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Telegram: Voice Chats 2.0:Channels, Millions of Listeners, Recorded Chats

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Re: Telegram: Voice Chats 2.0:Channels, Millions of Listeners, Recorded Chats

#71
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No multi device support. That's an issue with your client and protocol, not with e2e > No shared history for group chats. Same > Scaling get progressively harder with increasing participants. Same > No transcoding for video. Now that's a more palpable issue. Also no size reduction of photos which is probably more used as a media.

> That's an issue with your client and protocol, not with e2e That's issue with distributing the keys among multiple parties. > No shared history for group chats. > Same Exactly. What's e2e good for, if you give keys to the entity that does the archiving?

If you have 2 devices, one device can send messages to the other, all e2e encrypted. It's the same for group chats: if you are part of a chat, any participant can send you the history of the chat.

All those issues are protocol-related. E2E only stipulates that the message can't be read between the two ends, it doesn't say you can't send a technical message for making a better UX.

Re: Telegram: Voice Chats 2.0:Channels, Millions of Listeners, Recorded Chats

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I don't like how CH was only introduced for iOS and follows the same annoying strategy that Gmail used before (invitation).

What's even more annoying is that Clubhouse requires access to the entire contacts list/address book if you as a user would like to invite someone else. You can't invite someone by just entering their phone number (since a phone number is the only way to register for it). It doesn't have to be this way, but the Clubhouse team doesn't seem to care.

Seems like the CH team is more after your data than provide a useful platform.

Re: Telegram: Voice Chats 2.0:Channels, Millions of Listeners, Recorded Chats

#73
The feature set sounds like competing with Clubhouse in a sense while providing a lot more, but discoverability is quite low and the UX is not great. Telegram has started putting more features behind the scenes in the last year or so – one could start a secret chat from the chats list before, but now it's hidden in the person's profile under a "..." submenu. This voice chats 2.0 feature is also implemented in the same way on groups and channels. It could've been in the menu that comes up with the audio/video recording button or in the attachment menu for quicker access.

Re: Telegram: Voice Chats 2.0:Channels, Millions of Listeners, Recorded Chats

#74
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but I can't get my family to switch if the UX is subpar.

How long ago did you use signal? The UX is on par with WhatsApp. In fact I've found tiny things that signal does better (it groups sending multiple pictures into on "album" message instead of sending one message per picture like WhatsApp) The only place I could agree WhatsApp has a significantly better UX is with backing up messages.

I use it everyday. Its just not. Video calls are strictly worse, forwarding images is strictly worse, no ability to share history in group chats, the UI is just inferior. Some of these, I can live without, others are really preventing my friends and family from using the app.

Also, scheduled messages. Ability to message people without exposing ones phone number (a real blocker from using Signal for some group chats that are privacy minded). Default camera is very bad, image picker is slow and picks images from all dorectories instead of my main camera dir. My gf wasn't even aware its possible to send multiple images in a single message until I pointed it out. Telegram has none of these issues :/ I really want to love signal, its my daily driver. But its incredibly hard.

Re: Telegram: Voice Chats 2.0:Channels, Millions of Listeners, Recorded Chats

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a heavy discord user, its performance is just nothing compared to a native app (gtk etc). Its notably not native in performance

True, but it is acceptable rather than having a noticeable delay etc. which I observe in other apps.

It has a lot of noticeable delays, they're just hidden by the interface.

Re: Telegram: Voice Chats 2.0:Channels, Millions of Listeners, Recorded Chats

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal on desktop is very slow. It's a very unpleasant experience.

That is fair, the startup time takes forever.

The desktop app has managed to corrupt its database multiple times since I started using it a couple of months ago. Its really bad for an app to do that in this day and age, mind you. This is btrfs levels of bad.

Re: Telegram: Voice Chats 2.0:Channels, Millions of Listeners, Recorded Chats

#77
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no con to e2e, and many cons for snake oil/plaintext. Is this true? From anecdata every e2e encrypted platform I used is much lower quality than the alternatives (iMessage, Signal, etc). Things like multi-device sync don’t work that well. Is this really just a coincidence? Telegram claims they can’t provide the same quality chat (and snappy cross platform crispness is really their competitive advantage) wi…

Technically, E2E increases the complexity of the applications and servers, but it shouldn't really affect quality of chats or messages. One area where this will be a problem is in search. Telegram claims that is can search chats faster because those are on its servers, and anecdotally, I have seen Telegram's search being better and faster than the other platforms I use or have tried (they have to search only on the l…

> he other bigger drawback with E2E is that the servers of those platforms don't store the chats permanently (they store it for about 30 days or so to deliver the messages to devices when they come online, depending on the platform).

Not true: Matrix is fine with storing messages permanently

Re: Telegram: Voice Chats 2.0:Channels, Millions of Listeners, Recorded Chats

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, you can't start a secret group chat at all in Telegram. It supports secret chats only for chats between two people, and that's where it's tied to the devices used for initiating the chat.

Secret chat with multiple devices or with group has the key distribution problem - what's good to receive the message, if you cannot read it? When there are exactly two devices, you avoid that problem. That's why it is not on by default and why it doesn't work for groups. Most users favor convenience over strict e2e.

> Secret chat with multiple devices or with group has the key distribution problem

which is solvable

Signal and Matrix have two distinct approaches to this

Re: Telegram: Voice Chats 2.0:Channels, Millions of Listeners, Recorded Chats

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity, what kind of discussion do you have that require e2e? Myself I use TG extensively with friends, family, girlfriend and I think I've used secret chats once when the gf wanted to send a naughty photo. It's not that I don't have anything to hide, it's just I choose what to say according to the environment and I feel the features of telegram far outweigh the con of not having e2e at all times.

Can you send me a zip archive of all your chats? It would be fun for me to read and ok with you since you have nothing to hide. You can contact me here. If you don’t send me your chats then I assume you want privacy after all.

Still waiting

Re: Telegram: Voice Chats 2.0:Channels, Millions of Listeners, Recorded Chats

#80

I really like Telegram and these features but I don’t use it because they don’t have end2end encryption as default. Also you can’t create a secret group chat that you can start from your phone and continue from your Mac.

Just out of curiosity, what kind of discussion do you have that require e2e? Myself I use TG extensively with friends, family, girlfriend and I think I've used secret chats once when the gf wanted to send a naughty photo. It's not that I don't have anything to hide, it's just I choose what to say according to the environment and I feel the features of telegram far outweigh the con of not having e2e at all times.

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