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

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

#271

Post by Fins » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 6:11 PM UTC

dkrich wrote: post #185

Fins wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The somewhat cynical answer is that it will be around just fine as long as FSB pays for it. Durov has been singing praises of Putin and Mother Russia right up to the moment he suddenly up and left to supposedly do a "banned in Russia" communication system. It's possible, of course, that he had a change of heart. It's just as possible that these are just theatrics.

Is this not a concern for those trying to sell mass adoption to people currently on other platforms that make enough money to fund maintenance and enhancements forever?

I'd think so.

I think that the spectacle of Russian regulators banning almost all of the Internet but NOT the Telegram a while ago is even more concerning. Or entertaining, if you aren't using Telegram.

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

#272

Post by fouc » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 6:12 PM UTC

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.

iMessage is great, but sometimes it breaks for some people, hence the fallback back to Telegram

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

#273

Post by mcculley » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

mbesto wrote: post #261

skyyler wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For you. Some people like having records.

Which is why we have other communication channels for that type of thing. Instant messaging should be ephemeral.

Why should it matter which medium is used? I have some conversations I want to keep forever. Some I treat as ephemeral. This should be a per-conversation setting.

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

#274

Post by alehul » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 6:25 PM UTC

Krasnol wrote: post #236

jonlucc wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. Would you say that a museum or university isn't sustainable because its revenue from goods and services is less money than it spends? If they have an endowment or similar vehicle set up, they can use interest to pay salaries, and other expenses. That's the kind of thing that could be enabled by a single large donation and should be considered sustainable despite a lack of other recurring revenue.

> Would you say that a museum or university isn't sustainable because its revenue from goods and services is less money than it spends? Yes? That's why it's being usually run by tax money. A regular flow of funds. Something you can plan and work with.

If they had a lump sum donation of $100M, they could probably safely expect a return of 5% per year on average (many years could be worse).

As long as their costs are less than $5M per year, they can effectively run forever, barring any long-lasting financial depressions (the likes of which we've never seen), or severe financial mismanagement.

This is how many museums and universities operate, and what the above commenter was referring to. :)

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

#275

Post by eitland » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 6:26 PM UTC

fvjft wrote: post #257

WA wrote: post #174

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…

3.50€ for an IM app when there are dozens that are free? Yeah, no.

I loved WhatsApp when I had to pay for it.

I'd respect Telegram more if I had to pay for it from the start.

3.50€? Seriously, people use more on coffee.

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin

Seriously, at least for westerners, if we cannot pay the same for a secure messaging app as for a coffee then we don't deserve secure messaging.

(That said, I'm in no position to say if this IM app is good or bad, just reflecting on the general idea.)

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

#276

Post by Aloha » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 6:34 PM UTC

kitsunesoba wrote: post #192

newscracker wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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’ll have to check, but I’m pretty sure the Mac Cocoa version of Telegram (not the Mac Qt version) supports secret chat initiation.

Yes, it does.

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

#277

Post by WA » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 6:40 PM UTC

kitsunesoba wrote: post #193

WA wrote: post #174

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…

Anecdotally, iMessage’s voice feature doesn’t get much use. Everybody I know uses it text only and opts for dictation over voice messages. 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.

Maybe the feature doesn’t get much use because it’s shit in iMessage? Also sound quality is horrible compared to WhatsApp. In my case: I dictate up to 10 seconds. I use voice messages for everything longer.

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

#278

Post by eitland » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 6:40 PM UTC

lambda_lover wrote: post #119

runn1ng wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh. In that case, I was wrong. I still don't understand the need for two official apps though

If I recall correctly one was created by a non-Telegram dev as a bit of a fanproject, and eventually adopted by the company as a pseudo-official app. At some point actual Telegram devs decided to create (I think ) Telegram for Desktop based on native stuff like Swift. But both applications get bugfixes and updates because it's easy enough to maintain both.

Telegram at least used to support a second non-official client.

Lately, IIRC, they have made huge chunks of their core app available as a library to simplify the creation of more clients.

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

#279

Post by chupasaurus » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 6:51 PM UTC

WA wrote: post #174

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…

Closed-source client apps? Bye, have a great time!

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

#280

Post by newscracker » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 7:01 PM UTC

tivert wrote: post #253

newscracker wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I said (specifically about iOS) is true and has been so since 2015 (or earlier). See [1] and [2] that I linked in another comment here and check on backups explicitly being denied on iOS. This has nothing to do with Apple, and everything to do with the Signal team not willing to make it user friendly (for this case). [1]: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/wiki/FAQ [2]: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-i…

> See [1] and [2] that I linked in another comment here and check on backups explicitly being denied on iOS. They apparently have an open issue for this (though it looks like it's locked to prevent people from endlessly complaining in their bug tracker). https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/2542 It also sounds like they have a branch where they're working on this feature: https://whispersystems.discoursehos…

The reason given is “security”, or to copy paste from the link I have given: “iTunes backups are disabled to prevent plaintext leakage to iCloud or insecure systems.”

I have a negative opinion of Signal because they have not dealt with this for years and have been stubborn on that point. Please read the comments on the link I have given and also look at issues they have closed on the same topic. Their responses on the issue tracker don’t look user friendly. So I go with what I’ve seen (which is available for you to examine and make your own inferences too).

For a very long time, I’ve wanted to recommend Signal to others (I still use it, but not for anything that I’d want to save for longer). But this particular issue, introduced and imposed by the Signal team, is a deal breaker. Which average user would want to rejoin all groups or lose all chat history because they bought a new iPhone? If this self-imposed issue is not an example of being user unfriendly, then what is?