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Telegram gets 3M new signups during Facebook apps’ outage

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Re: Telegram gets 3M new signups during Facebook apps’ outage

#21

Post by simias »

nextstep wrote: post #8

Please, please, please use Signal instead. And tell your friends! Telegram has made very dubious privacy claims, but even if you trust the company, Signal has a far superior user experience. Telegram’s private messages are not enabled by default, and when you are using private messaging, numerous other features are disabled defeating the point.

I've never used Telegram but I do use Signal daily and if it really offers a "far superior experience" then Telegram must be akin to connecting to an IRC server with telnet as a client.

Seriously though, Signal's UI is pretty terrible and they go out of their way to discourage third party clients. It's fine as a replacement for SMS (the way I use it) but if you're used to more fully featured web messengers it's a pretty big leap backwards.

Re: Telegram gets 3M new signups during Facebook apps’ outage

#22

Post by rplnt »

xrisk wrote: post #6
secfirstmd wrote: post #2

Really wish Signal would get the bounce that occurs when this stuff happens instead.

I used Signal and my main qualm with it is that messages don’t sync between platforms and also the phone app is nowhere as good as Telegram’s.

Well, if it would sync, it's not private. Unless the app allows you to sync the keys offline. Telegram doesn't sync either if you enable e2e encryption.

But I agree that Telegram apps are great. Both Android ones, and the desktop ones as well. Small, fast, reliable, great UX.

Re: Telegram gets 3M new signups during Facebook apps’ outage

#23

Post by mtgx »

r721 wrote: post #9
secfirstmd wrote: post #2

Really wish Signal would get the bounce that occurs when this stuff happens instead.

Telegram has "channels" though which are similar to Facebook pages (but with no comments/likes). "Channels are a tool for broadcasting public messages to large audiences. In fact, channels can have an unlimited number of members. When you post in a channel, the message is signed with the channel's name and not yours. You can appoint additional administrators to help you manage the channel. New members can see the ent…

It may be time for signal to adopt channels too even if they can't guarantee too much privacy due to the nature of the medium itself. But channels/rooms/groups have always been popular and will likely continue to be. They need the feature just to get more people to use private messaging as they join the app. Signal also needs to stop depending on phone numbers for usernames.

Re: Telegram gets 3M new signups during Facebook apps’ outage

#24

Post by lucideer »

nextstep wrote: post #8

Please, please, please use Signal instead. And tell your friends! Telegram has made very dubious privacy claims, but even if you trust the company, Signal has a far superior user experience. Telegram’s private messages are not enabled by default, and when you are using private messaging, numerous other features are disabled defeating the point.

> Signal has a far superior user experience

No. It doesn't.

If you're going to advocate for an open alternative, at least be intellectually honest about it's pros/cons. You might have gotten used to Signal, and be unfamiliar with Telegram (and sure, much of usability has an element of subjectivity to it), but... the above statement simply isn't true in the general sense.

Personally, I tend to try and advocate for Riot.im over Signal when trying to push friends to an alternative platform—it's preferable from an openness perspective for a lot of reasons. I am however well aware that Signal (along with most things) has a better user experience than Riot.im does currently.

Telegram and WhatsApp are quite close in usability (they've each copied quite a few UI features back and forth, so there's a lot of familiarity in switching). And unfortunately not many alternatives really come close to either of them.

Re: Telegram gets 3M new signups during Facebook apps’ outage

#25

Post by botto »

Telegram is scary and questionable. Inventing your own encryption is never the answer and reeks of horrible understanding of security, at this stage there is no reason they should not adopt a standard of communication like Signal protocol.

Signal app itself is ok, it's a little....annoying as it requires a phone number and the UX needs some love.

Keybase is great, It has ways of verifying you across multiple services and has end-to-end encryption using PGP. Also offers file storage.

Re: Telegram gets 3M new signups during Facebook apps’ outage

#26

Post by avaika »

r721 wrote: post #9
secfirstmd wrote: post #2

Really wish Signal would get the bounce that occurs when this stuff happens instead.

Telegram has "channels" though which are similar to Facebook pages (but with no comments/likes). "Channels are a tool for broadcasting public messages to large audiences. In fact, channels can have an unlimited number of members. When you post in a channel, the message is signed with the channel's name and not yours. You can appoint additional administrators to help you manage the channel. New members can see the ent…

"Likes" are possible if you create channel messages via bots. Well, it's a kind of enhanced like. It's called reaction, you can predefine one or several smiles / text entries and channel readers can vote for it under the post. Some bots have convenient option to schedule posts or create self-destroyed messages and lots of other functions.

Comments are also possible via external bots. The discussion isn't really inside telegram though.

But navigation in channel is pain. Especially if you want to jump into the beginning where was no pinned message and channel has long history.

And when you subscribe for many channels it becomes a nightmare to segregate channels and users. They need to improve that experience.

Re: Telegram gets 3M new signups during Facebook apps’ outage

#27

Post by mourner »

purerandomness wrote: post #16
nextstep wrote: post #8

Please, please, please use Signal instead. And tell your friends! Telegram has made very dubious privacy claims, but even if you trust the company, Signal has a far superior user experience. Telegram’s private messages are not enabled by default, and when you are using private messaging, numerous other features are disabled defeating the point.

Telegram is used primarily as a replacement for Facebook Groups, not for one-to-one communication. Signal doesn't offer Groups, so it's not something people will switch to. (Signal has Group Chats however, which is something completely different)

That's not true, at least not in areas where Telegram is prevalent (Eastern Europe). Here, it's quickly becoming the default 1-1 messenger.

Re: Telegram gets 3M new signups during Facebook apps’ outage

#28

Post by franky47 »

Telegram got some bad press in France after it was revealed that some terrorist groups used it to coordinate their attacks [1].

Now most non-tech people I talk to about alternative messaging platforms know it as "The terrorist messaging app".

[1] https://www.francetvinfo.fr/replay-radio/nouveau-monde/teleg... (French)

Re: Telegram gets 3M new signups during Facebook apps’ outage

#29

Post by paulie_a »

The only reason I saw fb messenger as popular was because fb was. the chat heads are dumb ( Google is trying to copy that for some reason), it tried to replace basic features of a phone, it randomly dialed people ( in HD!). In 2019, is it really that difficult to design an app, list of contacts, list conversation, timed delete etc in a normal looking ux. The state of messenging apps is terrible. On sure Google will release a new one soon though
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