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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

#131

Post by diego_moita »

franky47 wrote: post #28

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)

And WhatsApp was used to promote and coordinate the genocide or the Rohinga people in Burma, spread fake news that helped elect the retarded proto-fascist Bolsonaro in Brazil, spread hate against gays in Eastern Africa,...

I'm sure you also know how the Putin's friends used Facebook to help elect the Pussy-Graber in Chief in the US or give an hand to Brexit supporters.

Maybe the problem is not the tool but how people use it?

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

#132

Post by saagarjha »

fnord123 wrote: post #112
runn1ng wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least on Mac, Telegram has mysteriously two apps in Mac App Store, one is Electron and one is native. I never know which is which One is named "Telegram" and one is "Telegram for Desktop" and they have exactly the same icon, but different sets of features. edit: I was wrong, neither of the two is Electron, see below

Telegram for Desktop is https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop (Qt, open source stuff) Telegram is https://github.com/overtake/TelegramSwift (Swift, Core* libraries) Both are native.

Calling either of those "native" is a bit of a conceit, since both reimplement standard system controls and eschew the use of system frameworks such as Cocoa.

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

#133

Post by Fiahil »

Frondo wrote: post #114
roel_v wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having just installed Signal yesterday, in what respect is it worse than Whatsapp (from a UI pov)? The only thing I found so far is the bad integration with contacts.

Having used Signal, Telegram, and Whatsapp heavily (friends on all three, natch), here's my one absolutely critical beef with Signal: It doesn't always deliver messages, and it more frequently doesn't deliver them in a timely fashion. In my experience, Signal delays delivery of messages about 5% of the time -- which is actually huge and makes it unusable for reliable chats. The story which made me never trust Signal…

> And one more thing that isn't really 100% Signal's fault but absolutely drove me mad when I used it on Android as a replacement to the default SMS app: there's no real way to know when someone sets up Signal and then uninstalls it, and Signal defaults to sending secure messages every time.

I'm using https://silence.im/ - A Signal fork - instead of Signal for this exact reason.

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

#134

Post by diego_moita »

Telegram user here. For me, by far the best use case for it are the bots. I live in Brazil and can't stand my relatives barfing bullshit about that idiotic Bolsonaro on WhatsApp. A simple bot on Telegram is the perfect antidote against political stupidity. Bye, bye WhatsApp...

Give me bots on Signal/WhatsApp and I'll begin paying attention. Before that, no thanks.

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

#136

Post by saagarjha »

empthought wrote: post #107
rvnx wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, did it, not going to use Telegram now. Love the unsecure TLRPC objects deserialization that actually makes the native client crash and to not verify what other clients have sent: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DrKLO/Telegram/e397bd9afdf... and the tons of magic and undocumented numbers in the code: https://github.com/DrKLO/Telegram/blob/master/TMessagesProj/...

Crashing in the face of invalid and likely malicious input is a secure approach (fail fast).

Depends on whether the crash is intentional :/

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

#137

Post by arendtio »

mgw wrote: post #15

I understand Telegram's appeal because of its high quality apps and big feature list, but articles such as this one really should be more nuanced when pushing Telegram's marketing message of "We have true privacy and unlimited space for everyone.". Their default mode is not end-to-end encrypted [1] and as such the product is less private than WhatsApp. Even tech-savvy users in my social circles are not aware of this…

Just to throw in another alternative: Some might know XMPP [1] for being the IETF standardized instant messaging protocol and Conversations [2] as one of the modern XMPP clients.

Recently, the main author of Conversations created a new version of his app called 'Quicksy'. Quicksy is still an XMPP client but with the ease of use other messangers deliver. For example, you don't have to choose a provider. Yet you still have features like federation available. So a perfect solution to invite others to join the XMPP world.

- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=im.quicksy.cli...

- https://quicksy.im

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMPP

[2] https://conversations.im

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

#138

Post by kome »

detaro wrote: post #118
kome wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal is way worse because it requires you to have the cellphone always on. With Telegram you need a phone number to sign-in and then you can forget about it, and use it just on desktop/laptop. You can set a password as a 2 factor authentication (1st: sms or code to another telegram client 2nd: password).

No it doesn't. you only need the phone for the initial link.

so, yeah, every time you open your desktop you need a cellphone

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

#139

Post by saagarjha »

fouc wrote: post #69

Telegram is a great alternative to iMessage because it has great mobile & desktop clients.

Personally, I find iMessage's clients to be far superior to Telegram's offerings. They're more reliable, lightweight, and just work better and look nicer overall.

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

#140

Post by detaro »

kome wrote: post #138
detaro wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it doesn't. you only need the phone for the initial link.

so, yeah, every time you open your desktop you need a cellphone

No. To set up Signal Desktop on a computer, you need a cellphone once.
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