Telegram is just actually superior in terms of features I don’t get it.
Why do not more people choose a matrix server and use a decentralized way of communication instead of committing themselves to this or that app/company?
Because most people they know use WhatsApp/Facebook/Instagram.
If I were clever enough to host my own matrix server I would in a heartbeat. Bridges to WhatsApp, insta, fb, etc. are game changers.
I found a server in the list I posted that was hosted by people in my area and funded by donations. I got in touch with them and they even implemented some bridges with that server. Now I am using it with a WhatsApp bridge, feels pretty seamless.
I’m not sure but I’m going to take a look. Thanks
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Lol I’ve tried matrix before. It’s really bad. And it’s more of a IRC/discord alternative than instant messaging apps.
Not sure when you tried it or with which app but you can use it just like an instant messenger. It can do more like discord but this can easily very ignored.
I have heard that once it was a pain to use as a client but since I started using it half a year ago it felt pretty smooth.
I think you mean Signal.
Currently using signal but have been intrigued by some of the no phone number alternatives like SimpleX
Nope! Telegram because you know what they say in cryptography circles: always roll your own! Oh wait…
I mean telegram
Makes a post about messaging superiority by advocating for inferior app. Lol. Gotta read the room better buddy.
Why are you taking such a confrontational approach?
Original commenter and you give no information on what makes Signal better. Signal is outside of the topic scope anyway, but would be a fair extension of it. Instead you use an insulting tone and completely dismiss their approach.
And this shit gets more up than downvotes. Makes it clear this platform has group-think toxicity issues too, moreso than promoting fair and good-intention discussion.
It’s probably no more or less confrontational than OP’s question
The tone makes a huge difference.
OP tone is mainly confusion with an open question. They disclose their belief/understanding which they acknowledge either contradicts or puts into question the evident state of things they see.
I don’t see how that’s confrontational similar to the commenter dismissing their whole approach as a definite statement without points you could argue. It’s a closed dismissal and in an insulting tone.
What makes you think they are similar? Or to what degree?
I don’t know about you, but the tone of the original question come across very dismissively to me. OP isn’t asking what they missed, why WhatsApp might be as good as Telegram. They’ve flat out declared the winner and are asking why nobody else is agreeing with them.
Seriously?
Telegram is just actually superior in terms of features I don’t get it.
vs
… Lol. Gotta read the room better buddy.
We’re not even in the same ballpark in terms of tone.
I can see your point, and agree with it for the most part. But they’re still posting on Asklemmy implying it is a question or interest of reason. It also doesn’t dismiss a person directly/specifically, nor is the tone insulting.
In regards to Whatsapp. If I were talking about signal vs telegram then this comment would be relevant but I’m not am i
I mean, Telegram is the worst of the bunch, but putting that aside, the point is that people aren’t comparing telegram and whatsapp, they’re comparing telegram, whatsapp, signal, matrix, sms, imessage, facebook messenger, instagram messenger, session, wire, wechat, the crypto ones, kik, and a dozen other chat clients you’ve never heard of. And most people are not actually making those comparisons, most people just use the one their friends use, or the one that their phone came with. Nobody, anywhere, is pretending there are only two options and picking one of them.
Pretty much one of the last messaging platforms I’d try to use.
Wooosh
Bring that back over to reddit.
Brotha it wasn’t a joke
Why does anyone choose Telegram or WhatsApp over Signal which is encrypted and audited? (Probably features I don’t care about, but they do)
Telegram let’s you send 2gb files, and stores them forever. Signal has a 100mb limit.
It also used to be easier to set up on multiple devices at the same time, but I believe that Whatsapp and Signal have improved that by now too.
I’m not sure the file limitations are much of a factor when 100mb covers most files that would need to be sent through a messaging service. There are plenty of dedicated services for sharing larger files.
I mentioned it because it was an annoying limitation for me. 100mb is not a lot for media and zip files nowadays. And I don’t know any good free services that will work more conveniently than simply sending with Telegram, suggestions welcome.
https://toffeeshare.com/ is what I usually use for big files. But both sender and receiver need to be online for the whole transfer. It doesn’t store anything you send on their servers, but that’s a feature for me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Piracy tho. I can go to my telegram, search a movie title and click play and it just works.
If the file size is under 2GB I guess, which is ehhh
4GB if the sender was premium, which they will be.
I don’t care if its 720p if it just works.
Tbh I’ll want it to be decent 1080p
It often is.
That’s the point tho, it negates the need for dedicated services for sharing larger files
Why not use an encrypted service to send files though?
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It’s encrypted, just not E2E encrypted
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A lot of the time the files i’m sending are game clips or parts of Youtube videos. i want good quality above privacy
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Why switch platforms if all your data is still being collected? This just provides another business with your data to sell and possibly have hacked. Sure, Telegram offers encryption, but it’s not enabled by default even though they advertise it thoroughly. This demonstrates they’re taking advantage of peoples desire for privacy simply to increase their user base while making the users + contacts do all the work.
As far as file sharing, with ProtonDrive I can use any messaging service and send a 500GB file if I wanted, fully encrypted with password protection and an expiration date. Telegram keeping the files forever doesn’t seem like a benefit either.
Signal is based in the US. Better to use something that is not based in the.US.
As long as your messages are end-to-end encrypted, I don’t know why you would care about that. It’s proven that they do not collect any metadata that could harm your privacy and most of their stuff is open source. The signal protocol is a pretty solid protocol supporting E2EE. There are not even cloud backup options, so your messages can never be read from someone other than you and the receiver, unlike something like iMessage that has cloud backup option that backups your messages stored locally on your device probably in plain text to iCloud.
It takes just one FISA court order to compromise Signal.
I’ve been using Signal for a long time now, it was great until they ended SMS text support, then they started trying to turn Signal into a social media thing, I just want end to end encryption without having to worry about somebody like Zuckerberg having access to my texts.
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Right?
does signal have multi device synchronization? on telegram you can start to write a message on one device and continue on another.
one of the feature i use most on telegram is saved messages to send stuff between phone and pc.
this is pretty much the only thing that is keeping me on telegram.
I agree that signal is superior in terms of privacy but a lot of people don’t care about that. And most people using WhatsApp DEFINITELY don’t care about that.
This undermines your whole original post.
WhatsApp uses the same encryption schema as signal.
Oh so we should only care about good and secure design when end users care about it!
Because you clearly can’t read the room that was sarcasm.
I never said you shouldn’t care though??
Was going to post this :3
I don’t understand the love for Telegram.
In the short period of using it I had so much BS come through by scammers/spammers - both as DMs and group messages. I’ve rarely had that with WhatsApp.
In my eyes WhatsApp is far better than Telegram. And Signal is far greater than WhatsApp. The only thing I wish Signal had was inbuilt GIFs; it’s not that much of an issue on mobile but it’s a pain on desktop.
Telegram is awful with spam. I’m constantly getting sent links to Telegram groups for Russian porn models who all pretend to be underage and spamming their Boosty links. I feel like it’s probably part of some scam to bait people into buying something illegal and then blackmail them later. I don’t keep it installed anymore because I don’t need that sort of incriminating shit on my devices.
I’d delete my account, but I have a couple people who only use Telegram, but I’m getting close to cutting them off over it unless they switch to something else. I’ve reported this to Telegram numerous times, but these accounts keep popping up and keep managing to reach me.
Just change your privacy settings then.
It’s either something about your phone number or your username. I’ve never had a problem on there
Telegram is more user friendly than Whatsapp, it’s clients are open source and has a decent desktop app.
It’s way better than Zuck’s trash.
No E2EE by default though
I’ve had way more scam calls, groups and texts on whatsapp than on Telegram.
So I definitely don’t understand why anyone would like whatsapp.
With Telegram you can easily limit any communication requests to only come from your list of contacts while that is impossible with WA. The only way you can get out of getting scam calls is by turning on “mute unknown calls” and “limit groups to contacts” but the calls will still pop up and you will still get chat requests so you will have to block and delete each one of them manually.
Instead of just limiting all communication to your contacts like on telegram.
I believe the same settings are also in WhatsApp.
No in whatsapp you can’t limit requests to only your contacts. It’s only with groups. I’ve checked and googled.
Isn’t it the same in Telegram? Interestingly, in Telegram it looks like everyone can send you a voice message unless you pay Telegram money to unlock the ability to restrict it.
In telegram you can restrict people from calling you completely. WA doesn’t have that function.
And yes it sucks that VMs on telegram is behind a paywall but at least the restriction exists unlike WA.
How? I’ve been a heavy telegram user for more than 8 years now. Not a single time I have unwillingly been added to a group I had no interest in or been messaged with any scam message.
I know of privacy settings that limit these, but I have none of them turned on, because I have some people that might add me to important groups.
I get you, but I don’t get the love for Facebook/meta/whatsapp
There’s no ‘love’ for Meta, most people don’t think in those terms. It’s just that their platforms are in heavy use in many countries and you tend to use the method most common to people in your circle.
My older friends and family use Messenger and SMS, my similarly aged peers use WhatsApp, and my work colleagues use Signal. So I correspond across all these. I know the benefits and pitfalls of each but I can’t influence the established communication choices of others. The only people i know who use Telegram are racist nutjobs.
Same but android development communities for me, on telegram
That’s interesting I never had that experience with telegram. It’s been cust as “clean” as Whatsapp for me
why did you enable DMs from random accounts?
Easily turned off.
I didn’t enable anything. One would assume the default settings should offer a good level of protection to the users.
Interestingly I haven’t had a single spammer/scammer annoy me on Signal. I’m not sure if there are any of these settings in Signal?
Telegram gives me:
- Roll-their-own encryption off-by-default without cross-device support or group chat available.
- The ability to talk to strangers I don’t want to talk to
- An open source client, but a proprietary, non-federated server
- An unmoderated social network that’s a free-for-all for crypto scammers, extremists, and other nuts
WhatsApp gives me:
- Signal’s encryption algorithm on all chats
- Whatsapp web (still with encryption)
- Encrypted group chats
- The ability to talk to human beings I actually know and want to talk to
Neither respects my privacy.
Not sure why I would bother attempting to use Telegram again.
This is the best answer, IMHO. Also, network effects means that everyone’s already on WhatsApp, so it’s only natural that people use it more than Telegram
WhatsApp gives me:
1,2,3 - closed source app that has not been audited but you chose to believe that is backdoor free, ok then
4 - half true, whatsapp business is full of automated responses, not too many human beings there
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I do not use “whatsapp business,” no idea why I would.
I do not seek to use a service and then interact with the people who happen to be on that service, I seek to interact with people and meet them on the service they’re using. The fediverse is an exception, because I believe in the principles, but the experience sucks because it’s all tech with no real community (Lemmy/Kbin) and none of the people I want to follow (Mastodon).
If most people used Telegram, Meta would have bought it instead of WhatsApp.
People don’t choose, people use whatever most people around them use. Whatsapp and telegram are both centralized, and shouldn’t be trusted because, by the nature of it, they can (and eventually will) turn user-hostile.
Messengers come and go, if we really want to make some progress in this area, we should embrace federated and p2p protocols as the logical evolution. Anything else is just wasting time and user privacy.
I didn’t choose. Literally every single person with a smartphone in my country uses whatsapp so that’s what I use too.
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Telegram’s official components are open source, with the exception of the server which is closed-sourced and proprietary.
Telegram was launched in 2013 by the brothers Nikolai and Pavel Durov. Previously, the pair founded the Russian social network VK, which they left in 2014, saying it had been taken over by the government. Pavel Durov sold his remaining stake in VK and left Russia after resisting government pressure.
Telegram is registered as a company in the British Virgin Islands and as an LLC in Dubai. It does not disclose where it rents offices or which legal entities it uses to rent them, citing the need to “shelter the team from unnecessary influence” and protect users from governmental data requests. After Pavel Durov left Russia in 2014, he was said to be moving from country to country with a small group of computer programmers consisting of 15 core members. While a former employee of VK claimed that Telegram had employees in Saint Petersburg, Pavel Durov said that the Telegram team made Berlin, Germany, its headquarters in 2014, but failed to obtain German residence permits for everyone on the team and moved to other jurisdictions in early 2015. Since 2017, the company has been based in Dubai.
Smart, put your headquarters somewhere that takes freedom of speech seriously, just like…. wait, where did you say they were headquartered again?
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Session is another good alternative that doesn’t require a phone number
Yeah, I’m with you. Plus no end to end encryption. Go ahead and let Russia see all your messages.
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Telegram was banned in Russia.
Stop spreading misinformation troll.
the guy who created it was born in russia… but pissed off russian authorities and i don’t think he can set foot in russia anymore without being arrested
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Most people don’t care about privacy anyways so in this case I’d argue features are more important for the average user, which telegram has.
Well if that’s your angle, then the main reason for choosing WhatsApp over telegram is the first-mover advantage. WhatsApp came out years before telegram and is a very popular app in many markets.
I’d argue that not many people care about sending 2gb files either. In my experience, more people care about privacy when prompted than about sending 2gb files.
Fair enough
a) because it’s what everyone I know uses
b) telegram is not end-to-end encrypted by default. And not end-to-end encrypted at all for group chats. That’s kind of a dealbreaker. Telegram is one of the last messaging apps I’d recommend.
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In my country whatsapp messenger can and will be seen by the government if there is a request. Have heard it many times. I don’t think any messenger or anything you write is actually secure or actually private. We just came to terms with that.
It’s also closed source and doesn’t really specify the specifics of its crypto implementation or really even the underlying technology.
Edit - I was apparently mistaken or my information is outdated. MTProto is indeed open source, though I swear that hasn’t always been the case.
It’s open source.
It is open source, & they are also a non-profit organization.
Here’s the source code
Why do people choose Telegram over Signal? Signal encrypts everything by default, unlike Telegram which only “encrypts” messages in a (iirc) secure or secret chat. Fortunately, EU is forcing all major gatekeepers’ messaging apps to be able to communicate with other messaging apps. I, finally, will be able to break free from WhatsApp and use Signal. Uninstalling WhatsApp and requesting for a deletion of my account; a dream come true soon.
Why use Signal over XMPP and Matrix? Signal is centralized and wants you to stay in check, using their crappy client, giving away your phone number, and all your presence, social graph and other privacy sensitive information to a single actor (which can’t be yourself, because you can’t self host signal) and that has nothing to back it up other than “trust me bro, I’m gonna do no harm, but also I control all your communications under my own terms and conditions and there’s nothing you can do about it”.
Matrix was found leaking metadata, it’s not like Matrix is bad or anything. But it just doesn’t get the attention it needs. For WhatsApp users that do want better privacy and security, Signal is a solid choice. XMPP, by default with no configuration doesn’t really have encryption and also, it has issues with metadata leakage as well.
For the average joe, Signal is a simple app that has privacy and security out of the box. Sure, it would be awesome if Matrix was widely adopted, but it isn’t.
What Matrix metadata leakage are you talking about? Regarding XMPP, I am not aware of anything like it, and I suspect that this leakage you are talking about is just standard client-server signaling, where in federated protocols like Matrix and XMPP you can chose whom to trust (or self-host) whereas in all other cases your metadata isn’t just centralized and consolidated, you have no recourse and knowledge about what’s being done with it.
On the side of XMPP, OMEMO (which is XMPP’s take on double ratchet encryption à la Signal) is standard across the board of all maintained clients, so you wouldn’t be less secure there than on e.g. Signal or Telegram, so your take on XMPP’s security isn’t factual.
Huh, some things might have changed then. My memory is from around 2021-2022, so things might have changed.
When talking about messaging apps, you’ve to use the one that’s easiest to use even for the most noob tech person.
Signal uses phone number, because that’s how people generally communicate. It’s easy to use, setup. No privacy nightmares compared to WhatsApp, or security nightmares compared to Telegram (where E2EE is not even on by default). It’s open source, regularly audited and can be used on any device (no more proprietary green bubble nonsense). There’s still a market for Threema and Matrix, etc. It just never will be mainstream.
No privacy nightmares compared to WhatsApp
My whole point was that between Signal and WhatsApp, none is intrinsically better than the other in this regard. Both are centralized and collect the same amount of privacy-sensitive data about you (your online presence and patterns, your IP, your network graph, the routing of your messages and their nature…), because they need that to function. Whether they log it (irrespective of what they advertise) is one thing nobody but themselves can verify and where opensource plays no role.
Matrix/XMPP are only better because you can self-host if you trust no one, or choose whom to trust, or change whom to trust along the way without incurring a total loss of your contacts, histories, assets, …
IMO, the sales pitch for XMPP/Matrix shouldn’t be “we are better/more secure/more privacy focused by design” (and it’s pretty clear that the tech-illiterate majority doesn’t care anyway), it should be “with us, you will no longer have to jump ship every 5 years in avg. because facebook/google/amazon/some oligarch/… broke their promise/used their absolute power over your account to their discretion”.
Signal is an installable App from an app store… Where’s your matrix and xmpp? That’s why they use it over element/etc
XMPP arguably has some of of the strongest crypto functionality there is, it’s just too dependent on the app to feel safe, since all of the vulnerabilities in these ecosystems are basically down to the client implementation.
Absolutely, and an argument can be made about captive ecosystems controlling both clients and servers. They also represent a single point of failure, so there’s no magic bullet. In practice it’s also not that different than keeping up with your browser’s/OS’/phone’s updates and XMPP has that for itself that it has (unlike Matrix) a vibrant community of clients and servers supported by diverse parties (commercial and not).
Matrix and XMPP have plenty of apps installable from those stores as well, not sure what your argument is about?
Their names are not matrix or xmpp… It’s not as easy as saying “Install Signal” is my point.
that’s not even true, if you search “matrix”, element is your first result, if you type XMPP, you get “Conversations”, exactly as you would expect.
Because one is an app and the others are a technology standard. I can install Signal on my phone and use it to talk to people securely.
Where do I go to get XMPP or Matrix? Can I trust app makers to have correctly implemented the protocols? When it comes to security I tend to trust larger entities versus the garage startup.
While that’s a fair point, element.io is the defacto matrix implementation and effectively the group that started matrix.
9 People don’t care about encryption but care about custom stickers, convinient search, everything fancy that’s not privacy
We don’t choose which app we use. Our friends, family, and colleagues do.
I could live with Signal’s functionality, but there barely anybody there.
If you live in the EU, somewhere around in 2024, you will be able to use something like Signal to communicate with others that are on WhatsApp. So you don’t have to use WhatsApp at all to communicate with other WhatsApp users.
Wait, what? I do live in the EU. I’ll look this up tomorrow.
I’ve been looking for a messaging client that includes multiple services for ever. It’s still a dream of mine
Have a look at Beeper. It’s promising.
Wait I’m stupid I looked it up and I had the confirmation email in my inbox the entire fucking time 😭😭😭
I have beeper now lol
Yeah I signed up for the wait list a while ago but no news
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No it isn’t. They have to make it happen in 2024
What’s your source?
Here you go:
Everyone I know uses signal, even our neighborhood group messaging is a signal group.
Then again my neighbors are all reasonable people.
I use email with GnuPG. Everything else is woefully insecure. BTW, I have no friends.
👀
WhatsApp became the defacto messaging app in south America over a decade ago. Sms was really expensive so people opted for WhatsApp which was cheaper over data and you void send pics at a time where no carriers allowed mms. Now almost all carriers have unlimited WhatsApp as part of data plans. Switching to telegram is pretty much imposible
WhatsApp was there first and it was useful in countries where you paid for each individual SMS.
and here you can send Whatsapp messages even if you don’t have GBs left
Here?
Latam
