I was a user on Telegram from India.

Telegram is not sending text messages because I don’t have a premium account. And many features are locked in premium.

Currently, Telegram doesn’t allow users to create or log in to accounts via third-party apps. Also, I need an official telegram (a must from the Play Store). (Not even the apk from their own website.) To receive a login code.

Do you guys ever feel that telegram has become so much worse?

  • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
    112·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • nottheengineer@feddit.de
      61·
      1 year ago

      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.

      • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
        32·
        1 year ago

        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

        • ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org
          1·
          1 year ago

          One downside is that secret chats are mobile-only. Not supported at all on PCs and laptops, with the official client at least.

          • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            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.