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700M users and Premium

telegram.org

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Re: 700M users and Premium

#191

Post by decrypt »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #11
BoumTAC wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's the main issue with those small subscriptions. We don't have an American salary here. I would happily pay for Telegram premium for 2-3€/month and have only a third of the features they propose. But 5-10€ for every service like this becomes expensive at the end of the month. I have the same issue with hey.com email provider, but they are too expensive too. I would love to have an email service provider…

Some services have a yearly plan where you end up paying the equivalent to about 4€ a month - protonmail is an example that comes to mind.

Fastmail as well. I just paid for 3 years which amounts to 3.11 USD or so, per month.

Re: 700M users and Premium

#192

Post by stereoradonc »

Sebb767 wrote: post #99
duskwuff wrote: post #34

I'm a happy Telegram user, but the features Telegram are introducing with their premium subscription are not particularly compelling, and some of them really seem like anti-features: • 4 GB uploads, faster downloads: I'm struggling to imagine what these would be useful for, other than movie piracy. The default upload limit is already 2 GB, and the download speed is fine. • Doubled limits: Most of these are client-sid…

Given these features (and their desire to keep Telegram free), I view these as "donation bonuses", not features to pay for. Although Discord has a similar monetization strategy and people seem to not mind it, so maybe it's just us being out of touch.

Completely agree.

Re: 700M users and Premium

#193

Post by d0mine »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #52
scrollaway wrote: post #14

Telegram blows my mind. Say what you want about their security; they have the absolute best UX of any (primarily 1-on-1) messaging app, bar none. Discord is a close second. But the quality and polish of telegram blows me away to this day. And it’s lots of small features and details such as built in translation for messages in a foreign language, all the smooth animations, quick look and summaries of channels with agg…

> Say what you want about their security; they have the absolute best UX of any (primarily 1-on-1) messaging app, bar none. That is precisely because they don't give a shit about security. While others like Whatsapp bother with e2ee and resulting device sync problems and inability to do server-side search, Telegram just stores everything on a server without (meaningful) encryption and boldly claims that 'it is the mo…

I see this opinion often on HN but it is BS.

If I were a dissident then given the choice between whatsapp and telegram, telegram wins

"Secret chats use end-to-end encryption, thanks to which we don't have any data to disclose.

To protect the data that is not covered by end-to-end encryption, Telegram uses a distributed infrastructure. Cloud chat data is stored in multiple data centers around the globe that are controlled by different legal entities spread across different jurisdictions. The relevant decryption keys are split into parts and are never kept in the same place as the data they protect. As a result, several court orders from different jurisdictions are required to force us to give up any data." https://telegram.org/faq#q-do-you-process-data-requests

Telegram is more convenient by default and it can provide security for those who need it.

Re: 700M users and Premium

#194

Post by Mandatum »

tootie wrote: post #181
ufmace wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use it for something like 90% of all my social interactions with real-life friends. IMO, Telegram has by far the best UI/UX of any internet chat app. In terms of stuff like group management, working perfectly on any type of device with any OS, including maintaining accounts on multiple devices and keeping everything synced between them, organizing large numbers of chats in the UI, managing notifications, etc. Video…

For me, the value of messaging comes 99.99% from availability of people I'm messaging. For work, it's all Slack. For personal it's SMS. I haven't seen a compelling feature in a chat app since 1997.

How do you do groups texts?

Re: 700M users and Premium

#195

Post by krn »

perch56 wrote: post #35
BoumTAC wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's the main issue with those small subscriptions. We don't have an American salary here. I would happily pay for Telegram premium for 2-3€/month and have only a third of the features they propose. But 5-10€ for every service like this becomes expensive at the end of the month. I have the same issue with hey.com email provider, but they are too expensive too. I would love to have an email service provider…

I’ve been a happy mailbox.org user for 4-5 years now and they’re cheap. Take a look at they’re features, primarily being that they’re hosted in Germany.

Does Mailbox.org still lack app-specific passwords[1]? As I understand, using any external email client requires disabling 2FA.

[1] https://userforum-en.mailbox.org/topic/deviceapp-specific-pa...

Re: 700M users and Premium

#196

Post by seizethegdgap »

fartcannon wrote: post #142
pizza234 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Discord for public communications and I don't mind plaintext storage at all - on the contrary, on public chats, I personally value public history. The last time I've used Matrix actually, usability was a disaster; took me a while to figure out even just how to login, and that wasn't the only problem.

The login screen was too complicated for you, eh?

Do you remember using Riot pre-cross signing?

If you don't, then you have no idea how bad it used to be.

Re: 700M users and Premium

#197

Post by gruez »

philliphaydon wrote: post #189
gruez wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's... not really good evidence. Your story sounds almost identical to the "facebook/google is eavesdropping on me" stories that frequently make the rounds on popular discourse. Unfortunately, that's basically the Sasquatch of the privacy world (ie. there are many people with anecdotes claiming it exists, but very little in the way of actual evidence like network captures or decompiled binaries). If anything, it's…

Can you explain why advertising shows only in facebook, for keywords only used inside an apparently private conversation? Unless WhatsApp is audited completely, not just looking at some source code but also how all information passes through facebook and back to a receiver. Then we can only assume the e2ee is just marketing fluff and not something that is done in favour of privacy.

> Can you explain why advertising shows only in facebook, for keywords only used inside an apparently private conversation?

obvious explanations:

1. coincidence/luck + confirmation bias. this can also be aided by demographic/interest factors. For instance, suppose there are 10,000 "interests" that facebook tracks. You'd think that for a given conversation that contained such a topic, the chance that you'd see ads for it was 1 in 10,000. However, if the conversation topic was "mechanical keyboards", and facebook knew that you were male, 18-35, and are interested in video games, then it might be able to infer that you're much more likely to be interested in mechanical keyboards and therefore show you ads for mechanical keyboards 1 in 50 times rather than 1 in 10,000 times.

2. the other side ended up leaking the information to facebook (eg. through a search or clicking on an ad)

Re: 700M users and Premium

#198

Post by ilrwbwrkhv »

scrollaway wrote: post #14

Telegram blows my mind. Say what you want about their security; they have the absolute best UX of any (primarily 1-on-1) messaging app, bar none. Discord is a close second. But the quality and polish of telegram blows me away to this day. And it’s lots of small features and details such as built in translation for messages in a foreign language, all the smooth animations, quick look and summaries of channels with agg…

And they do all that with a tiny tiny team. They are the epitome of shut up and take my money.

Re: 700M users and Premium

#199

Post by stereoradonc »

I went through the entire thread of conversations here, and I am surprised that anything related to Telegram is downvoted and the familiar trope of "security" is added.

It's got best-in-class applications with lovely animations. The server now governs reactions to specific messages. Stickers are fun, with premium stickers having additional animations.

From a technical perspective, they occupy least space; is "fast" and have a great ecosystem of third party clients. (I use "Owlgram") that offers additional UI elements without cluttering the experience. Tabbed chats are possible now; on Windows desktop, Unigram offers a stellar experience. Threat perceptions or "privacy concerns" are not in the lexicon of ordinary users like me and I am better off without Signal or WhatsApp. WhatsApp reminds me of what Telegram was 5 years back.

I think it is time to reconsider the association of Russia with the application. Criticism is fine, but much of it directed against Telegram appears biased and coloured. I don't work for Telegram, but am a happy user. I couldn't get my folks to understand XMPP or Matrix, or even get my colleagues to switch from any other competing application. This is fine by me.

Other finely grained privacy options (ability to control who can call you or add you to groups) are critical for my needs. Yes, it could be better, but no other application offers those controls. Besides, it's easy to chat with others using "usernames" without the hassle of handing out phone numbers.

Bravo!

Re: 700M users and Premium

#200

Post by woojoo666 »

annadane wrote: post #98
rejectfinite wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discord does all this too? + the server rooms.

Stop. Stop it. This is such an unproductive reply

How is this unproductive? Top comment listed reasons they use telegram, reply gives an alternative that has everything the top comment listed
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