this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2023
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Privacy
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Telegram does send number verification texts to non-premium accounts. That's how people get onboarded into telegram.
Telegram is on f Droid, and the source code is on GitHub, for their open source client. You can build the client right now.
I noticed another commenter said it's not end to end encrypted, the open source client and the secret chats are end to end encrypted, but they are not the default.
Telegram has been leaking your IP to your chats and calls for months: https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/03/psa-chat-call-apps-reveal-ip-address/
It's encryption algorithm (only used in secret chats BTW) is proprietary which is huge a red flag.
Last time I checked, the secret chats had some severe downsides that make them unusable as normal chats.
And if you want to bring open-source to the conversation: Signal is AGPL licensed, both the apps and backend. Not that it matters because of the E2E encryption.
I agree signal is superior, but this post is about telegram.
What are the downsides of the secret chats?
https://www.securemessagingapps.com/
In the comparison chart telegram's not ideal, but it's far from the worst.
Telegram does have a lot of benefits that simplex and signal don't. Nearly a billion people have it installed. You can connect to people using just aliases without giving away your phone number. So there is utility there
One downside is that secret chats are mobile-only. Not supported at all on PCs and laptops, with the official client at least.
That's inconvenient, I admit.
There's a certain philosophy saying that secret chats not being portable is more secure. That means you're not exporting the secret keys to multiple devices. I realize signal achieves this by signing the secret chats with multiple keys instead of passing the key around. It does reduce your risk surface.
I agree without, Telegram secret chats are annoying and due to some bug I can't even select text and/or accept spell checking corrections on my iPhone. Signal however... that's just e piece of shit messenger that never syncs anything properly between devices without delays, errors etc. and for what's worth their desktop applications aren't native and I fucking hate electron shit.
Why can't we just get over the chat app mess we're in and bring back XMPP with encryption? I don't get most of the people here, all for federation and shit but when it comes to messages they suddenly forget that XMPP is the original and truly open messaging solution. You can message anyone by email no matter what's or where's their server. Pretty much like lemmy, true interoperability.
For what it's worth I never have syncing issues with signal. It might be due to the iPhone deprioritizing it in the background, you might want to check your phone settings