Telegram is really popular in some countries and is a more convenient for me as well because of that.
Just one thing to keep in mind: it is run by VK.com's original "creator" and that social network reportedly had (and still has) very close relationships with Russian agencies. It is surprising how easily people forget about such things as soon as people turn into "opposition" and leave the country and/or their main business.
Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
731–740 of 972 posts
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#732Wechat
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#733Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s not a good comparison. There are many alternatives to WhatsApp and it’s not a „critical“ infrastructure. In contrast, you sometimes can’t choose your ISP and internet is much more critical.
It can be in area's (such as in The Netherlands) where literally _everyone_ is on WhatsApp and it is the default form of personal online communication. Not using WhatsApp means not being able to communicate with a lot of people.
Same in Germany. You have no chance without Whatsapp. Every birthday party, every friend circle etc. has a Whatsapp group.
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#734I use Telegram long before it became sort of mainstream and I haven't regretted that decision for a minute, minus their outages that started happening once every few months lately and are worrying. Tried Whatsapp once, hated it, never tried again. Viber is even worse. Telegram has been what an IM program should be, for years now (it gave me the vibe of my much beloved Miranda IM almost 20 years ago). I'd love it if t…
The fact that Telegram can give keys to begin with is what makes it insecure. WhatsApp and Signal can't provide any keys that would decrypt a user's messages.
We don't know that for sure. We only have circumstantial evidence -- namely that Durov (and thus Telegram) escaped Russia after having been approached by intelligence services. That's all we have to go on.
Maybe he was able to break encryption and hand the keys to the agencies but preferred to escape to avoid that. Or maybe it was something else.
To be fair, I don't care much if Telegram is well-encrypted. History has shown that state actors prefer to sabotage the roots of encryption algorithms and/or embed backdoors if the service isn't truly end-to-end encrypted. But as I said, that isn't my number one concern when using messengers.
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#735Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, I don't know where parent is located, but here in Brazil they are pretty much right. Everybody has WhatsApp... it's assumed that if you have a phone you have WhatsApp. A lot of financial transactions are conducted by doing a bank transfer and then sending the receipt via WhatsApp. The schools send essential messages to parents via WhatsApp. During lockdowns, stores were taking delivery orders via WhatsApp. What…
> When I delete my account I'm going to lose old conversations, but that doesn't bother me anymore because I already recently lost them once when I switched from Android to iOS... WhatsApp has no way of keeping your history in that case. This is a huge issue which I've had to come to grips with as well. I use both Telegram and WhatsApp (among other things) and I can't believe WhatsApp and Messenger, despite being sup…
> I can't believe WhatsApp and Messenger, despite being supported by a FAANG such as FB, fall short on features - including the one you mentioned - whereas Telegram
Messenger has that feature too. Actually for both Messenger and Telegram it's much easier to provide it, because they don't encrypt the message, they just store them unencrypted. So they don't have anything special to do to give access to them from any device.
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#736The answer is "none of the above": instead, antitrust regulators in the US (after Jan. 20) and the EU force the breakup of Facebook, restoring WhatsApp's status as an independent company focused on privacy. The WhatsApp users get to keep their preferred platform and Facebook doesn't get the data.
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#737Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a reminder, Telegram groups are not encrypted at all, and 1:1 chats are not encrypted by default, so while WhatsApp might see your contacts, Telegram can see most of your messages.
Whatsapp group messages are also not encrypted. I mean, it is, but with the server keys.
I don’t think so. It doesn’t use the double ratchet algorithm used in DMs but still the participants of the group formulate a secret key for the group and share this key with every participant using the more secure protocol. The key cannot be read by the server as it is shared using conventional E2EE.
Refer this video from computerphile for more details. Start watching from 5:24. https://youtu.be/Q0_lcKrUdWg
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#738Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wish the EU would force messaging systems to also support interactions with XMPP or other similar open standards. There's nothing in their way to expect such a thing, except the lobbyists.
Interoperability enforcement may become part of the EU Digital Markets Act.
If the GDPR is any indication, WhatsApp could just choose to stop offering its services in the EU.
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#739Earlier quoted context omitted.
It does have a backup functionality, which unlike WhatsApp's doesn't store your messages unencrypted. It also doesn't force you to use a specific storage provider. If you want to have it synced, you can point your favorite sync client at it. https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007059752-Ba... Additionally, they've introduced an optional PIN which you can use to recover profile, contacts and settings when…
I have Signal on Desktop and iOS. I would like to save my chat history to an external hard drive. How do I do that?
Your only option is to export the database from the desktop app and use third party tools like https://github.com/bepaald/signalbackup-tools to decrypt the backup. However in my experience this backup does not include all of your messages and as such there is no way to get your chat history out of this walled garden.
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#740Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it’s simpler. Boycotts don’t work at an individual level. I have been boycotting nestle for decades. Can’t say they’ve become less evil. That’s because the marginal effect is negligible for them and strongly negative for the individual (assuming you’re a fan of Kit Kat’s). Network effects amplify the marginal impact on the individual, because they lead to a monopoly with no true competition. Sure, you can lea…
I wish the EU would force messaging systems to also support interactions with XMPP or other similar open standards. There's nothing in their way to expect such a thing, except the lobbyists.
Also if XMPP would be possible, the data privacy problems would persist. For many people it's a problem that FB reads all their messages.