Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Telegram is booming but needs advertisers and $700M soon

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 333 posts

Re: Telegram is booming but needs advertisers and $700M soon

#211

Post by Aachen »

mosselman wrote: post #84

Is there a reliable way to backup Telegram conversations including media? It seems like a good idea to make some before they change the endless storage and scroll back, just in case.

Yes, in the desktop version there is an export feature since late 2018 iirc. It was done because GDPR though that's just an excuse, equivalent (in this aspect) privacy laws had existed since the 90s in most (all?) of the EU.

There is also third party software for it that has more options, the internal one is a bit limited. Some are based on tg-cli, so they're not redoing the work of implementing a client but just format the history into an archive format. I think the project that I contributed to (years ago) was called something like Telegram history formatter.

Backups of your data are always a good idea, regardless of who owns it. Triply so if the service is a bit shady (no business model, for instance). I learned that lesson the hard way with Grooveshark (which totally had a business model and did basically the same as YouTube till someone found evidence of the authors uploading copyrighted stuff themselves, but until then it seemed more stable than Telegram seems today).

Re: Telegram is booming but needs advertisers and $700M soon

#212

Post by tjohns »

theleftfielder wrote: post #194
tazjin wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telegram's clients are amazing (including the ones developed by the community, such as telega.el for Emacs). It is miles ahead of any other messenger in the UX department. Friends of mine who have (reluctantly, in some cases) tried it out quickly got stuck because of this single point. The other thing it's got going for it is that its protocol is designed to work in low-bandwidth environments. Yeah, the protocol look…

It's funny to see this towards the top of the comments here. Feels like not that long ago that Telegram updates would be downvotes on HackerNews because "you should never trust an app that designed their own encryption protocol."

Telegram's UX is outstanding. Their E2E encryption (for "secret chats") is also questionable. Both are simultaneously true.

It depends on your needs.

I use Telegram like an IRC client, primarily participating in medium/large (20-200 user) group chats. In that sense, I don't really care about encryption because the channels are semi-public anyway. I just want whatever client gives me the best experience.

(On the other hand, if I were discussing sensitive topics, I'd probably pick something else.)

Re: Telegram is booming but needs advertisers and $700M soon

#214

Post by vinay427 »

eptcyka wrote: post #206
vinay427 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm honestly not sure what I'm missing when avoiding Telegram's non-private conversations. There's no desktop client support (unlike Signal which works on a desktop mostly seamlessly, including group video) and no option at all to backup and sync conversations between devices (unlike Signal's rather limited options). If I was alright with Telegram's non-E2EE conversations, I would prefer WhatsApp for its wider adopti…

What do you mean, no desktop client support? There's a fully featured desktop client for Telegram, and I've never had my desktop clients have their sqlite database corrupt itself.

I was trying to emphasize this further which is why I (ninja) edited in the second paragraph, but unfortunately it still isn't very obvious:

> when avoiding Telegram's non-private conversations

Re: Telegram is booming but needs advertisers and $700M soon

#215

Post by chrisjarvis »

Aloha wrote: post #149

I'm an early adopter for telegram, and I'd be glad to give them some money. I signed up in 2014, basically the first or second time it hit HN, and over time, I've built out a pretty decent social network on there, and run a dozen or so specialty community chats. I'd be glad to pay them something, 25 a year or so, even if I don't get anything special from it (though, if I did want something, it'd be better access to s…

Would you be willing to describe more about how you engage with this service? I like the service but haven't found many opportunities to use it.

Did you move the "specialty community chats" over from another site like Reddit? Do you talk with people you know IRL on it? Mainly just wondering how you built out a social network for yourself on Telegram.

just wondering thanks!

Re: Telegram is booming but needs advertisers and $700M soon

#216

Post by tomComb »

eptcyka wrote: post #210
tomComb wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> User data will not be used to target ads. I actually prefer personalized (targeted) ads, as long as it is a company I trust with my data. And they generate more revenue so they would need fewer ads. I realize people will argue that they don't generate more revenue, but if that were true then how has this whole industry developed around them? By tossing out personalized ads we are throwing out the baby with the bath…

Most of the nasty things around the internet can be traced back to personalized ads.

But again you are conflating the irresponsible handling of my personal data - eg. my ISP collects and sells my personal data without my authorization - with personalized ads.

There are lots of companies that have a history of never selling, losing, leaking etc. their users' data, such as Apple & Google. So why is it one of the defining battles of our times to force Google etc. to show me less relevant (and therefore more) ads, versus, say, stopping my ISP from its obviously irresponsible practices?

Re: Telegram is booming but needs advertisers and $700M soon

#217

Post by Aachen »

Zelphyr wrote: post #130

What is the benefit of Telegram over other platforms like Signal? I haven't been on it in awhile but was quite turned off by all the "HODL!" channels that it seemed to be filled with at the time.

I don't have a single chat like that. Like, if you don't want that, don't join cryptocurrency / investment groups?

As for the other question, what dont__panic said also goes for me. I'm trying to switch to Signal but it's such a drag compared to tg, the UX is so bad (and it's the best among encrypted messengers that I've found) it's hard to convince even myself let alone whole groups.

Re: Telegram is booming but needs advertisers and $700M soon

#218

Post by Aloha »

Aachen wrote: post #204
Aloha wrote: post #149

I'm an early adopter for telegram, and I'd be glad to give them some money. I signed up in 2014, basically the first or second time it hit HN, and over time, I've built out a pretty decent social network on there, and run a dozen or so specialty community chats. I'd be glad to pay them something, 25 a year or so, even if I don't get anything special from it (though, if I did want something, it'd be better access to s…

Same. I've started moving away since a few months, though, because the revenue model was not happening and I can see how well it works compared to even a big commercial undertaking like Facebook messenger or Slack. The software development alone must cost many millions, not to mention the movies people are sharing actively. It is (was?) getting super super fishy, given that everything is plain text (they have some tr…

The fact is, a majority of what I'm talking about, I have zero care if the service can see it. There is some stuff that I do want privacy, for that I have secret chats, with the limits inherent to it.

Perhaps I'm alone, but I never really wanted a secret chat service, I merely wanted a modern AIM, with first class mobile and desktop support.

Re: Telegram is booming but needs advertisers and $700M soon

#219

Post by ash »

newscracker wrote: post #126
ash wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author of the parent comment specifically mentioned "change in privacy update" as the reason to switch. Until WhatsApp drops end-to-end encryption, there's not that much evil they can do. They can't read your messages. You don't need to trust WhatsApp (so far). Telegram can have the best privacy policy, but they can always read your messages. You have to trust Telegram to do the right thing. (Except those few who…

Wouldn’t you have to trust WhatsApp to do the right thing too, as far as end to end encryption is concerned? How would anyone know if the original Signal E2E is still around or changes have been made to it? WhatsApp already collects, stores and shares more metadata than Signal does. Are there any audit reports from trustworthy parties on WhatsApp behaving as expected on encryption? Or are we just relying on someone w…

Sure, WhatsApp can go rogue at any time. Signal app is obviously better. However, at least we have a possibility to find out if WhatsApp goes evil - decompilation, protocol analysis are still available. I wouldn't also discount fear of reputation losses if E2E vanishes from WhatsApp.

Compared to maybe-evil-in-the-future WhatsApp, default Telegram is already evil, because they have access to all communication right now. What do (or will) they do with all that data?

(Opt-in E2E - and only for 1-on-1 chats - is almost useless. Encryption should be the default.)

Re: Telegram is booming but needs advertisers and $700M soon

#220

Post by Aachen »

andi999 wrote: post #63

How did Telegram spend a billion?

Have you used it? And any other messenger? I find the difference in quality (speed, features and their consistency, synchronisation of data and notifications in realtime, data transfer speed, few if any bugs, cross platform, etc. etc.) quite noticeable. I'm actually moving away because it's too good to have no known business model and still no encryption to speak of after a decade of claiming they're the privacy messenger.
Post reply on HN