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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

#201

Post by 908087 »

newscracker wrote: post #150
dnate wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'.

I have several 10,000+ message chat logs in signal. Searching is pretty much instantaneous even on a 3 year old device.

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

#202

Post by kitsunesoba »

saagarjha wrote: post #139
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.

I prefer iMessage for folks with Apple stuff, but for those who don’t I fall back on Telegram.

It’ll never happen but I’d be ecstatic if Apple released iMessage for other platforms.

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

#203

Post by zimpenfish »

Frondo wrote: post #158
14 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish I could see this visual flare you are talking about as in if you could post some images I would buy it. I am honestly sitting here and thinking about what exactly flare might look like in a messaging app and I can’t really come up with an answer. Is it a color scheme? The layout of the buttons? Signal to me seems like many of the other messaging apps all much the same maybe slightly different in layout.…

Again, if visual flair isn't important to you, then fine, it isn't important to you. It's important to me -- I like my stuff to look subjectively "nice" and Here's Signal: https://imagebin.ca/v/4aAU1ai9CG8D And Telegram: https://imagebin.ca/v/4aAUJhRmj8Jx Signal is white (and no night mode on IOS), the bubbles are undecorated rounded rectangles, there's no background and no option to set one, no stickers, no option t…

> Signal is white (and no night mode on IOS)

In Settings, there's a moon in the top right which toggles light/dark modes. This is v2.37.1.0 but the release notes list dark mode as appearing in v2.30.2 which is about 4 months ago.

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

#204

Post by 908087 »

supernes wrote: post #34

I cannot understand why people insist on hating Telegram for their choice of tradeoff between convenience and privacy. People who care enough about the subject should know when and whether to use it for their communications. For everyone else, it's an outstanding alternative to Messenger/WhatsApp and Viber. Edit: I'd also like to add that maybe we need to make a distinction between the notions of privacy and secrecy.…

It's not the tradeoff that makes people hate it. It's the fact that it is regularly marketed/presented as the "most private/secure" option, which leads to many people having no idea they're even making that tradeoff.

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

#205

Post by newscracker »

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

Maybe you're thinking of WhatsApp, which requires the phone to be around. Signal Desktop doesn't need the phone to be around once you've finished linking the desktop to your account (which is one time). From the second time onwards, you could as well leave your phone turned off and/or in a different country and Signal Desktop would still work fine.

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

#206

Post by Kye »

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 lacks a key feature that drives everyone I talk to regularly to use it: custom stickers. Maybe other chat platforms let people upload stickers, but Telegram already has them from hundreds of artists.

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

#207

Post by 14 »

Frondo wrote: post #158
14 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish I could see this visual flare you are talking about as in if you could post some images I would buy it. I am honestly sitting here and thinking about what exactly flare might look like in a messaging app and I can’t really come up with an answer. Is it a color scheme? The layout of the buttons? Signal to me seems like many of the other messaging apps all much the same maybe slightly different in layout.…

Again, if visual flair isn't important to you, then fine, it isn't important to you. It's important to me -- I like my stuff to look subjectively "nice" and Here's Signal: https://imagebin.ca/v/4aAU1ai9CG8D And Telegram: https://imagebin.ca/v/4aAUJhRmj8Jx Signal is white (and no night mode on IOS), the bubbles are undecorated rounded rectangles, there's no background and no option to set one, no stickers, no option t…

Thank you for taking the time to reply. That definitely helps show what you mean. I think for me the biggest issue lately has been I use a night mode and never really noticed signal is missing it though I only use signal with one contact but if I did use it more I think it would have come to my attention. I have always been a kind of minimalist with themes but in the examples you provided I definitely feel the one with trees is easier on my eyes. Thanks again.

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

#208

Post by unimpressive »

Frondo wrote: post #122
patcon wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Telegram, on the other hand, has been absolutely reliable, both in regular and secure chats. Never a lost message, never a delayed message. > Same for Whatsapp. what's disturbing to me (from a relatively naive perspective -- I'm familiar with terms like PSTN and MVNO and the general system, but I havn't worked in telecom): you've described what would be exactly how a nation state would kill a superior and more secu…

State actors have a much more direct route to killing secure chats like Telegram and Signal: they firewall the servers at the national level. There've been several state actors that have done this to both Telegram and Signal already -- both of these apps employ different ways of avoiding it but this is already one of the arms races in the world of secure chats. FWIW, my problems with Signal losing/delaying messages a…

Yes but that's very obvious, the route just discussed is subtle and difficult to detect.

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

#209

Post by newscracker »

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.

Any generic (not region specific) bots that you use regularly? I've tried some bots (for polls and certain other things), but privacy with the bots is a concern for me.

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

#210

Post by tivert »

newscracker wrote: post #146
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…

> I keep repeating this often, but Signal is not a user friendly platform for average users.

That's not really true. Signal and WhatsApp are basically the same, and WhatsApp's massive popularity gives strong evidence for their user friendliness.

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