I see i can find a foss version on f-droid, and that’s something not a lot of social networks can have, i don’t really like all the crypto bullshit and ads testing they’ve been up to lately, but still looks better to me compared to what Reddit have done lately or what other platforms have done in these years…
I don’t know about their privacy feature, but i wouldn’t trust their chat as for as far as i knew they were not end to end encrypted some time ago (except for secret chats).
Anyway it still looks like one of the at least still decent platforms out there, or am i wrong?
Somewhere between WhatsApp and Signal. It has FOSS clients, hands over user data only under extraordinary circumstances (terrorism and child abuse, afaik), and runs on pretty much any hardware. The last two points make it very popular in eastern Europe and most of Asia. The main problem with Telegram is that normal chats are not end to end encrypted, and instead use a weaker encryption algorithm. Secure chats are e2e encrypted, but are not on by default.
Overall, it is used by opposition parties in countries like Russia, Belarus and Iran for day to day stuff, so it is fairly secure. Of course, if you are a reporter or activist who has a lot of enemies, you could get something even more secure.
I put it in the same boat as WhatsApp. Better than SMS, but I’ll be sticking to Signal.
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It’s better than Whatsapp & Co since it’s FOSS. It’s worse than Matrix and XMPP since those are federated (and Matrix has e2ee). It’s about tied with Signal, Signal is FOSS but hostile to third-party clients, in exchange it has encryption on by default.
Telegram is known to occasionally hand out users’ data in extraordinary circumstances, but that’s pretty rare overall. It’s not the choice for super sensitive communications, but it’s decent as a better alternative for SNS. It’s very popular in Russia because it has public one-to-many channels and unlike VK and etc it mostly doesn’t censor stuff. I’ll never use Whatsapp, I have no reason to use Signal because nobody I know uses it and Matrix is better, Telegram is alright in my book.
Also it’s possible to buy anonymous telegram accounts, not sure that’s possible for Signal.
Telegram is known to occasionally hand out users’ data in extraordinary circumstances
Source? And what circumstances? AFAIK it never happened.
Thanks, though the article also says that Telegram states they didn’t share any data because they have never stored it (like IP).
The company’s CEO is Pavel Durov, the very clown who built russian alternative to Facebook, VKontakte, and then practically sold it to russian government with all it’s users. And russian government, being itself, repressed anyone who liked “wrong” stuff there. So, Durov being no stranger to selling things to governments, in my opinion, deserves zero trust.
You don’t know, what are you talking about.
https://lemmy.world/comment/1556530I’m perfectly aware of what I’m talking about. He lost control of company’s shares to government-affilated people and they fired him. What an unpredictable turn of events. I don’t really care if it happend due to stupidity or malice, considering the amount of public stunts he pulled off at the time, I doubt you can call his course of action straightforward.
Even when he was fired, they did it with his own resignment notice he submitted as April Fool’s joke. The guy is a literal clown, I have no idea why you’d entrust him with your data.
He didn’t voluntarily sell it to the Russian government.
Didn’t he basically get ousted and kicked out of Russia since he didn’t wanna sell VK?
Yes
Telegram is neither private nor secure. Its not encrypted bu default. Normal texts as well as group chat is stored unencrypted on its servers.
For everyday use with friends, family and work (assuming these folks already have your number), Signal may be the best thing out there as its open source both on server and app levels. Signal is also end to end encrypted (E2EE) with decryption keys stored on device.
For anonymous communications Session and SimpleX may be better as they are both E2EE and doesnt requie a phone number as an identifier.
Just chuck out Whatsapp, Telegram and all the other closed sourced garbage apps.
Signal is also end to end encrypted (E2EE) with decryption keys stored on device.
And how decryption key gets to other device 👀?
Signal is also end to end encrypted (E2EE) with decryption keys stored on device.
And how decryption key gets to other device 👀?
I wouldn‘t use it for messaging, but as a social media platform it seems to be working pretty well.
I like telegram but russians.
Still better than using WhatsApp.
You may want to read this, especially the part about what happened with the start of the Ukraine war. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Durov
I’ve skimmed through the whole thing, but I’m unsure what you’re referring to. A little help, please?
On 16 April 2014, Durov publicly refused to hand over the personal data of Ukrainian protesters to Russia’s security agencies and block Alexei Navalny’s page on VK.[8] Instead, he posted the relevant orders on his own VK page,[29][30] claiming that the requests were unlawful.
On 21 April 2014, Durov was dismissed as CEO of VK. The company claimed it was acting on his letter of resignation a month earlier that he failed to recall.[8][31] Durov then claimed the company had been effectively taken over by Vladimir Putin’s allies,[31][32] suggesting his ouster was the result of both his refusal to hand over personal details of users to federal law enforcement and his refusal to hand over the personal details of people who were members of a VK group dedicated to the Euromaidan protest movement.[31][32] Durov then left Russia and stated that he had “no plans to go back”[32] and that “the country is incompatible with Internet business at the moment”.[8]
Thanks!
So you didn’t read it initially, you lazy pumpkin?
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Being encryption needs to be enabled highlights how Telegram is trying to increase users who want privacy & security but don’t exactly know how to go about it. Granted, the option makes it a step up above sms, but that’s not saying a lot…
FluffyChat (Matrix) . No phone linking . Encryption . Period . The only backdraft is others users needs to register in matrix and when I tell other to do so they ask me if I’m talking about the movies
Private home server. Bridges.
Show them they can have all their chats in one app.
They will beg you for an account.
Then you can talk to that person only within matrix. Rinse, repeat. They begin to move over one by one.
Telegram is more popular than WhatsApp in several global south countries. I use it with friends around the world, it has better functionality than WhatsApp. I’m not a fan of Meta so as far as “it just works” messaging apps go, Telegram is probably the best alternative to WhatsApp.
