191–200 of 330 posts
I guess nobody knows Threema (threema.ch) outside of Central Europe. The UI isn't as perfect as Whatsapp's, but close enough. I tried to use iMessage the other day and I'm extremely surprised that a product that is used that broadly in the US is that shitty. Downsides around sending voice messages (which I do frequently): - You must hold the stupid button to record - If you record and turn your phone, the recording b…
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…
I guess nobody knows Threema (threema.ch) outside of Central Europe. The UI isn't as perfect as Whatsapp's, but close enough. I tried to use iMessage the other day and I'm extremely surprised that a product that is used that broadly in the US is that shitty. Downsides around sending voice messages (which I do frequently): - You must hold the stupid button to record - If you record and turn your phone, the recording b…
Personally I prefer text. Telegram’s voice message support is much better, but without fail when someone sends me one I end up listening to it 2-3+ times to make sure I heard/understood it correctly. Never have that problem with text.
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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'.
Keeping a long history is almost always a bad idea because something you have written a year ago and have forgotten can be used against you. Keeping messages for just about a week is much better idea.
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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.
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.
Let's see, Signal is based in the US. Wechat is a Chinese system with a great UX that is based in China. Telegram used to be based in Russia. Whatsapp is owned by Facebook. I think it is pretty self-explanatory that in all these countries, governments haven't been exactly subtle when it comes to their efforts to intercept communications. In my mind, Telegram is the only software that resisted such interference in an…
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> 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.
This is huge to me. I spend a large portion of my day in front of computers, so messaging services that take the desktop seriously are much more likely to catch my attention.
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The desktop app is electron junk that lacks basic features like changing spellchecking language and there's no pure web client like Whatsapp for instance. I also think it lacks some features of the mobile client like creating new groups and adding new contacts (or at least I haven't figured out how to do it). When I install the client on a new computer I can't access the history of the messages from the phone for a r…
I agree that the desktop app is much worse than the mobile client. But they've been steadily adding features to both. URL previews were recently added, for instance. Also, I never take pictures in-app, but I just tried it and I can't reproduce your problem with the Android client: there is no cropping on my phone. Maybe an issue with your phone?
It's possible of course but this is a fully updated Nokia 6.1 (running stock Android One) and all other apps work without a hitch. So it's either a setting I flipped somewhere in Signal and I can't find (arguably a symptom of a bad UI), a bug in Signal or a bug in my phone only triggered by Signal.
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> Telegram has made very dubious privacy claims My love for the word "dubious" cannot be overstated. While there's been a lot of solidly-seeming (I am not a security researcher) criticism of TG security infrastructure, I don't recall a single instance of chats or metadata being actually compromised so far. > Signal has a far superior user experience. Not in this Universe, unfortunately. Signal is borderline unusable,…
Signal is borderline unusable? I've never used Telegram but if that's your assessment of Signal, Telegram must be great. Can you tell me about it?
Telegram delivers messages quickly. Signal...it's anyone's guess whether messages will be delivered or not and how long it may take. Many a times it can be quite slow.
Since Telegram is multi-device (including a web client), activating it on another device is quick. You either get the verification code by a push message on your current client or get an SMS. This happens within a few seconds (for push messages) and within a minute for SMS. Signal is quite flakey, and its verification code SMS may never arrive.
Telegram syncs chats across devices and anytime you switch to a new device and activate it, all your previous chats and groups and channel subscriptions are available on the new device immediately. Signal (this is specific to iOS) prevents backing up chats on iTunes and iCloud. So if you get a new iPhone, then you have to start afresh with no older chat history and have to rejoin groups again.
Telegram has many other features, of which a few are listed below (none of these are on Signal):
* You can set a username and share a " rel="nofollow">https://t.me/ link to someone else to get in touch with you, without revealing your phone number to that person. In groups, if there are people who aren't in your contacts list, you would never see their phone number. In Signal, the phone number is shown everywhere, just like on WhatsApp. You cannot hide it from strangers.
* You can @mention people in chats using the username and they get appropriate notifications about the mention, taking them to that message.
* You can edit sent messages for a while (you don't have to send additional messages to correct typos).
* You can start anonymous polls (currently only from phones) in the chats and get responses.
* You can use bots for many different purposes.
* You can create broadcast "channels" that people subscribe to.
* In group chats, the administrators can decide if new members can see all messages from the time the group was started or only the recent 100 messages.
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Wire is definitely my favourite of the secure IMs as far as UI/UX. It's also the one I've had most luck with when referring non-tech family and friends. They didn't like Signal or Riot (for a variety of reasons) but are happy to use Wire.
It looks like you have to pay for Wire. Is that right?