Telegram gets 3M new signups during Facebook apps’ outage • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by dnate » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 2:04 PM UTC

s_dev wrote: post #125

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…

>Secret chats are meant for people who want more secrecy than the average fella. All messages in secret chats use end-to-end encryption. Seems fair to me -- some people do want some archive of their conversations but the option to limit the storage duration of those conversations. Secret chat is a heavily promoted feature -- it's not some hidden mode just because it's not the deafult.

There is literally no downside to end-to-end encrypting text messages. So it should be default. It is just harder to implement technically.

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

#142

Post by newscracker » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 2:05 PM UTC

Telegram is a fantastic app and platform in the IM/chat space. The feature set, speed and pace of development are far ahead of any others I've seen.

The fact that its default chats are not end-to-end encrypted and are stored in plaintext on its servers is a concern. Everyone who talks about this as a huge deficiency should also consider that this applies to email too, unless one always uses encryption (like GPG/PGP or S/MIME). Sharing personal photos and such may have shifted from emails and websites to chat platforms, but email is still a place where the most sensitive of information tends to be exchanged. That said, the UX of end-to-end email encryption in a federated and widespread way is not yet a solved problem (without kludges, like for example, hosting the encrypted email on a site and sending the link across if the email is sent to a user on another provider), whereas key end-to-end encryption on chat apps is a (mostly/completely?) solved problem.

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

#143

Post by tapoxi » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 2:06 PM UTC

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…

I love Signal, but it has issues. It _feels_ slow. I've had messages appear out of order, I've had the desktop app suddenly stop sending messages while simultaneously spamming my contacts (https://i.imgur.com/QDR22xl.png). I don't love that they refuse any discussion about federation. They don't implement fun features that my friends or family want to use.

It's secure, but it seems like a niche product targeting those who really care about security and aren't able to use iMessage.

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

#144

Post by nicpottier » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 2:07 PM UTC

diego_moita wrote: post #134

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.

Telegram has done an amazing job of this compared to basically everybody else. Anybody can create a bot in a few minutes and they are full featured. You have to initiate a chat with a bot for a bot to be able to interact with you and you can block them at any time. (I'm sure they have some internal metrics that also intervenes for bots that are getting blocked a ton)

Compare this to anybody else and it is head and shoulders better. WhatsApp is launching bots, but they will be paid, they can reach out to you without you interacting with them and they will be heavily policed. (IE, you will need to get approval from WhatsApp to launch your bot)

They have also made hosting be a problem of aggregators like Nexmo, Twilio and Clicaktell. So you need to pay them as well. Clickatell is advertising over $1,000 a month to host a WhatsApp number.

Bananas and a total shame. This is the kind of walled garden bullshit that makes me sad for the internet.

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

#145

Post by nicpottier » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 2:08 PM UTC

roel_v wrote: post #33

lucideer wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Signal has a far superior user experience No. It doesn't. If you're going to advocate for an open alternative, at least be intellectually honest about it's pros/cons. You might have gotten used to Signal, and be unfamiliar with Telegram (and sure, much of usability has an element of subjectivity to it), but... the above statement simply isn't true in the general sense. Personally, I tend to try and advocate for Rio…

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.

No live location sharing as one. This is a killer feature for my friends and I.

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

#146

Post by newscracker » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 2:12 PM UTC

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…

> When talking about privacy these articles should at least mention Signal. I hope they will use their recent funding [2] to polish their apps and increase the speed of innovation.

I keep repeating this often, but Signal is not a user friendly platform for average users. It is good for ephemeral chats and conversations that one wouldn't care about later. Signal actively blocks chats from being backed up (and restored) on iOS. So if you switch to a new device, you'd have to start afresh without any chat histories and also join all the groups once again. The fact that this issue was opened a long time ago on GitHub and responded to by saying it's a security issue to allow backups shows what audience Signal is focusing on (investigative journalists, dissidents and activists who use burner devices and don't need any traces of chats to linger around).

Telegram, on the other hand (even with the not-end-to-end-encrypted default), makes for easy moves between devices (supporting chat syncing across OSes and devices) and to newer devices, with every chat showing information shared as links, photos, etc., and very easy to get back to. Of course, since the chats are not stored encrypted on its servers, search is also blazingly fast.

One deficiency with Telegram is that the end-to-end encrypted chats ("secret chats") are tied to phones and can't be initiated from other devices or seen from other devices. Those also don't carry over to a new device. There is no technical reason for this, because Wire (which in my opinion is a better alternative to Signal and easier to sell others on) handles end-to-end encryption with syncing across devices.

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

#147

Post by meruru » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 2:13 PM UTC

lucideer wrote: post #24

nextstep wrote: post #8

Please, please, please use Signal instead. And tell your friends! Telegram has made very dubious privacy claims, but even if you trust the company, Signal has a far superior user experience. Telegram’s private messages are not enabled by default, and when you are using private messaging, numerous other features are disabled defeating the point.

> Signal has a far superior user experience No. It doesn't. If you're going to advocate for an open alternative, at least be intellectually honest about it's pros/cons. You might have gotten used to Signal, and be unfamiliar with Telegram (and sure, much of usability has an element of subjectivity to it), but... the above statement simply isn't true in the general sense. Personally, I tend to try and advocate for Rio…

Seconding the Riot.im/Matrix recommendation. It checks all the right boxes: federated, multiple FOSS clients, multiple FOSS servers, no phone/email requirement, etc.

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

#148

Post by FredFS456 » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 2:13 PM UTC

jumbopapa wrote: post #100

anotheryou wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mostly use it on desktop and the clients feels like 10 years ago. - Doesn't go in to system tray (unless you fiddle with command line arguments). - can't search messages - overall unpolished (e.g. saving a file has no "show in folder" option afterwards)

I'd also like to mention that you can't use the desktop client standalone and Signal requires a phone number to sign up. It would be nice if they got rid of these requirements. I use Signal and Telegram both - it's clear to me that Telegram provides the better user experience. I like Signal from the privacy standpoint though. If you're using Android then I think that Signal is kind of a no-brainer to use because it d…

Whatsapp doesn't operate as a standalone client either.

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

#149

Post by meruru » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 2:15 PM UTC

reacharavindh wrote: post #80

nextstep wrote: post #8

Please, please, please use Signal instead. And tell your friends! Telegram has made very dubious privacy claims, but even if you trust the company, Signal has a far superior user experience. Telegram’s private messages are not enabled by default, and when you are using private messaging, numerous other features are disabled defeating the point.

I mean, say Telegram is bad, but don't hype up Signal as the pariah to this peril. It is open source in the sense that you can read the source of the project, but can't really build it and use it for yourselves or verify the build you get via the App Store is the same as open source project. Practically open source as a marketing strategy. Secondly, it needs a phone number all the time to use, which ties in with pers…

>A better alternative would be a project that allows someone to choose a username and be done with it! Like HN!

Like Riot!

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

#150

Post by newscracker » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 2:16 PM UTC

dnate wrote: post #141

s_dev wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Secret chats are meant for people who want more secrecy than the average fella. All messages in secret chats use end-to-end encryption. Seems fair to me -- some people do want some archive of their conversations but the option to limit the storage duration of those conversations. Secret chat is a heavily promoted feature -- it's not some hidden mode just because it's not the deafult.

There is literally no downside to end-to-end encrypting text messages. So it should be default. It is just harder to implement technically.

That's not a very good use of "literally", because searching through encrypted messages will certainly be slower, and on mobile devices, this will have a bigger impact on responsiveness and battery life. That is a big downside on mobile (not desktop). Create similar chats that are long (like tens of thousands of messages) on different apps and compare Telegram's search speed with others'.