Search on Telegram is more powerful than in other messaging apps because it allows users to find public channels and bots. Unfortunately, this feature has been abused by people who violated our Terms of Service to sell illegal goods.
To further deter criminals from abusing Telegram Search, we have updated our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, ensuring they are consistent across the world. We’ve made it clear that the IP addresses and phone numbers of those who violate our rules can be disclosed to relevant authorities in response to valid legal requests.
For private messaging? Signal was always better. The way I use Telegram, and the way Telegram should be used, is like another public social media. I use it for following channels that give news about things I'm interested in.
I feel like there needs to be an incentive in mind for those apps to bring in ppl.
People care about privacy but won't even delete FB, let alone use a different messaging app
That's fair. I just use it because it's what everyone's on. When I used Briar only one other person I spoke to used it, and I just use Matrix for some more techy communities I'm in. For my friends and non-tech-savvy comrades, they're all on Signal, and I imagine trying to move people to something more decentralised/more in the spirit of foss/etc would lead to my social circles becoming very split in terms of how I talk to them. But I get your point.
Element 2.0 or Signal is only worth ones, I think.
But to be honest - it's only IP and phone number. If you have concerns about possibility of such request about your persona, you always can buy Telegram's anonymous phone number / fake telephone number / use VPN to login.
They said element 2.0, which I'd assume means Element X using matrix 2.0. From my testing in the last few weeks, element X has been the fastest messaging app I've ever used. Probably still some bugs but does not feel bloated anymore at all.
Not bloated because it doesn't have almost any features. No spaces, no threads, joining channels doesn't work, wait until becomes as the predecessors. The performance improvement is negligible in my experience. It does simply depend on thr homeserver performance , not much on matrix version
Unlike matrix, wire encrypts everything. Its not possible to send unencrypted messages on Wire.
Unlike Signal, you don't need a phone or a phone number to use Wire. Create an account with an anonymous email address directly on either the desktop app or the mobile app.
regarding its UX, nothing close exists; when it comes to converting normies, so you have someone to actually talk to, then there are no alternatives. that's a pretty shitty state of affairs for something that shoulda been solved a long time ago.
lesson learned, I guess, don't put all your eggs in one basket and have multiple fallback solutions. I've begrudingly moved to Signal and I'm cursing it out at least once per day, can't believe the navel-gazing, self-righteous cluelessness behind it; but that's the best there is at the moment. it's beyond shitty that we're having trouble achieving what we had in like 2012 by way of XMPP and friends, let alone surpassing it.
to me it looks and feels like shit, compared to Durov's spyware it's like a PoC from 2015 looking for funding. fine demo you got there, now bring us the real thing.
but, to practical things, I lose/sell/buy/switch devices frequently. with telegram, I can lose all my devices, log on from a fresh one and all my shit is there - a decade+ of convos with 100s of people with valuable info. no juggling around with the crappy electron desktop app that doesn't give me access to convos or the inane procedure to replace a lost device and restore chat history... the other day, I successfully retrieved a piece of info from a convo from a decade prior.
I realize there are people out there that need that sort of security, but I don't. I just want Telegram with an OTR plugin (OMEMO nowadays) that prevents any nascent mass surveilance and LLM ingestion and I'm golden. but that shit's explicitly against Telegram's ToS; the only logical conclusion is they're adamant about leaving all your shit unencrypted in the cloud for some specific reason.
I can't think of any such reason that's not malevolent.
I see it a lot when ppl complain about signal, but just can't understand why you would save 10+ years in old msgs. Almost all my signal conversations even GRP chats are set to 1 week auto delete. If something important Is said that I need to save, I copy/paste it into my note app where I can organize it. Its sounds so impractical to dig through 10+ years of data everytime you need something. Plus it would be awful to know there is a log of all the dumb things I said 10 years ago lol.
Completely agree! The ephemerality of Signal is a feature, not a bug.
I didn't always see it this way, but then a thought occurred to me. None of the conversations we have in person are recorded. Those communications are just as meaningful if not more so than text conversations, and yet somehow we get by just fine without them being stored indefinitely on some personal device, let alone in someone else's datacenter.
This is a case of technology controlling us when we should be controlling it.
Decent counter-example. In turn I'd say that's an edge case where we could still survive just fine without knowing the relevant fact for sure. And certainly not worth the cost in privacy terms of recording and storing everything.
There are a lot of things you can survive without :)) They are still nice to have though.
But I understand the privacy concerns, I struggle with the tradeoffs myself. But to me it's worth it it this case since the database is supposed to be encrypted with a passphrase and stored locally, not sent over a network.
Other examples would include searching through history to check if you've talked to someone about something. Or check their answer.
Unless you are someone with perfect memory I would think these are common situations.
I agree with you about saving the things you need. Especially images and videos since they are not worth the storage size.
But a history of your conversations with people is pretty nice to have if you didn't think about saving some info or it only becomes relevant later on.
And as long it's only kept on your own device, I'm fine with it. (But I guess, on the devices of people you speak to)
Plus if you only save text, even 10 years worth of data is not much at all. A few videos probably weighs more.
there's deltachat for gpg - i love the concept, since your friends don't even need to have it installed in order for you to chat with them.
but i am forever stuck with telegram because i refuse to install software running on set-my-computer-on-fire-pls-Electron (which every single MODERN chat application does today, bar Telegram).
Other apps have user IDs: Signal, Matrix, Session, Briar, Jami, Cwtch, etc.
SimpleX does not, not even random numbers.
This radically improves your privacy.
Why user IDs are bad for privacy?
How does SimpleX work?
Security assessment
In July 2019 Wire raised $8.2m investment from Morpheus Ventures and others. On July 18 of the same month, 100% of the company's shares have been taken over by Wire Holdings Inc., Delaware, USA.
Should be noted that their canary was removed at the same time.