has replaced email when I want to transfer small files to my own devices.
- I am a selectively social person. It's good that even with 700 mn people, not many people are in it. The people with whom I don't want to interact more aren’t yet in Telegram. That's an appeal to me.
- Developing bots is a bliss. So easy and effective.
- SO helped a bunch of HS kids with their Bio study before a big test, the quiz feature was great. SO is not a technical person, and it was easy for her to set up a group, no phone numbers, create quizzes and so on. She loved it.
WhatsApp Mac app is not native on Mac, it quickly inflates into multi GB RAM consumption and the UI starts lagging even on M1. Very few things bring down this machine to its knees and one of them can be WhatsApp.
Telegram is not like that, channels with tons of videos and pictures continue to work smoothly.
Telegram is not like that, channels with tons of videos and pictures continue to work smoothly.
> I like the lack of E2EE. I just like logging in and having access to all my chats. I don't have to be with the same device to be on the same chat.
Same. I've seen enough people get burned by losing messages because of the E2EE of WhatsApp to prefer to use Messenger and/or Telegram.
> - Developing bots is a bliss. So easy and effective.
Reason I am using Telegram more these days. I'm house hunting and needed a way for my scraping script to notify me and my partner about houses that the script finds: Telegram works perfectly for this. Just create a private chat group and send a HTTP request to Telegram.
Same. I've seen enough people get burned by losing messages because of the E2EE of WhatsApp to prefer to use Messenger and/or Telegram.
> - Developing bots is a bliss. So easy and effective.
Reason I am using Telegram more these days. I'm house hunting and needed a way for my scraping script to notify me and my partner about houses that the script finds: Telegram works perfectly for this. Just create a private chat group and send a HTTP request to Telegram.
> Emojis can only be PG-13 and "wholesome" (like banning gun emoji and replacing it with water gun- where I live no one owns guns - and guns are irrelevant to my politics and everyone else's). Telegram's stickers are really fun and creative.
I appreciate stuff like this too. I hate being treated like a child.
Sometimes I want to express "just shot me" with an emoticon, which a watergun ruins.
I appreciate stuff like this too. I hate being treated like a child.
Sometimes I want to express "just shot me" with an emoticon, which a watergun ruins.
FIY this is not because of Telegram as they use the Apple emoji set
https://emojipedia.org/pistol/
https://emojipedia.org/pistol/
If you didn't want to be treated like a child, why not just post an image macro of whatever you want, instead of leaning on the app's internal clipart library?
> - It offers you to simply share an alphanumeric handle and you can connect with anyone in the world. I can do a voice chat or normal chat really quickly and easily. It is the only famous truly Instant Messenger there is. And I can do it without sharing my name (unlike FB), email address, or phone number (unlike WApp).
Has this changed? Last time I looked, you needed a phone number to sign up.
Has this changed? Last time I looked, you needed a phone number to sign up.
You still need a phone number to sign up, but you can lose the number (I don't recommend it, but I did do it).
Telegram have your phone number. But you need not share it with anyone else to connect.
Telegram have your phone number. But you need not share it with anyone else to connect.
While you MAY need a number to sign up, you don't need to GIVE your number to other people so you can communicate with them over the service.
I don't understand. I've been using telegram for some years. Could you explain how you would go about using telegram without "signing up"? And by "a number" I understand it to be an option of "not your phone number"? How does the verification go then?
I believe they are saying that Telegram doesn't expose your phone number to other users on the app unless you explicitly allow it to.
I only use Telegram, no WhatsApp / Messenger so I had no idea that this was normal for other chat apps. Terrifying.
I only use Telegram, no WhatsApp / Messenger so I had no idea that this was normal for other chat apps. Terrifying.
Whatsapp shows the phone number as it is your user identifier (and I believe this is also true for Signal).
This is not true for Messenger, where it's your facebook account as your identifier.
This is not true for Messenger, where it's your facebook account as your identifier.
I think from the reply that they're talking about "Your contacts do not need your phone number, they can message you with just your telegram screen name", but this is different from "Telegram needs your phone number" and "People with your phone number can find your Telegram account from their contacts".
+1 to everything you said, especially the Linux part. Telegram's Linux Desktop client is great. It's open source and on Flatpak.
Also, it shows proper dates and times for messages. Not that stupid «1 day ago»
> - I like the lack of E2EE. I just like logging in and having access to all my chats. I don't have to be with the same device to be on the same chat.
You can do that with E2EE as well. Proof: Element/Matrix which btw has excellent bot tooling and alphanumeric usernames as well...
You can do that with E2EE as well. Proof: Element/Matrix which btw has excellent bot tooling and alphanumeric usernames as well...
Good list. I would only add 'Send without sound' and 'Schedule send'
- I forgot to mention fine-grained control over calling. I can select, one-by-one, and by groups: who can call me and who cannot.
Discord does all this too? + the server rooms.
Discord drowns me in notification I neither need nor care about, is not customizable and doen't have native clients. Their "haha see we are a gamer community" is very alienating.
Notifications depends on the servers you join and can be adjusted per server.
True that it is not very customizable. And yes it is electron.
They rebranded recently - https://discord.com/ Not very gamery
True that it is not very customizable. And yes it is electron.
They rebranded recently - https://discord.com/ Not very gamery
Discord UI is also all kinds of awful for personal messaging and full of gamery features. :/
DMs work just fine. I use both Discord and Telegram btw :)
"Gamery" features like voice calls, video calls, videostreaming an application or videostreaming your desktop?? :D
Servers where you can talk/do/post whatever? And just drop in?
Now I use both but Telegram feels more like Whatsapp to me with 1 to 1 convos and Discord is more of the Teamspeak/Mumble philosophy where its a voice room/server.
"Gamery" features like voice calls, video calls, videostreaming an application or videostreaming your desktop?? :D
Servers where you can talk/do/post whatever? And just drop in?
Now I use both but Telegram feels more like Whatsapp to me with 1 to 1 convos and Discord is more of the Teamspeak/Mumble philosophy where its a voice room/server.
Discord is electron
Yes, indeed.
I do like both the Telegram and Discord clients. I use both myself.
I do like both the Telegram and Discord clients. I use both myself.
I use Discord, some really good programming and AI communities are in it.
But I use it in a container tab in FF. I have uBlock Origin installed.
I don't trust the electron client to respect my privacy.
But I use it in a container tab in FF. I have uBlock Origin installed.
I don't trust the electron client to respect my privacy.
Could you share some?
I did not join them just for joining them. I am a Racket enthusiast, and the Racket community on Discord is really nice.
There is also a GEB reading server.
The fast.ai server.
Others are OSSU, Rust, MSFT Python, RL group, Yannic Kilcher, sentdex, Eluether.AI, Mark Saroufim's and Aleksa Gordic's ones, wandb, ConwayLife Lounge, Hugging Face, AI Art, etc.
There is also a GEB reading server.
The fast.ai server.
Others are OSSU, Rust, MSFT Python, RL group, Yannic Kilcher, sentdex, Eluether.AI, Mark Saroufim's and Aleksa Gordic's ones, wandb, ConwayLife Lounge, Hugging Face, AI Art, etc.
Discord's client apps are not open-source.
Discord does not offer a native UI nor is anywhere near as responsive.
Stop. Stop it. This is such an unproductive reply
It would be more helpful to give them the reasons for which their reply is unproductive. Right now it’s unclear what it is you have a problem with.
Another messaging platform is unrelated?
I went through the entire thread of conversations here, and I am surprised that anything related to Telegram is downvoted and the familiar trope of "security" is added.
It's got best-in-class applications with lovely animations. The server now governs reactions to specific messages. Stickers are fun, with premium stickers having additional animations.
From a technical perspective, they occupy least space; is "fast" and have a great ecosystem of third party clients. (I use "Owlgram") that offers additional UI elements without cluttering the experience. Tabbed chats are possible now; on Windows desktop, Unigram offers a stellar experience. Threat perceptions or "privacy concerns" are not in the lexicon of ordinary users like me and I am better off without Signal or WhatsApp. WhatsApp reminds me of what Telegram was 5 years back.
I think it is time to reconsider the association of Russia with the application. Criticism is fine, but much of it directed against Telegram appears biased and coloured. I don't work for Telegram, but am a happy user. I couldn't get my folks to understand XMPP or Matrix, or even get my colleagues to switch from any other competing application. This is fine by me.
Other finely grained privacy options (ability to control who can call you or add you to groups) are critical for my needs. Yes, it could be better, but no other application offers those controls. Besides, it's easy to chat with others using "usernames" without the hassle of handing out phone numbers.
Bravo!
It's got best-in-class applications with lovely animations. The server now governs reactions to specific messages. Stickers are fun, with premium stickers having additional animations.
From a technical perspective, they occupy least space; is "fast" and have a great ecosystem of third party clients. (I use "Owlgram") that offers additional UI elements without cluttering the experience. Tabbed chats are possible now; on Windows desktop, Unigram offers a stellar experience. Threat perceptions or "privacy concerns" are not in the lexicon of ordinary users like me and I am better off without Signal or WhatsApp. WhatsApp reminds me of what Telegram was 5 years back.
I think it is time to reconsider the association of Russia with the application. Criticism is fine, but much of it directed against Telegram appears biased and coloured. I don't work for Telegram, but am a happy user. I couldn't get my folks to understand XMPP or Matrix, or even get my colleagues to switch from any other competing application. This is fine by me.
Other finely grained privacy options (ability to control who can call you or add you to groups) are critical for my needs. Yes, it could be better, but no other application offers those controls. Besides, it's easy to chat with others using "usernames" without the hassle of handing out phone numbers.
Bravo!
Telegram is criticized because it's way below than the state of the art when it comes to security, while still claiming (official website) that "messages are heavily encrypted" and that it "keeps your messages safe from hacker attacks" even though it does both way worse than e.g. WhatsApp and Signal.
I don't think a potential association with Russia is the main problem; what about E2EE by default, including for group chats? It's mind-boggling that it's 2022 and we still have to trust that whoever controls Telegram's servers doesn't abuse their powers and is diligent enough to protect them.
It's fine to celebrate Telegram for its features, but let's not pretend that this criticism is unwarranted.
I don't think a potential association with Russia is the main problem; what about E2EE by default, including for group chats? It's mind-boggling that it's 2022 and we still have to trust that whoever controls Telegram's servers doesn't abuse their powers and is diligent enough to protect them.
It's fine to celebrate Telegram for its features, but let's not pretend that this criticism is unwarranted.
I’ve been using telegram since 2013 every single day. I don’t want my chat app to drain my battery, I don’t want it to waste bandwidth and I want to be able to have so little latency that I feels real-time no matter where I am.
Telegram feels like that group of people they warned you about. Sexual and political freedom. Be whatever you want others to see you like. Easy bot API, deep event based td-lib SDK, censorship bypass through MTProto proxies. Delete messages you sent before your crush sees them because you changed your mind. Send messages anonymously in a group if you have multiple admins. Forbid people from clicking your profile when your messages are forwarded. See the people who saw your messages in a group.
Telegram feels like the last place where as a European I’m not dealing with US-identity ideology, where I’m not dealing with copyright censorship, where everyone can speak up no matter how normal or insane.
In this moment I have 17 bots keeping me up to date with all the things happening, and telegram has essentially become the single stream of news and online social interactions for me.
Telegram feels like that group of people they warned you about. Sexual and political freedom. Be whatever you want others to see you like. Easy bot API, deep event based td-lib SDK, censorship bypass through MTProto proxies. Delete messages you sent before your crush sees them because you changed your mind. Send messages anonymously in a group if you have multiple admins. Forbid people from clicking your profile when your messages are forwarded. See the people who saw your messages in a group.
Telegram feels like the last place where as a European I’m not dealing with US-identity ideology, where I’m not dealing with copyright censorship, where everyone can speak up no matter how normal or insane.
In this moment I have 17 bots keeping me up to date with all the things happening, and telegram has essentially become the single stream of news and online social interactions for me.
Could you recommend some useful bots? I use telegram heavily for communication, but never really looked into bots before, not sure what I’m missing.
One example is a bot I wrote for PsychonautWiki that posts changes from Jira, MediaWiki via UDP and Paypal via IPN: https://github.com/psychonautwiki/eyeOfProvidence.
Another one I wrote recently is a bot that I ported to Telegram from its original IRC incarnation: https://github.com/19h/minuteman-bot.
A bot I wrote that, when seeing a voice message, transcribes it using AssemblyAI and finally uses OpenAI GPT3 to summarise it: https://github.com/19h/transcriptbot. (Needs an api key for both)
Finally, a bot that monitors a tcp / http endpoint configured via a yaml file, can be configured to send alerts via SMS (via AWS SNS), Slack or Telegram: https://github.com/19h/zuse.
There's a bunch more but most of them are very specific to my needs.
Another one I wrote recently is a bot that I ported to Telegram from its original IRC incarnation: https://github.com/19h/minuteman-bot.
A bot I wrote that, when seeing a voice message, transcribes it using AssemblyAI and finally uses OpenAI GPT3 to summarise it: https://github.com/19h/transcriptbot. (Needs an api key for both)
Finally, a bot that monitors a tcp / http endpoint configured via a yaml file, can be configured to send alerts via SMS (via AWS SNS), Slack or Telegram: https://github.com/19h/zuse.
There's a bunch more but most of them are very specific to my needs.
Looking at the in-app purchase on iOS in Europe, the price seems to be about EUR 5.50 which I find to be quite steep, for these kinds of features. I've been wanting to support TG's development for a while now, but I would have hoped that this would be more in the vicinity of 1-3 Euros per month.
I think that's the main issue with those small subscriptions. We don't have an American salary here. I would happily pay for Telegram premium for 2-3€/month and have only a third of the features they propose. But 5-10€ for every service like this becomes expensive at the end of the month.
I have the same issue with hey.com email provider, but they are too expensive too. I would love to have an email service provider for 2-3€/month, I'm not an hardcore email user so 8€ as they ask is too much for me. For 3€ and less "pro" features I would pay for the email service.
Same for Spotify, I don't listen much, I would prefer to pay only 4€ a month and have only 2 hours a month of listening without ads. But 10€ for listening for less than 2 hours is a lot. And I don't think I'm the only one like this.
The only company I know who is doing an affordable paid service is nextdns. For 2€ a month, I'm happy to pay for the service for having a DNS that filters trackers on all my devices.
I have the same issue with hey.com email provider, but they are too expensive too. I would love to have an email service provider for 2-3€/month, I'm not an hardcore email user so 8€ as they ask is too much for me. For 3€ and less "pro" features I would pay for the email service.
Same for Spotify, I don't listen much, I would prefer to pay only 4€ a month and have only 2 hours a month of listening without ads. But 10€ for listening for less than 2 hours is a lot. And I don't think I'm the only one like this.
The only company I know who is doing an affordable paid service is nextdns. For 2€ a month, I'm happy to pay for the service for having a DNS that filters trackers on all my devices.
> The only company I know who is doing an affordable paid service ...
Bitwarden paid is $10 per YEAR. I'm very happy to pay that. (Off-topic for discussion of Telegram though)
Bitwarden paid is $10 per YEAR. I'm very happy to pay that. (Off-topic for discussion of Telegram though)
Yeah, I too vividly remember that purchase as more wholesome and a way of supporting them, rather than purchasing something. The free version is super feature-rich, and I believe most of those who go premium do it to support Bitwarden.
I’ve been a happy mailbox.org user for 4-5 years now and they’re cheap. Take a look at they’re features, primarily being that they’re hosted in Germany.
Does Mailbox.org still lack app-specific passwords[1]? As I understand, using any external email client requires disabling 2FA.
[1] https://userforum-en.mailbox.org/topic/deviceapp-specific-pa...
[1] https://userforum-en.mailbox.org/topic/deviceapp-specific-pa...
I'm starting to feel spammy because I say that everytime it comes up, but have a look at hetzner.de or sth. alike.
Their smallest webhosting package is 1,90 €/month and comes with your own domain. Configuration is done through their web-based interface, so no CLI fiddling and nothing.
I think that's a good deal, you could even run your own NextCloud on that package, if you want to. That way you get a CalDav server, so you can ditch Google Calendar and Contacts, if you want to.
Their smallest webhosting package is 1,90 €/month and comes with your own domain. Configuration is done through their web-based interface, so no CLI fiddling and nothing.
I think that's a good deal, you could even run your own NextCloud on that package, if you want to. That way you get a CalDav server, so you can ditch Google Calendar and Contacts, if you want to.
Happy user of https://forwardemail.net for $3/month for unlimited domains/aliases. This is the only subscription I pay that I believe has a fair (cheap?) price.
I use it for all email forwards for my family: https://github.com/politician/barissat-infra
I use it for all email forwards for my family: https://github.com/politician/barissat-infra
Some services have a yearly plan where you end up paying the equivalent to about 4€ a month - protonmail is an example that comes to mind.
Fastmail as well. I just paid for 3 years which amounts to 3.11 USD or so, per month.
https://posteo.de offers email for 1€ a month
Read the whole post and I have just one small question... where the heck do I sign up? There is no link, no steps to follow, there is no update available for my clients that would perhaps spawn a subscribe button somewhere... how much does premium even cost? I don't get it.
I want to buy it, I've been wanting to pay for this service for so long (it just feels so shady this whole time, it's gigabytes of (unencrypted) storage for free? WCPGW), I just can't figure out how to buy this.
I want to buy it, I've been wanting to pay for this service for so long (it just feels so shady this whole time, it's gigabytes of (unencrypted) storage for free? WCPGW), I just can't figure out how to buy this.
They will start the rolling out in the next days.
Oh that "This update is being rolled out gradually" refers to the payment becoming available? I thought it was about the text it belongs with, speaking of "over 100 fixes and optimizations" and other stuff, and that the subscription was available now (since "Today we're launching <star> Telegram Premium" in bold up top). Confusing, but thanks for the reply!
If you have an iOS device, you can force the app store to refresh and update Telegram. Then once updated, in the app under settings, you can select Telegram Premium and pay with Apple Pay
Not on iOS but thanks!
I wonder if it'll come to the f-droid version, but otherwise I'm still using the official desktop client so it should be possible there.
I wonder if it'll come to the f-droid version, but otherwise I'm still using the official desktop client so it should be possible there.
I was only able to buy premium when I switched my account to my US number and then back to my German number..
I'm happy that Telegram is shaking up the Facebook-dominated messaging and social network space.
Also their client apps are open source and have very good Linux support.
Also their client apps are open source and have very good Linux support.
After Hangouts died (yeah it's still Google Chat now but it's not the multi-function tool it used to be before they chopped it up to announce a piece is migrating to Chat) I switched to Signal. If I were to do that transition all over again I would do Telegram instead.
Signal sounds nice but it's a bit overbearing - backups are somewhere between difficult to impossible depending on the device, there is no web client, and it's only open source in that you can audit source or run your own independent chat network (3rd party clients on the official server are treated as hostile) not as in it's an open community. Despite all of this kind of stuff being defended for contrived hyper-secure hyper-private reasoning you can't send a chat without giving out your phone number and it's ridiculously easy to cause your verification number to change making people numb to all of the protection in the first place.
I did grab a Telegram account recently but only since Beeper supported it and I figured "why not" so I'm missing out on these features but I almost wonder if I would have even been so excited about new things like Beeper had I went Telegram originally.
Interestingly of all the chat apps WhatsApp and Telegram usage seemed to align heavily. Not sure if that was just a quirk of my friend group or a more general thing.
Signal sounds nice but it's a bit overbearing - backups are somewhere between difficult to impossible depending on the device, there is no web client, and it's only open source in that you can audit source or run your own independent chat network (3rd party clients on the official server are treated as hostile) not as in it's an open community. Despite all of this kind of stuff being defended for contrived hyper-secure hyper-private reasoning you can't send a chat without giving out your phone number and it's ridiculously easy to cause your verification number to change making people numb to all of the protection in the first place.
I did grab a Telegram account recently but only since Beeper supported it and I figured "why not" so I'm missing out on these features but I almost wonder if I would have even been so excited about new things like Beeper had I went Telegram originally.
Interestingly of all the chat apps WhatsApp and Telegram usage seemed to align heavily. Not sure if that was just a quirk of my friend group or a more general thing.
> and it's only open source in that you can audit source or run your own independent chat network (3rd party clients on the official server are treated as hostile) not as in it's an open community
Do you happen to know why there is no Telegram client fork using Matrix protocol? it seems a pretty obvious thing to try given their advantage with UI and Matrix ecosystem's slow progress with friendly clients.
Do you happen to know why there is no Telegram client fork using Matrix protocol? it seems a pretty obvious thing to try given their advantage with UI and Matrix ecosystem's slow progress with friendly clients.
IMO in general Element is probably the least "least friendly" part about using Matrix (and not really half bad itself) and somebody would have to want to fork+maintain and retrofit ~5 Telegram client repos on the basis they really like using a Matrix backend but like the Telegram client so much they think that's the easier path to a better Matrix client than just improving one of the other already working clients like they are trying to do already.
Signal not having a web client annoys me to no end.
Most of this is expected for Signal, since they're the founders of Whatsapp after all.
Convenient and secure/private sometimes pull in opposite directions. That’s why it’s great that we have both Telegram and Signal. I keep mine right next to each other.
They’re both great, I plan to support both, they’re just for different things.
They’re both great, I plan to support both, they’re just for different things.
So who here is using Telegram and for what? I'm consider myself pretty well connected, but I don't have the app. Tell me what I'm missing.
I use it for something like 90% of all my social interactions with real-life friends. IMO, Telegram has by far the best UI/UX of any internet chat app. In terms of stuff like group management, working perfectly on any type of device with any OS, including maintaining accounts on multiple devices and keeping everything synced between them, organizing large numbers of chats in the UI, managing notifications, etc. Video and voice messages that just work on all platforms.
It has a lot of good security features too, including support of account passwords, requiring verification of new logins on another device, letting you see all of your login sessions on any device and log out any of them, private groups with detailed controls for join links, etc. A lot of crypto people get mad that it doesn't have E2E encryption outside of opt-in "secret chats", but I don't think that's all that important.
It's also completely free of most of the dark patterns that plague most social media sites. No reshuffling of message order, optimizing for outrage and engagement, or pushing new content to keep you scrolling. No randomly banning or locking accounts for no apparent reason.
I view this paid account thing as an excellent sign that their future plans for the app are for optimizing user satisfaction instead of trying to appeal more to advertisers. I plan to sign up as soon as I can, and hope it goes well and helps us move towards a future where our social platforms see the users as customers to be served, not products to optimize the sale of to advertisers who become their actual customers.
It has a lot of good security features too, including support of account passwords, requiring verification of new logins on another device, letting you see all of your login sessions on any device and log out any of them, private groups with detailed controls for join links, etc. A lot of crypto people get mad that it doesn't have E2E encryption outside of opt-in "secret chats", but I don't think that's all that important.
It's also completely free of most of the dark patterns that plague most social media sites. No reshuffling of message order, optimizing for outrage and engagement, or pushing new content to keep you scrolling. No randomly banning or locking accounts for no apparent reason.
I view this paid account thing as an excellent sign that their future plans for the app are for optimizing user satisfaction instead of trying to appeal more to advertisers. I plan to sign up as soon as I can, and hope it goes well and helps us move towards a future where our social platforms see the users as customers to be served, not products to optimize the sale of to advertisers who become their actual customers.
For me, the value of messaging comes 99.99% from availability of people I'm messaging. For work, it's all Slack. For personal it's SMS. I haven't seen a compelling feature in a chat app since 1997.
It's true that if nobody you want to talk to is on it or willing to install it, then it's not of much use. It's also a bit harder to find really compelling features for direct messages. Though even for DMs, outside of Apple's walled iMessage garden, it's hard to get stuff like high quality photos, videos, and audio messages, reactions, stickers, etc that work correctly for everyone on all device types.
Group handling is where all of the apps really shine though. Doing groups in SMS is basically garbage compared to pretty much any chat app ever made.
Group handling is where all of the apps really shine though. Doing groups in SMS is basically garbage compared to pretty much any chat app ever made.
Everyone keeps saying group. I've never had trouble sending group texts. Both my kids have had their whole classes in a group text for a year. SMS is the one and only "open" messaging platform left so your experience will depend on if you're using iMessage or Samsung or VZ or whatever other ones are out there. But as far as I can tell they're all perfectly fine and nearly indistinguishable.
How do you do groups texts?
Sometimes you want to talk to people without giving them your phone number. Imagine IRC but much more convenient.
I am not crypto people, and still get mad because of E2EE.
I started using it because the UI is flawless and because I never installed WhatsApp and I never will. I don't have false hope about the "security" and "privacy" of Telegram that said: but it's a great messaging app which, by now, a huge number of people are using.
At my kid's previous school and at my kid's current school there are parents using Telegram. Sure WhatsApp is still the most common one but Telegram is not unheard off.
700 millions users is quite something.
Hardly a week goes by without Telegram telling me: "xxx joined Telegram". Last week I re-connected with a friend I hadn't talked to in a long time because I saw he just joined Telegram. Said hi to him, sent him a few pictures. I don't know who brought him to Telegram but he ended up using it and he's definitely not a techie.
At this rate in two years they'll have 1 billion users. Maybe it'll even snowball at some point.
This is competition to WhatsApp. 700 million users and growing is not nothing.
At my kid's previous school and at my kid's current school there are parents using Telegram. Sure WhatsApp is still the most common one but Telegram is not unheard off.
700 millions users is quite something.
Hardly a week goes by without Telegram telling me: "xxx joined Telegram". Last week I re-connected with a friend I hadn't talked to in a long time because I saw he just joined Telegram. Said hi to him, sent him a few pictures. I don't know who brought him to Telegram but he ended up using it and he's definitely not a techie.
At this rate in two years they'll have 1 billion users. Maybe it'll even snowball at some point.
This is competition to WhatsApp. 700 million users and growing is not nothing.
I'm using it to communicate with family members and to follow some development-related channels. Why Telegram?
- Telegram vs. Whatsapp is clear, Whatsapp is off-limits due to it being owned by Zuckerberg & Co.
- Telegram vs. Signal is a bit less clear but the user experience offered by Telegram is superior to that of Signal which made it easy to get some of my more computer-averse family members to accept it. The fact that Telegram is easy to use across devices - native apps on mobile and PC, web, CLI, you name it - is a big plus here.
- Telegram vs. XMPP is a battle which has yet to be fought, I have an XMPP server standing by for the moment when Telegram crosses some line which makes me want to switch. With Conversations on Android the user experience is quite good so I consider this to be a serious contender.
- Telegram vs. XXX - see Telegram vs. Signal.
- Telegram vs. Whatsapp is clear, Whatsapp is off-limits due to it being owned by Zuckerberg & Co.
- Telegram vs. Signal is a bit less clear but the user experience offered by Telegram is superior to that of Signal which made it easy to get some of my more computer-averse family members to accept it. The fact that Telegram is easy to use across devices - native apps on mobile and PC, web, CLI, you name it - is a big plus here.
- Telegram vs. XMPP is a battle which has yet to be fought, I have an XMPP server standing by for the moment when Telegram crosses some line which makes me want to switch. With Conversations on Android the user experience is quite good so I consider this to be a serious contender.
- Telegram vs. XXX - see Telegram vs. Signal.
I'd love to like xmpp, but every xmpp experience apart from dino (which isn't available on windows) is pure garbage from a ux perspective. For some reason conversations chose to not adhere to any design standards in use on the android platform and instead do it's own thing, which subjectively looks really bad (and cannot be customized). It's also missing stuff like the photo editor, daniel said he's not planning to implement it because android will have a system image editor from android 10 onward. The fact that the editor is borderline unusable and the workflow appears to be: open camera app -> take image -> open image in gallery -> open image with editor -> edit the image (somewhat flaky) -> open conversations -> search for your edited image -> send the image is a major deal braker for me, I never even tried to show anyone conversations as an alternative to telegram because of how horrible it is.
I really like the simplicity of Conversations. It's unclear to me why every app must implement it's own image editor. This really should be solved on the Android level of things and I think Daniel is right not to include it. Do one thing and do it well, after all.
Also all the other messengers like WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram don't seem to care about interoperability or internet standards and are not XMPP compliant.
Also all the other messengers like WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram don't seem to care about interoperability or internet standards and are not XMPP compliant.
Outside of being great for cross-platform messaging, it's awesome for transferring files. Quick, no restrictions on file extensions, and I've yet to hit a size limit. Great for building an APK and shooting it off to my friends + other devices.
It's also great for piracy. There's a channel I'm in with links to updated Nintendo Switch modpacks as well as one for premium STL files.
It's also great for piracy. There's a channel I'm in with links to updated Nintendo Switch modpacks as well as one for premium STL files.
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Everyone with a passing interest in the current war must use Telegram.
Many Ukrainian and Russian primary sources are on Telegram only. Including government officials etc.
Many Ukrainian and Russian primary sources are on Telegram only. Including government officials etc.
I use it for notification from many servers... just a quick curl in a script, and I get an alert on my phone in a matter of milliseconds.
That's actually awesome, does Telegram have an API of some sort?
Yep :)
You first create a bot, then join a chat with that bot, then control the bot via the http api
api: https://core.telegram.org/bots/api
quickstart (just to send messages, not mine): https://gist.github.com/dideler/85de4d64f66c1966788c1b2304b9...
You first create a bot, then join a chat with that bot, then control the bot via the http api
api: https://core.telegram.org/bots/api
quickstart (just to send messages, not mine): https://gist.github.com/dideler/85de4d64f66c1966788c1b2304b9...
Telegram actually has full-featured APIs, allowing you to implement both bots and custom clients! You can start here: https://core.telegram.org/ . Unfortunately, I don't have the direct link to the single-curl-request.
One-way media sharing. It's the only chat app that realized how fucking great galleries are, being able to post a ton of pics (or videos) in one message, with smooth full size opening of the media. Not re-encoded into mush, no endless scrolling down or left (cough instagram cough).
Not much in terms of restrictions to message size, or file size, or storage, or bandwidth.
You're not spoon-fed by some algorithm, no recommendations, you only see the channels that you manually joined/followed/subscribed to. Feels very old-school in that regard, but in the best possible way.
It has great desktop app support (I'm not much of a mobile user).
No ads, ever, anywhere.
If you just want to follow some content creators without much interaction, it's perfect (that being said, of course there's regular group chats too, I just don't use any of those).
Not much in terms of restrictions to message size, or file size, or storage, or bandwidth.
You're not spoon-fed by some algorithm, no recommendations, you only see the channels that you manually joined/followed/subscribed to. Feels very old-school in that regard, but in the best possible way.
It has great desktop app support (I'm not much of a mobile user).
No ads, ever, anywhere.
If you just want to follow some content creators without much interaction, it's perfect (that being said, of course there's regular group chats too, I just don't use any of those).
My entire family and my D&D group use it, easily the slickest UX/UI of any chat app I have used. It is feature rich without feeling cluttered.
It's WhatsApp for people who don't trust Meta/Facebook.
Interestingly, Telegram by default is not even end to end encrypted.
It's not a large corp who's monetization strategy is selling or exploiting user data. In fact, it's founded by someone who was screwed over by government overreach.
It's not perfect, obviously, but if I had the choice between Durov and Zuckerberg, I'd take the former every time.
It's not perfect, obviously, but if I had the choice between Durov and Zuckerberg, I'd take the former every time.
Neither is WhatsApp. It's a closed source app, no one outside of Meta knows if it is actually encrypted properly.
That's not how it works: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11432661
It's very popular is some (usually heavy censored) countries. It's also popular in the IT field.
Telegram is my main messenger to speak to friends and family. I also use it to connect to the chatrooms of the various open source projects I participate in.
The Syrian War was broadcast on Twitter. The Ukrainian War is broadcast on Telegram.
It's the only messenger I use; I guess it depends from your social circle and/or geographical location.
I am very happy with it btw; much better than whatsapp.
I am very happy with it btw; much better than whatsapp.
Many university group chats are in it, for some reason.
I'm using it to avoid the Meta apps on my phone. It was the easier to convince my mom to use so that we can talk online, the other being Signal.
On the other side, people who I know use it for finding all kinds of uncensored stuff in the groups there. It is not totally dark net style there, but the moderation is lax compared to the more visible social media.
On the other side, people who I know use it for finding all kinds of uncensored stuff in the groups there. It is not totally dark net style there, but the moderation is lax compared to the more visible social media.
I use it because all my friends are on it. Sometimes I have someone asking me to add them on Whatsapp, but I offer Telegram instead and they end up liking it a lot more. There are also a few public channels I follow that are essentially RSS feeds. Linuxgram and PINE64 News for example.
Use it exclusively to talk to crypto exchanges. Use Signal for personal use
Some of my family chat on Telegram.
LibreOffice user groups (e.g. Right-to-Left)
Some activism.
My ex-girlfriend.
LibreOffice user groups (e.g. Right-to-Left)
Some activism.
My ex-girlfriend.
danpalmer(3)
I had a successful commercial arc completely built on interactions I had on telegram. I built a profitable company and exited all because I decided to download this app 4 years ago.
Needless to say I will be paying for their premium services.
Needless to say I will be paying for their premium services.
Can you tell more? How that worked?
Telegram has a very interesting development history. They were nomadic for the early 2010's, eventually landing in Dubai. Apparently this was because they feared being pressured by governments (the CEO and founders are Russian).
Is Dubai a place with good protection against government pressure?
Is Dubai a place with good protection against government pressure?
> Is Dubai a place with good protection against government pressure?
Depends on the government :)
The German government has been throwing a temper tantrum and threatening to bad Telegram because Telegram doesn't respond to data requests from German police and spies.
Depends on the government :)
The German government has been throwing a temper tantrum and threatening to bad Telegram because Telegram doesn't respond to data requests from German police and spies.
>The German government has been throwing a temper tantrum
that 'temper tantrum' is colloquially known as the rule of law, and Telegram has cooperated with the government concerning terrorism and child abuse as they should, or alternatively leave if they consider those rules unacceptable.
https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2022/06/telegram-has...
that 'temper tantrum' is colloquially known as the rule of law, and Telegram has cooperated with the government concerning terrorism and child abuse as they should, or alternatively leave if they consider those rules unacceptable.
https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2022/06/telegram-has...
I wonder if you would also claim "rule of law" when let's say North Korea tries banning the German news infrastructure world-wide, or Iran bans depiction of unveiled women on the internet, or China starts going against Wikipedia with an enforceable worldwide ban because Tiannamen never happened.
It is the nature of an international network that you cannot reasonably expect your government's laws to have any say on a service run in another part of the world. If you do think your government SHOULD have a way to enforce their laws in another country, maybe the internet is not for your country.
It is the nature of an international network that you cannot reasonably expect your government's laws to have any say on a service run in another part of the world. If you do think your government SHOULD have a way to enforce their laws in another country, maybe the internet is not for your country.
well I don't think that and nobody demanded that. Telegram merely has to comply regionally concerning in this case German users or content shown to them. Tech companies differentiating their products to comply with local laws is common practice.
> nobody demanded that
European (and for that matter, Canadian[1]) courts wanting stuff gone internationally is well-documented[2]. It is not unconceivable that German enforcement agencies would use similar tactics. Once you give them the small finger, they will take the whole arm.
[1] https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/16701/inde... [2] https://www.heise.de/news/Gericht-Facebook-muss-bei-Rechtsve...
European (and for that matter, Canadian[1]) courts wanting stuff gone internationally is well-documented[2]. It is not unconceivable that German enforcement agencies would use similar tactics. Once you give them the small finger, they will take the whole arm.
[1] https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/16701/inde... [2] https://www.heise.de/news/Gericht-Facebook-muss-bei-Rechtsve...
violating privacy of innocent people who have done no harm is not "rule of law".
So they don't give it to Germany, that's good. Do they give it to Dubai's government?
Of course they do. How would you expect legal entity to operate without cooperating with local government.
The question is: can German police compel Dubai police to perform the query? Can Russian police to that? Can US police do that?
May be UAE will be 21-century Switzerland which failed miserably at being independent, but this specialization of being independent is in demand.
The question is: can German police compel Dubai police to perform the query? Can Russian police to that? Can US police do that?
May be UAE will be 21-century Switzerland which failed miserably at being independent, but this specialization of being independent is in demand.
It's hard to say no to the government that can send policeman to your house.
I don’t think UAE is particularly well known for taking a hands off approach. They almost certainly have an unspoken arrangement in exchange for an otherwise drama free existence there.
If they don't, people with guns show up.
Has telegram addressed these concerns? https://twitter.com/moxie/status/1474067549574688768
Astounded by some of the negative comments there. (Probably partly Twitter pushing the rage bait to the top, but still). Does Telegram just have a stupid fanbase?
- people claiming MTProto (Telegram's custom protocol which is basically a worse TLS) makes it in any way more secure than pretty much any other system
- people saying moxie is just pushing MobileCoin. Maybe, I don't know, but what does that have to do with Signal? And even if Signal is a total scam, how does that make Telegram not terrible?
- people saying Signal is backdoored by <3letteragency>. We don't know if that's even possible. If it is, then probably so are almost all other e2e encrypted chat apps. And it's about 100x more plausible that Telegram is backdoored - it certainly could be.
The only slightly valid criticism I saw there is that you have to use your actual phone number with Signal. But that doesn't make Telegram any good.
I'd take Telegram over SMS, but I'd almost take SMS+rot13 over Telegram.
- people claiming MTProto (Telegram's custom protocol which is basically a worse TLS) makes it in any way more secure than pretty much any other system
- people saying moxie is just pushing MobileCoin. Maybe, I don't know, but what does that have to do with Signal? And even if Signal is a total scam, how does that make Telegram not terrible?
- people saying Signal is backdoored by <3letteragency>. We don't know if that's even possible. If it is, then probably so are almost all other e2e encrypted chat apps. And it's about 100x more plausible that Telegram is backdoored - it certainly could be.
The only slightly valid criticism I saw there is that you have to use your actual phone number with Signal. But that doesn't make Telegram any good.
I'd take Telegram over SMS, but I'd almost take SMS+rot13 over Telegram.
There's nothing to address. Telegram chats are encrypted to and from the server, they're not E2E encrypted, they do not claim to be by default. They do offer E2E chats you can opt into, and there has not been a single example of an E2E message being cracked.
The telegram web page claims on the first page:
> Telegram messages are heavily encrypted and can self-destruct.
How is Joe Average supposed to understand that?
Adding to that, the secret chat encryption has always been Weird (capital W) and in one of the previous generations the server could actually MITM it. Trivially.
> Telegram messages are heavily encrypted and can self-destruct.
How is Joe Average supposed to understand that?
Adding to that, the secret chat encryption has always been Weird (capital W) and in one of the previous generations the server could actually MITM it. Trivially.
> How is Joe Average supposed to understand that?
That's an interesting question. I don't know. Maybe he would understand it as "messages that are hard to read for NSA".
To be honest, I don't understand your criticism. Surely people can put a video on their website about E2E, about privacy, integrity and authenticity. Maybe put an honest comparison with other messengers. But I'd only expect this kind of openness from a nonprofit organization.
That's an interesting question. I don't know. Maybe he would understand it as "messages that are hard to read for NSA".
To be honest, I don't understand your criticism. Surely people can put a video on their website about E2E, about privacy, integrity and authenticity. Maybe put an honest comparison with other messengers. But I'd only expect this kind of openness from a nonprofit organization.
All HTTPS connections(most of web browsing last decade) are encrypted to and from the server.
Signal showed us that is possible to have E2E encrypted messaging, why don't they provide it, but with better UI/UX?
If Telegram doesn't read messages and doesn't provide access for 3rd parties(governments, etc.), It should provide E2E everywhere by default.
Signal showed us that is possible to have E2E encrypted messaging, why don't they provide it, but with better UI/UX?
If Telegram doesn't read messages and doesn't provide access for 3rd parties(governments, etc.), It should provide E2E everywhere by default.
Can you get E2EE and also have multiple devices all sync'd? This is awful in Signal, it barely works to have multiple devices.
Yes, see Matrix. And imo generally better UX than Telegram on account of having a large selection of clients.
You're the first that I hear saying something has better UX than Telegram, and a Matrix client at that. Power to you, but from my experience with everything from Telegram to Threema and a lot in between, it sounds odd to me.
> If Telegram doesn't read messages
Telegram offers server side text search
Telegram offers server side text search
You could do that with e2ee though
https://matrix-org.github.io/gsoc/#/projects?project=impleme...
https://matrix-org.github.io/gsoc/#/projects?project=impleme...
Of course not. Telegram managed to catch all the people who like that they are not Google and Facebook, while also not caring enough about actual encryption.
I had telegram installed for almost 3 years. I never had a secret chat that I did not start myself.
I had telegram installed for almost 3 years. I never had a secret chat that I did not start myself.
Honest question: How is Telegram better than Signal? Is Signal not the best in term of security and privacy?
Signal is not as convenient. People want convenience.
I really tried to like Signal and convince my family to use it, but the lack of iOS backups, CarPlay support, and web client were dealbreakers for me. I'm no Meta fan but I've found WhatsApp to be the best mix of secure default settings plus usability. It's ugly as sin and doesn't have a Linux app, though.
Signal is better than Telegram in terms of security and privacy.
But people use Telegram for its plethora of features, the UX, and its attention to even the smallest of details.
But people use Telegram for its plethora of features, the UX, and its attention to even the smallest of details.
Yesterday I chatted in Telegram with my friends about a gadget I was considering to purchase - I’ve got an ad of this gadget in Instagram almost immediately. I couldn’t reproduce it by mentioning some other trendy stuff, but it triggered me anyway. Has anyone experienced the same?
Not on Telegram, but I've had some eeirie ads shown on Facebook after conversations I've had.
Facebook stalks your friends and knows your social graph thanks to enough people leaking their contacts list (you're still exposed even if you don't share your own list).
It could very well be that one of your friends looked up the product being discussed and FB (correctly) guessed based on other data they had that you're the one most likely to be interested in it (or alternatively just shown this ad to everyone in your friends group, but only you picked up on it).
It could very well be that one of your friends looked up the product being discussed and FB (correctly) guessed based on other data they had that you're the one most likely to be interested in it (or alternatively just shown this ad to everyone in your friends group, but only you picked up on it).
The first one was we were talking about getting pizza for dinner after my in laws showed up. 10 minutes later a Papa John's ad showed up. We don't eat pizza normally.
Second one was talking to one of my neighbors about their dog. For a few days I kept getting ads about dog leashes. I don't have a dog.
Second one was talking to one of my neighbors about their dog. For a few days I kept getting ads about dog leashes. I don't have a dog.
So you have instagram on the device too?
[deleted]
Really liked the price and benefits. I will purchase.
EUR 5.50 is less than a coffee.
Where in the heck are you buying coffee? I live in a VHCOL city and I pay $3.50 max
The average price of a cappuccino in Hamburg is 3.50 EUR already.
I'm a happy Telegram user, but the features Telegram are introducing with their premium subscription are not particularly compelling, and some of them really seem like anti-features:
• 4 GB uploads, faster downloads: I'm struggling to imagine what these would be useful for, other than movie piracy. The default upload limit is already 2 GB, and the download speed is fine.
• Doubled limits: Most of these are client-side limits. Locking these features down behind a paywall is just obnoxious.
• Voice-to-text: I have never intentionally used Telegram's voice messaging features. Most mobile phones can already do speech-to-text; making other people use a premium feature to get the same results is silly.
• Unique stickers, unique reactions: Oh please god no. Animated stickers were bad enough. I'm going to be tempted to ban anyone using these in the groups I moderate.
• Chat management: More paywalled client-side features. (Including one feature that was previously available to all users -- auto-archive for new chats used to be offered to any user that was getting a lot of chat requests.)
• Animated profile pictures: See "unique stickers".
• Premium badges, premium app icons: Yawn.
• No ads: Where do ads even show up? I've never seen one, even in large channels.
• 4 GB uploads, faster downloads: I'm struggling to imagine what these would be useful for, other than movie piracy. The default upload limit is already 2 GB, and the download speed is fine.
• Doubled limits: Most of these are client-side limits. Locking these features down behind a paywall is just obnoxious.
• Voice-to-text: I have never intentionally used Telegram's voice messaging features. Most mobile phones can already do speech-to-text; making other people use a premium feature to get the same results is silly.
• Unique stickers, unique reactions: Oh please god no. Animated stickers were bad enough. I'm going to be tempted to ban anyone using these in the groups I moderate.
• Chat management: More paywalled client-side features. (Including one feature that was previously available to all users -- auto-archive for new chats used to be offered to any user that was getting a lot of chat requests.)
• Animated profile pictures: See "unique stickers".
• Premium badges, premium app icons: Yawn.
• No ads: Where do ads even show up? I've never seen one, even in large channels.
Given these features (and their desire to keep Telegram free), I view these as "donation bonuses", not features to pay for. Although Discord has a similar monetization strategy and people seem to not mind it, so maybe it's just us being out of touch.
Agree: this seems like a perfect way to stay with only users' help in sustaining business. Features are not that critical to pay for, you just can greatly continue use the free tier. But you CAN support them and get small bonuses.
Completely agree.
Of those features, I have one objection: speech to text should be available to everyone as an accessibility feature, not locked behind a paywall.
on mobile it is a feature of the os, not the app, so kinda available to everyone.
Improve the ability to search chat history for Asian regional languages, such as Chinese and Japanese
https://bugs.telegram.org/c/724
4GB uploads eh... so good for movie filesharing maybe?
geerlingguy(4)
tucnak(1)
Say what you want about their security; they have the absolute best UX of any (primarily 1-on-1) messaging app, bar none.
Discord is a close second. But the quality and polish of telegram blows me away to this day.
And it’s lots of small features and details such as built in translation for messages in a foreign language, all the smooth animations, quick look and summaries of channels with aggregated links media etc, a super fast and responsive UI etc. And their stickers are actually ridiculously fun to play with (I used to not be into that, telegram converted me).
Just yesterday I accidentally found out that it’s possible to replace a picture you have sent, with a new or different one - I sent a photo, realised it would have been better cropped, and just edited the message as I normally would have.
And with all that it’s the only popular messenger that is actually easy to programmatically interact with. (And cheap! WhatsApp has a business offering and it’s ridiculously expensive)