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Telegram introduces feature to prevent users from texting too often in a group

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Re: Telegram introduces feature to prevent users from texting too often in a group

#11

Post by forinti »

Aloha wrote: post #5
nikivi wrote: post #2

Boggles my mind how WhatsApp is still a more popular messenger than Telegram by a long shot. Talk about network effects and people not doing their research. Or not caring about UX.

Telegram wins for me, because desktop is a first class citizen.

That and it's dead easy to write a bot.

Re: Telegram introduces feature to prevent users from texting too often in a group

#13

Post by jrimbault »

jjeaff wrote: post #3

Is the HN ranking algorithm open source? I'm curious as to why a story like this makes it to the 2nd or 3rd top ranking story with only 6 points. Especially for an article about what seems to be a minor feature upgrade. Is there some context about telegram that I am missing?

An earlier version was open source.

https://github.com/wting/hackernews https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki/tree/5409fc74fdd6a0502...

Re: Telegram introduces feature to prevent users from texting too often in a group

#14

Post by daybreak »

jjeaff wrote: post #6
nikivi wrote: post #2

Boggles my mind how WhatsApp is still a more popular messenger than Telegram by a long shot. Talk about network effects and people not doing their research. Or not caring about UX.

I mean, your choice is between an app owned by Facebook or an app owned by the creators of the largest social network in Russia. I'm surprised more aren't using Signal, open source, and I believe funded by a non-profit organization. With founders that are known to care about organizational transparency and user privacy.

I like the concept of Signal but Telegram has some great features like usernames and public chat groups. In the end, better encryption by itself (Telegram rolled their own) loses out over function.

Also, the owners of Telegram are not on good terms with the Russian government (its been banned before).

Re: Telegram introduces feature to prevent users from texting too often in a group

#15

Post by tptacek »

SimplyUnknown wrote: post #7

I really like Telegram. Only end-to-end encryption by default and in group chats would make it perfect.

"I really like Telegram. It being a secure messenger would make it perfect".

I'm not really snarking at you; a lot of things would be better if they were also secure messengers; Slack is an obvious example.

Re: Telegram introduces feature to prevent users from texting too often in a group

#16

Post by kjaftaedi »

dewey wrote: post #9
nikivi wrote: post #2

Boggles my mind how WhatsApp is still a more popular messenger than Telegram by a long shot. Talk about network effects and people not doing their research. Or not caring about UX.

If I have to I use WhatsApp (Using Signal's encryption framework) over Telegram as I don't like to use a russian chat app that came up with their own encryption and doesn't even enable encryption by default. It's not just about UX or not doing research.

End-to-end encryption only encrypts messages in-transit.

The messages are still available in plaintext at either endpoint, and to the companies if they want them.

Facebook already publicly announced that they are going to use their AI to scan whatsapp messages for content violations (prior to encryption).

Re: Telegram introduces feature to prevent users from texting too often in a group

#17

Post by tptacek »

daybreak wrote: post #14
jjeaff wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, your choice is between an app owned by Facebook or an app owned by the creators of the largest social network in Russia. I'm surprised more aren't using Signal, open source, and I believe funded by a non-profit organization. With founders that are known to care about organizational transparency and user privacy.

I like the concept of Signal but Telegram has some great features like usernames and public chat groups. In the end, better encryption by itself (Telegram rolled their own) loses out over function. Also, the owners of Telegram are not on good terms with the Russian government (its been banned before).

My routine reminder that Signal doesn't have these features because they genuinely care about privacy and metadata security, and will withhold basic messaging app features until they know how to provide them without (a) creating a database of every pair of communicating users that they retain serverside and (b) leaking information about conversations to traffic analysis. See: user profiles, GIF sharing, both with really interesting explanations of how Signal ultimately figured out how to implement these features.

It does make Signal a little less usable than some other messengers, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't use Slack a lot more than Signal. But this is also why Signal is what I use when the secrecy of what I'm talking about actually matters.

Re: Telegram introduces feature to prevent users from texting too often in a group

#18

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

tptacek wrote: post #15
SimplyUnknown wrote: post #7

I really like Telegram. Only end-to-end encryption by default and in group chats would make it perfect.

"I really like Telegram. It being a secure messenger would make it perfect". I'm not really snarking at you; a lot of things would be better if they were also secure messengers; Slack is an obvious example.

They have end to end encryption available but off by default because it affects searching (they can't index your chat if they don't know what you said).

Since your average users would be fine with this, it seems fair to have it as an optional feature.

Re: Telegram introduces feature to prevent users from texting too often in a group

#19

Post by vinay427 »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #18
tptacek wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I really like Telegram. It being a secure messenger would make it perfect". I'm not really snarking at you; a lot of things would be better if they were also secure messengers; Slack is an obvious example.

They have end to end encryption available but off by default because it affects searching (they can't index your chat if they don't know what you said). Since your average users would be fine with this, it seems fair to have it as an optional feature.

Signal (the messenger) and Tutanota (for emails) both have search on their mobile clients with end-to-end encryption. It's definitely feasible to implement client-side search.

Re: Telegram introduces feature to prevent users from texting too often in a group

#20

Post by sb057 »

dewey wrote: post #9
nikivi wrote: post #2

Boggles my mind how WhatsApp is still a more popular messenger than Telegram by a long shot. Talk about network effects and people not doing their research. Or not caring about UX.

If I have to I use WhatsApp (Using Signal's encryption framework) over Telegram as I don't like to use a russian chat app that came up with their own encryption and doesn't even enable encryption by default. It's not just about UX or not doing research.

>russian chat app

British-Emirati, but same difference.

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