Live data from Hacker News

Telegram is booming but needs advertisers and $700M soon

wsj.com

271–280 of 333 posts

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

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding to this, Element is a great first Matrix client :) Not involved with it, just a very happy user. https://element.io

I’ve been having an issue with E2E encryption in a Room on a self-hosted homeserver with ~10 users. It has to do with a user having multiple devices, I think. There’s an ongoing issue on GitHub [0]. It’s been the only downside to Element for us, so far. Other than that I’m happy with Matrix in general. Kind of a pain trying to troubleshoot decryption keys cross-country with my mom. [0] https://github.com/vector-im/el…

I've found that issue can be solved by opening the same chat on your multiple devices at the same time, and it will send the E2E keys across.

I'm thinking this may be a messaging issue rather than a technical bug in some cases - `Unable to decrypt: The sender's device has not sent us the keys for this message` isn't very helpful.

I think while this isn't ideal, it's important to note (for those following along) that neither Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp support end-to-end encryption across desktop and mobile, history syncing to new devices, and a self hosted OSS server with multiple client apps.

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

#272
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only quibble I have with Telegram is their “find nearby” feature, it’s clearly abused by bad actors to funnel users to porn, so my family sees the whole app as not family friendly, bec they don’t want their tweens and teens with phones, that are mostly locked down, having this loophole. There no way to turn it off, or lock it behind parental control, so until then we’re still stuck on WhatsApp.

Good thing your family has no access to the internet, otherwise they might be exposed porn in google image search.

That’s a very reductive take... especially considering I stated that their internet access is pretty limited.

Just because most Americans or even most people in the world think the vileness of R-rated stuff is inevitable and harmless doesn’t make them right. It absolutely warps your view of humanity and imho many ppl today suffer from PTSD and don’t even realize it, just thinking their altered brain chemistry is a normal part of life. The trauma that a constant diet of porn and violence does to your brain is significant and damaging, whether consumed in a pub in 1700s Germany or a random website today.

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

#273
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WhatsApp doesn't let me login from two mobile devices. Can't use it from phone and tablet at the same. It's moronic. Telegram does, so...

You may not prefer it, but I don't think it's moronic; it was a design choice. Whatsapp messages pass through their servers, but do not remain there. They are effectively sent from the sending device to the receiving device. This means that your messages reside on your device. When you use the desktop or web client, it's basically remote operating your phone. This famously allowed Whatsapp to achieve massive scale wi…

It's also for security reasons.

Telegram is not E2E encrypted, WhatsApp is.

Telegram has the option of E2E encrypted messages, but that then works only from one phone/PC.

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

#274
post #257

Telegram has a major spam problem. I've got two Telegram accounts, both with the strictest privacy settings possible. One is using a US number, the other a European number. Both have the number set to private. Somehow, spammers, bots, etc are finding me on Telegram and sending me unsolicited messages 2+ times per day. All the stereotypical spam topics, plus occasional disturbing porn. These messages aren't filtered i…

Change your username. You might have taken a common username and must have got into spam lists.

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

#275

Anyone know of a windows client that doensn't show unread message counts of archived (not muted) chats in the system tray?

Open the Telegram app, go to Settings > Notifications

Turn off "Include muted chats in unread count" and "count unread messages". They are under the "Badge Counter" section.

https://i.imgur.com/pzH614U.png

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

#276
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes indeed I use it, it doesn't refute my statement.

Which ones don't? I used the Android client and telega, both of those do. I believe the iOS one does, too.

The web client doesn't seem to support it, or at least I can't find it -- it's definitely not in the contact/profile screen like in the Android app.

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

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve used Telegram for years now, along with almost all my family and friends. I’m a huge fan of it, and it’s basically the only IM I use anymore (other than Signal with some tech friends). If Telegram adds ads, rather than offer us a chance to just pay them, I’ll delete it instantly and push everyone I know to do the same. I absolutely despise ads of any kind, and go to a decent amount of effort to block them from a…

Are you happy with services that have ads, but give the option to remove them for a subscription fee?

[deleted]

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

#278
post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the author of the parent comment… …yes, I am aware Telegram does not use the absolute best practices, and at the very least, I imagine it can be cracked wide open by a nation-state intelligence agency. Which is why, for my occasional super-secret must-be-hush-hush chats, I use other clients. For my day-to-day chats? Telegram. Because, to be privileged, to be flippant: the NSA is welcome to read my texts about what…

So weird I personally would trust Telegram way more than even Signal for encryption. Armchair sneering doesnt count for me

Why do you trust Telegram more than Signal?

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

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Signal is FOSS. Telegram is partially FOSS (the client). 2. At least on the desktop, the UX of element is pretty bad IMHO. It's slow and feels like a web browser (and it probably is something like that under the hood, I would bet). Telegram feels much nicer (but only as an instant messaging app; you can't make it look and feel like IRC for chatting, while Element can be twisted to partially resemble an IRC client)…

> At least on the desktop, the UX of element is pretty bad IMHO. I agree it can be slow as it's web based, but could I ask why you find the UX bad? I'd be interested in helping improve it. > Signal is FOSS. It appears to be abandoned: https://linuxreviews.org/Signal_Appears_To_Have_Abandoned_Th... The signal client may be FOSS, but alternative clients are not allowed to use the Signal server. As Signal is not federat…

The Signal client may be open source, but it's not free. It purports to be distributed under the GPL, but if you actually try to avail yourself of the primary benefit of the GPL -- the right to modify the software and distribute your modified version -- you get what you see in your own [1].

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

#280
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the SEC filed a complaint and Telegram settled: https://www.complianceweek.com/regulatory-enforcement/telegr...

Maybe just accept USD, EUR, and GBP instead.

They can certainly accept any cryptocurrency without creating their own, and especially without creating one that looks like an unregistered security.
Post reply on HN