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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

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, they are native only in that they run native code and use the bare minimum Cocoa (Touch) controls that they are required to do by the system. Everything else is reimplemented, rather poorly IMO.

>they are native only in that they run native code so... native. I'm glad everyone agrees then.

> so... native.

No. You're missing the bit where "native" means different things in different contexts; for code it means that the code ends up being compiled for the architecture it's running on, but for UI it means that you're using the platform APIs and following system conventions, which Telegram does not.

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

#312
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal is borderline unusable? I've never used Telegram but if that's your assessment of Signal, Telegram must be great. Can you tell me about it?

My "qualifications": I use Telegram, Wire, Signal and Matrix, in that order of volume and frequency of use. Telegram delivers messages quickly. Signal...it's anyone's guess whether messages will be delivered or not and how long it may take. Many a times it can be quite slow. Since Telegram is multi-device (including a web client), activating it on another device is quick. You either get the verification code by a pus…

That sounds very good. Thanks.

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

#313
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…

> and as such the product is less private than WhatsApp

Given that 1. it's owned by FB and 2. FB's plan is to move towards FB/Messenger/WhatsApp/Instagram grand messaging unification (in spite of them promising they would not) we can reasonably assume they won't keep E2E for long (because chat in the browser). Also, it's FB. Even if it's E2E, FB control the apps at both 'E's and I would not trust them with anything privacy related.

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

#314
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.

I mean, say Telegram is bad, but don't hype up Signal as the pariah to this peril. It is open source in the sense that you can read the source of the project, but can't really build it and use it for yourselves or verify the build you get via the App Store is the same as open source project. Practically open source as a marketing strategy. Secondly, it needs a phone number all the time to use, which ties in with pers…

It's on fdroid

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

#317
post #292

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The only problem with XMPP is that there is no iOS app that's as good as Conversations.

It is kinda hard to be as good as Conversations ;-) But you have a point. ChatSecure [1] became usable in the last two years and Monal [2] is another young project aiming to close the iOS client gap. Nevertheless, while there are still some bugs in both clients, I am expecting that those bugs will get fixed in the next months. [1] https://chatsecure.org [2] https://monal.im

Yep. It's interesting that a paid open source app such as Conversations is available on Android and not on iOS. I thought iOS users are more likely to pay for software.

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

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, then I'll speak specifically about my local institution. My local art museum gets zero funding from taxes, but runs on its endowment and whatever revenue it brings in from admission, membership, events, food and beverage sales, and merchandise sales. Are they unsustainable because of that?

How is this applicable to what I wrote? Here is the relevant part again: > because its revenue from goods and services is less money than it spends

You're saying that a company can't be sustainable if its spending exceeds revenue, but there are plenty of institutions that do exactly that and are based on the same premise as what we know about Telegram's funding. A single (or multiple) large donor(s) can potentially donate enough money to make a thing sustainable without relying on much if any revenue. There are examples of that in the real world.

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

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not to parrot other comments, but we should all use Signal. Its' existence isn't based on investment dollars that expect returns in more dollars. Your argument doesn't make much sense on the Signal side either. How long will the $50 million that the Signal Foundation has really last for? And what happens after that runs out?

What happens to Wikipedia every time the end of their runway is approaching? At least we can hope for a similar solution to appear for messaging.

Why can’t that happen for Telegram and happen only for Signal? Who can predict if Telegram would do under some “foundation” and get funded that way soon? My point is that singling out Telegram doesn’t make sense in this context.

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

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading old IRC or ICQ logs from 2001 can be quite fun though, brings back some memories.

my group of friends have a 4 year old telegram group chat. i downloaded all the history, put it into a markov chain library and now we have a bot that can generate random phrases (some, absurdly hilarious) based on our own conversations.

Sounds interesting. Is your bot available for others to use (source or orherwise)?
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