Telegram is known as a privacy-focused secure messaging app because it markets itself that way. However, it is often criticized by security experts, privacy advocates, and people with common sense who can understand why its claims about being privacy-friendly don't make sense. In this brief article, I'll show you all
Nothing new here. E2E is only available in one on one chats and is disabled by default. Dont use Telegram if privacy is your main concern.
At least it has an open-source client. Very few messaging platforms can say that, and fewer have a decent UX.
It’s not perfect, but it’s got a good combination of features and multi-platform availability. None of the other messaging apps support all of my devices except Matrix, and
Matrix doesn’t have stickersEdit: Signal doesn’t support all my devices but maybe someday! The network effect is also big. None of my family and friends are on Signal, but most have Telegram. A few have Matrix.
Also Signal is a US-based company.
Edit 2: Matrix does have stickers, i guess I’m switching
I am enjoying SimpleX chat
Can you elaborate on your last sentence? Is the US more or less trustworthy than alternatives?
Less than some. The US gov has a history of forcing US-based corporations to disclose private data regardless of their policies or the law.
I can’t give you a good alternative though. I’m sure the same thing happens in many countries
A good alternative is a federated, selfhosted solution hosted in a jurisdiction unfriendly to yours.
Matrix does have stickers
Signal
After Signal’s lie about dropping SMS support because of “engineering costs”, I really can’t believe anything else they say.
Plus the app experience sucks, it’s no better than SMS.
I couldnt find a working Ubuntu touch app last i tried to use it
They still don’t have backups on iOS which is a deal-breaker for me.
Yeah, the glaring problem of having to share your phone number is gone too:
https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/6712070553754-Phone-Number-Privacy-and-Usernames
They still tie it to your ID since you need the phone number.
And we just trust them not to share your social map to NSA which they totally don’t do. Trust me bro
That they do, but your contacts doesn’t have to get it anymore.
A self-hosted matrix stack built from source with matrix clients built from source with e2ee implemented that you yourself have the competence to verify the encryption and safety of would be the only secure communication I know of if you don’t want to trust a third party.
At the very least XMPP and Simplex, which are easier to host and lighter.
A platform that values my privacy? Or stickers? Tough choice, I guess, except Signal has both.
It’s a messaging app, it’s useless if there is nobody to message. I dont have any friends using signal yet.
Also it doesnt work on my phone (Ubuntu touch). There used to be a community app but it’s not currently working.
I sincerely wish them success, but it’s hard to have faith that a US-based company will actually protect your privacy. Not that Telegram does either.
Doesn’t have unlimited storage though. It’s really nice being able to jump to any of the 15,000+ images shared with a single person dating back to like 2015 within a couple seconds. I know that’s a privacy concern but nothing comes close to telegram’s searchability and the unlimited storage.