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WhatsApp is blocking Telegram links

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Re: WhatsApp is blocking Telegram links

#101

Post by [deleted] »

Laaw wrote: post #95
amyjess wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We've seen something like this before, when AIM allowed MSN Messenger to interoperate. I know this is a little different, but that was still how AIM lost. Lost? AIM was the dominant IM platform in the US until the late 00s/early 10s when mobile and cloud-based services took over. First SMS/MMS and then platforms like Facebook Messenger, Google Hangouts, and Skype. The only place MSN was dominant was third-world cou…

SMS/MMS lost? Tell that to my friends/family/telcos.

[deleted]

Re: WhatsApp is blocking Telegram links

#102

Post by amyjess »

Laaw wrote: post #95
amyjess wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We've seen something like this before, when AIM allowed MSN Messenger to interoperate. I know this is a little different, but that was still how AIM lost. Lost? AIM was the dominant IM platform in the US until the late 00s/early 10s when mobile and cloud-based services took over. First SMS/MMS and then platforms like Facebook Messenger, Google Hangouts, and Skype. The only place MSN was dominant was third-world cou…

SMS/MMS lost? Tell that to my friends/family/telcos.

No, I said that AIM was first overtaken by SMS/MMS and then by Facebook/Google/Skype. I didn't say that SMS/MMS died out, just that it was joined by the others.

Re: WhatsApp is blocking Telegram links

#103

Post by realusername »

MAGZine wrote: post #96
amyjess wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We've seen something like this before, when AIM allowed MSN Messenger to interoperate. I know this is a little different, but that was still how AIM lost. Lost? AIM was the dominant IM platform in the US until the late 00s/early 10s when mobile and cloud-based services took over. First SMS/MMS and then platforms like Facebook Messenger, Google Hangouts, and Skype. The only place MSN was dominant was third-world cou…

MSN was way more popular than AIM in parts of Canada (maybe all, I can't speak nationally). Probably, AIM usage correlated with AOL's marketing strategy, meaning it prevailed in the US, though I'm not even sure about europe. Anyhow, your assertion that MSN was only dominant in 3rd world countries is unfounded.

Don't know about other countries, on my case in France, it was MSN-only, I've never seen anyone with a AIM account ever. I had no idea it used to be popular in the US, I've actually learned that now.

Re: WhatsApp is blocking Telegram links

#104

Post by rms_returns »

izacus wrote: post #55
gkfasdfasdf wrote: post #35

According to the Telegram FAQ [1] the Telegram Facebook page [2] has been taken down as well. [1] https://telegram.org/faq#facebook [2] https://www.facebook.com/tlgrm

This is IMO one of the greatest dangers of leaving those huge corporations like Facebook, Google, Amazon etc. unchecked - they're starting to attack competition by leveraging their primary products (Amazon blocking Chromecasts, Facebook censoring links and pages about their lawsuits are two latest cases) and are working deliberately against interests of greater public (and capitalism itself if we can stretch that :)…

It is not the anti-monopolistic authorities (who are part of the system, anyway), but WE_THE_PEOPLE who need to do something, so that competition is assured. WE need to keep switching services and not let one service rule everything.

Be it messengers, social networking apps, eCommerce stores, ERP software, anything - If we choose one organization to rule them all, it won't be very long before they start showing the traits of that one Saruman's ring that rules them all.

Re: WhatsApp is blocking Telegram links

#105

Post by plusquamperfekt »

seagreen wrote: post #100
plusquamperfekt wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need a competitor to FB ... sadly options like Diaspora are very problematic b/c you need to either run a server or trust a private person with it.

This is a great comment, because it leads in right to the heart of the problem. Why is running a server so hard? This is actually really weird -- the cloud should mean that you can set up a server with a single click. Of course, a Linux VPS needs a fair amount of love (fiddling with settings, updating, and so on). But there are other ways: https://sandstorm.io/

Interesting perspective! It's true that it should be very easy and cheap - something like setting up an E-mail account or installing an app.

Re: WhatsApp is blocking Telegram links

#106

Post by jsprogrammer »

rms_returns wrote: post #85
an4rchy wrote: post #2

Wow, didn't expect this from WhatsApp. I wonder if we can hear it from their side to see if they have a specific reason. Also, are they blocking any other messenger links i.e WeChat, Line etc or just Telegram.

FB is too large an organization to survive long when competition is eating a huge chunk of their services. And especially so, if the competition is someone like telegram who is both free and open source. Their decision to purchase WhatsApp turned out to be very ill-timed. WhatsApp was at the peak of their popularity when they did, but that peak was only because of ignorance of the masses - ignorance about glaring hol…

When FB bought WhatsApp, they estimated that the user base only had a useful life of seven years.

That was one or two years ago now and I'm not sure if the estimate has been updated, but it would seem FB is running out of time to convert the user base.

Re: WhatsApp is blocking Telegram links

#107

Post by Nutomic »

JosephRedfern wrote: post #42
mmebane wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It used to be incredibly common for production APKs to contain Java debug info (line numbers and variable names). IIRC, Android Studio now sets up the Release builds to strip this out and do basic ProGuard optimizations, but if WhatsApp was migrated from an old build system or something, it could easily be missing this step.

Those were the days ;) I was under the impression that it's now no longer possible to upload an APK that has been built in Debug Mode to Google Play. I don't know if other app stores (i.e. Amazon App store) are enforcing this.

Debug mode and obfuscation are completely seperate concepts. You can have a debug build with obfuscation or a release build without. Google Play doesn't care if an apk is obfuscated or not.

Re: WhatsApp is blocking Telegram links

#108

Post by plusquamperfekt »

mitm2mitm wrote: post #89
plusquamperfekt wrote: post #56

I'm opportunistically supporting more secure messengers by "digital osmosis". Next to WhatsApp I also have installed: 1. Signal 2. Threema 3. Telegram And I will use those (in described order) if possible. Threema seems to be comparatively popular in Germany, while Telegram is at least not among my peers and Signal (the one recommended by Schneier and Snowden) is only used by my gf (b/c I installed it for her).

FB released a product called Signal http://media.fb.com/2015/09/17/introducing-signal/ If you do a Google search that's the first result. Would be funny if they were afraid enough to do a SEO 'attack'. Yeah, tinfoil.

If I search for "Signal" on google.com in a private Chrome window then the first five results are all about the "good" Signal app.

Re: WhatsApp is blocking Telegram links

#109

Post by mikek »

WhatsApp is not linkifying Telegram URLs, but Telegram is not even sending messages that are shared from WhatsApp. Telegram is open source, so you can see for yourself here.

https://github.com/DrKLO/Telegram/blob/74def22213846b1f90a26...

On line 666:

    if (sendingText.contains("WhatsApp")) { //who needs this sent from ...?
        sendingText = null;
    }

Re: WhatsApp is blocking Telegram links

#110

Post by bwindels »

mikek wrote: post #109

WhatsApp is not linkifying Telegram URLs, but Telegram is not even sending messages that are shared from WhatsApp. Telegram is open source, so you can see for yourself here. https://github.com/DrKLO/Telegram/blob/74def22213846b1f90a26... On line 666: if (sendingText.contains("WhatsApp")) { //who needs this sent from ...? sendingText = null; }

I don't know what's worse, this, or the fact that it is in a 488 LOC method.

I can't trigger this behaviour in telegram though on mac or windows phone. Maybe just for Android?

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