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Telegram Desktop reaches version 1.0

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Re: Telegram Desktop reaches version 1.0

#151

Native all the way! Opening github page of app and seeing that pink line instead of yellow (line that represents languages used in project) made me smile! I am really surprised they did native app, plus it looks really nice, I tought "sigh, another electron app", but to my surprise I was wrong! Good job for guys at Telegram, respect.

> "sigh, another electron app" Awesome Electron Apps + VS Code (Which was light years ahead of Atom but that gap has narrowed) + RStudio + Discord

Your point is? Emacs/Vim/Sublime are faster, more extensible and native compared to VS Code. RStudio I didn't use, nor I programmed in R, and I didn't know it was Electron app anyway.

Re: Telegram Desktop reaches version 1.0

#152
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but it's closed-source, so we can't do that

You understand how frustrating it is for open source advocates to hear that normal users will never look at source code and so there's no practical difference for them between closed source and open source since it's all opaque to them anyways? That's how literally every security person feels about the argument that closed-source software is unknowable. We don't need decompilers or special tools to read closed-source…

So there's no practical difference for you in understanding algorithms between assembly and higher-level source code?

Re: Telegram Desktop reaches version 1.0

#153
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You understand how frustrating it is for open source advocates to hear that normal users will never look at source code and so there's no practical difference for them between closed source and open source since it's all opaque to them anyways? That's how literally every security person feels about the argument that closed-source software is unknowable. We don't need decompilers or special tools to read closed-source…

So there's no practical difference for you in understanding algorithms between assembly and higher-level source code?

In practice we often don't even need to read the assembly code; we can match control-flow graphs. There really are some software security verification problems that are easier from the binary, particularly if the build system is complex.

But that's sort of besides the point. Reading assembly is more tedious than reading C code, which is in turn more tedious than reading Python code. But you don't get to move the goalposts now. You claimed, repeatedly, that closed-source software was unknowable. It is not; it is in fact very far from unknowable. So the idea that Facebook is going to sneak backdoors into some of its most prominent code under cover of "closed source" is an extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary evidence.

Re: Telegram Desktop reaches version 1.0

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "sigh, another electron app" Awesome Electron Apps + VS Code (Which was light years ahead of Atom but that gap has narrowed) + RStudio + Discord

Your point is? Emacs/Vim/Sublime are faster, more extensible and native compared to VS Code. RStudio I didn't use, nor I programmed in R, and I didn't know it was Electron app anyway.

I used VIM on my Amiga. Today I am mostly using VS Code on my 8 year old Dell at work. For coding there is no performance issues.

My Point: VS Code is a great electron application. Works great.

Re: Telegram Desktop reaches version 1.0

#156
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're also bad platform citizens. Even in minor details - e.g. they don't exclude their browser cache dirs (which of course aren't in the OS cache dir!) from TimeMachine backups, so the incremental backups get clogged by random image caches. Accessibility is limited. Right click doesn't work. And more and more.

> Right click doesn't work. And more and more. MacOS? I fail to see that this is the way it works in RStudio, VS Code and Atom???

It doesn't in Slack and some other Electron apps. You just get generic "copy" popup and bunch of functionality is awkwardly bunched into hidden click menus which make me think there's an issue with creating these menus.

Re: Telegram Desktop reaches version 1.0

#157
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You understand how frustrating it is for open source advocates to hear that normal users will never look at source code and so there's no practical difference for them between closed source and open source since it's all opaque to them anyways? That's how literally every security person feels about the argument that closed-source software is unknowable. We don't need decompilers or special tools to read closed-source…

So there's no practical difference for you in understanding algorithms between assembly and higher-level source code?

I think there is another issue to remember, you can't trust the source.

So, I doubt any security professionals would say its preferable to not have the source, but to do the job of verifying the software you have to do it at a lower level than the source anyway, so having the source is a bonus, not a requirement.

Re: Telegram Desktop reaches version 1.0

#158
post #22
post #6

PSA: Telegram is dangerous snake oil—bad crypto. Don't use it, don't let friends use it. https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/81899003583181619... https://twitter.com/kaepora/status/819181464369577984 https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/81919238137120358...

> PSA: Telegram is dangerous snake oil 1. They don't claim to do end to end crypto unless you use the secret chats 2. The secret chats still aren't broken. Since 2013, I'd think at least one "crypto expert" (which all said a custom protocol was a bad idea) would have taken the effort to prove it by now. 3. Whatsapp claims to have better encryption, and they probably do, but it's 1) a lot less convenient and 2) unveri…

if you dont like whatsapp you can use Signal. it's the open source software that was integrated into whatsapp and is the basis of it's e2e encryption.

both are better options than telegram.

Re: Telegram Desktop reaches version 1.0

#159
post #30
post #2

Can I connect it to Skype/Facebook/IRC?

IRC: kind of, you can have a bot that joins a Telegram group and the IRC channel and forwards messages. It's getting more and more common. Other than bots, the client is really a Telegram client, not something like Pidgin. Personally I don't mind, since everyone's on Telegram. I actually prefer to have a client that's excellent with one network rather than a client that does quite well with many networks. Having used…

> Personally I don't mind, since everyone's on Telegram.

I don't know a single person who is on Telegram. My friends have not even heard of it despite the fact that they all talk online and a good percentage of them are developers. Why would I start using it if no one I know uses it?

Re: Telegram Desktop reaches version 1.0

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, unlike WhatsApp web, it's not a proxy for the phone app, thus doesn't drain its battery and still works if your phone is broken or lost.

i like the whatsapp web because i dont have to install something now just so i could send a message to somebody, and because its a proxy for the phone app i dont have to worry that i got the message on the desktop but its not synced to mobile ( im looking at you skype )

You can use a web version of telegram: https://telegram.org/
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