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Please, please, please use Signal instead. And tell your friends! Telegram has made very dubious privacy claims, but even if you trust the company, Signal has

Please, please, please use Signal instead. And tell your friends! Telegram has made very dubious privacy claims, but even if you trust the company, Signal has a far superior user experience. Telegram’s private messages are not enabled by default, and when you are using private messaging, numerous other features are disabled defeating the point.

sz4kerto 8y ago
> Signal has a far superior user experience. Why? I think Telegram is cool, not because of privacy but because of overall UX (speed, battery usage, reliability, etc.) Is Signal way superior in anything apart from privacy?
- AiaMD13 8y ago
  Can't agree more. Have been using Telegram since I quit using Facebook, and it proved to be far more reliable then even whatsapp. The only problem is that most of people I know prefer and use whatsapp and it's been challenging fo me to maintain all the contacts in one app.
  - fvjft 8y ago
    In my experience Telegram has an outage every couple of months, while WhatsApp only drops dead once a year or so.
    - renholder 8y ago
      Since we're talking personal experience, Signal has never had an outage (that I was aware of).
      - fvjft 8y ago
        We were talking about apps that have users.
      - detaro 8y ago
        Group chats have been quite unreliable at times, although probably not due to outages, but bugs.
      - robjan 8y ago
        In my experience, signal doesn't have reliable push notifications and sometimes takes a while to deliver group messages. Sometimes my friends send me messages on WhatsApp asking me to check Signal and the message hasn't arrived yet. I do prefer signal though because there is less chance that one of my contacts has backed up our conversation to Google Drive.
    - AiaMD13 8y ago
      I wasn't really implying that whatsapp is in any way better. I personally enjoy using Telegram. I just expressed my frustration, because I'd really like to have only one app in my phone with all the contacts in it instead of 3 or 4.
      - martin_a 8y ago
        Same for me. I want end-to-end-encryption by default, bot integration and all people in one place. Would even pay monthly for that.
  - mat4magic 8y ago
    Telegram wins because it has a usable Desktop Client
    - kome 8y ago
      So true. People still sit in front of desktop SO much. Why can't whatsapp come out with a client that is not total crap and linked to a phone?
purerandomness 8y ago
Telegram is used primarily as a replacement for Facebook Groups, not for one-to-one communication. Signal doesn't offer Groups, so it's not something people will switch to. (Signal has Group Chats however, which is something completely different)
- mourner 8y ago
  That's not true, at least not in areas where Telegram is prevalent (Eastern Europe). Here, it's quickly becoming the default 1-1 messenger.
- reitanqild 8y ago
  Using Telegram heavily for both one-to-one, groups and channels. I don't know if it is different in other markets but this seems to be common in my circles. Oh, and BTW: The security situation around Telegram continues to confuse me so I'm personally only recommending it for postcard-style messaging.
- roel_v 8y ago
  What is the difference?
- lavezzi 8y ago
  >Telegram is used primarily as a replacement for Facebook Groups, not for one-to-one communication. That's simply not true. People using it for group chat is a much more recent turn of events.
- robjan 8y ago
  Telegram groups and Facebook Groups are incomparable. Facebook Groups is more like a forum with threaded discussions and Telegram groups is more like IRC channels with one realtime chat
franky47 8y ago
Signal on Android relies upon Google Play Services for the microphone and camera permissions, which can't be turned off. It is open-source [1] so one could install it without going through the Google Play Store (it's not on F-Droid though), but it's another case of Google's ever-expanding grasp over "interesting" (read: competing) Android apps. [1] https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android
- Vinnl 8y ago
  It only depends on GPS if you actually have that installed. I don't, and Signal works fine using an official package (which you install the first time from their website, after which it self-updates).
- _Microft 8y ago
  Wasn't the real reason that Moxie Marlinspike considered hosting with Google less questionable than allowing installing apps from third party sites?
simias 8y ago
I've never used Telegram but I do use Signal daily and if it really offers a "far superior experience" then Telegram must be akin to connecting to an IRC server with telnet as a client. Seriously though, Signal's UI is pretty terrible and they go out of their way to discourage third party clients. It's fine as a replacement for SMS (the way I use it) but if you're used to more fully featured web messengers it's a pretty big leap backwards.
- kochthesecond 8y ago
  Feature wise I feel Signal has all the stuff I want in a messenger now. I use it on many different platforms and still experience a few too many bugs. I report them, but it breaks in subtle ways that are hard to reproduce. I think Telegram still has a better user experience.
- emerongi 8y ago
  Which features are missing? I text and call through Signal and I've not felt like there is anything missing. For a while they didn't have support for front-facing cameras, but that was added some time in the last year. Only other problem I've had is that on some Android phones the "voicemail" feature (or w/e it's called) wasn't working well, but not sure if it's still a thing.
  - simias 8y ago
    The desktop app is electron junk that lacks basic features like changing spellchecking language and there's no pure web client like Whatsapp for instance. I also think it lacks some features of the mobile client like creating new groups and adding new contacts (or at least I haven't figured out how to do it). When I install the client on a new computer I can't access the history of the messages from the phone for a reason that eludes me. Frankly 90% of my frustrations with Signal come from this client, the experience on mobile is better, although still far from perfect. I'm not a fan of pure web clients but web.whatsapp.com is lightyears ahead of Signal's electron bloated and under-featured mess. The Android client crops the image when I take a picture through the app. No other application does that so I don't really know why it does it. I suspect it's a bug or maybe a bad setting I flipped by mistake but I can't figure out what's going on. As far as I can tell when you get a new phone the only way to synchronize message history is to create a local backup on one phone, write down the ~24 digit passphrase, transfer the backup by yourself on the new phone then load it from there. If there's a simpler way I haven't found it. Also I don't think you can move your "secret key" to the new phone, so you have to re-validate your safety number with them. Maybe there's a way to do all that but if I as a technical user wasn't able to figure it out while actively looking for it I have little hope for the average Facebooker. There's also no support for WhatsApp-style stickers, URL preview, Youtube embedding and all these bells and whistles that I personally don't care for but I'm sure would be missed by many WhatsApp/messenger users.
lucideer 8y ago
> Signal has a far superior user experience No. It doesn't. If you're going to advocate for an open alternative, at least be intellectually honest about it's pros/cons. You might have gotten used to Signal, and be unfamiliar with Telegram (and sure, much of usability has an element of subjectivity to it), but... the above statement simply isn't true in the general sense. Personally, I tend to try and advocate for Riot.im over Signal when trying to push friends to an alternative platform—it's preferable from an openness perspective for a lot of reasons. I am however well aware that Signal (along with most things) has a better user experience than Riot.im does currently. Telegram and WhatsApp are quite close in usability (they've each copied quite a few UI features back and forth, so there's a lot of familiarity in switching). And unfortunately not many alternatives really come close to either of them.
- roel_v 8y ago
  Having just installed Signal yesterday, in what respect is it worse than Whatsapp (from a UI pov)? The only thing I found so far is the bad integration with contacts.
  - cosarara 8y ago
    Bad integration with contacts sounds pretty serious.
    - roel_v 8y ago
      Well yeah but it's not the mess the gp alludes to.
      - kekebo 8y ago
        plus Signal doesn't store all your contacts on their server as Telegram and WhatsApp do
        roel_v 8y ago
        Do you mean that as a positive or a negative thing? Also, apart from what I mentioned above, I've also found out that with Signal it's very hard to transfer your chat history to another phone. (involves manually copying over a backup, entering 30 char key). I can't in good conscience recommend an app like that as a replacement to anyone, so I guess my Signal experiment will be short-lived.
dpq 8y ago
> Telegram has made very dubious privacy claims My love for the word "dubious" cannot be overstated. While there's been a lot of solidly-seeming (I am not a security researcher) criticism of TG security infrastructure, I don't recall a single instance of chats or metadata being actually compromised so far. > Signal has a far superior user experience. Not in this Universe, unfortunately. Signal is borderline unusable, and if I have the choice of pushing Signal vs pushing Telegram, I'll choose the latter - simply because it provides a much much better experience and will be able to retain the audience to a better degree, while people who install Signal will probably go back to Whatsapp/Messenger. > When you are using private messaging, numerous other features are disabled defeating the point Such as? The only feature that comes to mind is the absence of sync to other devices (which is kinda expected). Basically all one-on-one chat features are retained in Telegram's secret chats, and keep in mind that Signal doesn't offer these features to begin with.
- DownGoat 8y ago
  > The only feature that comes to mind is the absence of sync to other devices (which is kinda expected). Why is that expected? Just because things are encrypted does not mean that they shouldn't be syncable. Signal offers this.
  - dpq 8y ago
    I stand corrected then: which was expected by me. It's awesome that Signal provides this feature, but I'm afraid it alone won't be sufficient to entice users to switch to Signal en masse. Still, this doesn't invalidate my question as of which other features are missing from TG secret chats; being an active Telegram user I can't put my finger on any.
- Arnt 8y ago
  Signal is borderline unusable? I've never used Telegram but if that's your assessment of Signal, Telegram must be great. Can you tell me about it?
  - dpq 8y ago
ymolodtsov 8y ago
Even cloud synced messages alone will be a better user experience for the majority of users.
teekert 8y ago
The user experience of Telegram is by far the best of all apps with the sleekest ui's and the native (electron) apps for all platforms. Moreover because of the lack of e2e encryption (on standard chat) all your messages are just there when you log in and are easily searchable. Telegram also has very nice channels and some excellent bots and a very nice feature to send yourself stuff you want accessible anywhere... But imo Signal is superior and has my preference due to its privacy focus. It also has a desktop app by the way and it works ok. Of course Signal's server implementation is still closed but something like Matrix/Riot is too much to ask from "normal people" (like my mother and father who I got onto Singal with ease...).
- j16sdiz 8y ago
  It is Qt-based, not electron
  - runn1ng 8y ago
    At least on Mac, Telegram has mysteriously two apps in Mac App Store, one is Electron and one is native. I never know which is which One is named "Telegram" and one is "Telegram for Desktop" and they have exactly the same icon, but different sets of features. edit: I was wrong, neither of the two is Electron, see below
    - fnord123 8y ago
      Telegram for Desktop is https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop (Qt, open source stuff) Telegram is https://github.com/overtake/TelegramSwift https://github.com/overtake/TelegramSwift (Swift, Core* libraries) Both are native.
      - runn1ng 8y ago
        Oh. In that case, I was wrong. I still don't understand the need for two official apps though
lloeki 8y ago
Seriously, you have to realise this is about migrating from Messenger. Messenger, from Facebook. Any doubts about the "dubious claims" of Telegram are completely overshadowed by the definitive certainty that Messenger is extremely privacy invasive. Also, the Telegram experience is simply stellar throughout, performing brilliantly even under harsh network conditions. Signal just offers an insanely bad user experience.
- Vinnl 8y ago
  > Signal just offers an insanely bad user experience. I don't agree with the claim that Signal has superior UX over Telegram, but it's definitely not insanely bad either. It has some rough edges, and it's desktop client is not that fully featured and doesn't look that great, but otherwise it's a perfectly fine app that my mother can use without problems and without specific instructions. That's leagues above, say, Riot, or IRC, and I feel that "insanely bad UX" really paints the wrong picture.
tadzik_ 8y ago
Please, please don't. Open Whisper Systems is a company that uses "open-source" as a marketing term while bullying the people who choose to take advantage of it. You can build your own client, but if you start to distribute it, they'll ban you from using their servers[1], with an explanation plain ridiculous for a company that took thousands of dollars from various open source foundations. The server is open source, but again, you have no guarantee that the official (and only) signal server is anything close to the software they published as open source. Telegram at least publishes libraries that you can actually use with their official service [2]. You still have to „trust the company” to a certain degree: you'll never get proper security without something like Matrix or XMPP where you can be in control over both ends of the communication. Still, a company like OWS or Telegram can do more or less to put users more in control over their end: and I'd argue that OWS is doing way less for that than Telegram does. [1] https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issuecomment-217211165 https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco... [2] https://github.com/tdlib/td https://github.com/tdlib/td EDIT: removed "dishonest" – I wish I had strikethrough to use :)
- detaro 8y ago
  That's not dishonest. You might not like their policy (I'm not a fan of it either), but it's clearly stated, based on consistent logic and not at odds with the software being open-source.
  - tadzik_ 8y ago
    Fair point; I guess too often I expect "free software" when I see "open-source". I don't think I'm the only one though, at least to a degree. When the only thing you allow your users is to read the source code, you are technically open-source, but it's the kind of openness that doesn't guarantee anything. More and more often companies use the term "Open source software" because they know that people will walk around the internet and say "it's safe and secure: after all, it's open source!" OWS is aware of this, which is especially valuable when you brag about privacy as a communications network, but they deliberately chose to limit what you can do with said "open source" – to a degree that's quite ridiculous for a company that calls themselves "Open (...) Systems" :)
h91wka 8y ago
Both Signal and Telegram use SMS for authN tokens, enough said. Being secure and censorship proof while relying on mobile networks just doesn't compute. Correction: or at least they used to? Now I realize that I am not completely sure.
- kome 8y ago
  Signal is way worse because it requires you to have the cellphone always on. With Telegram you need a phone number to sign-in and then you can forget about it, and use it just on desktop/laptop. You can set a password as a 2 factor authentication (1st: sms or code to another telegram client 2nd: password).
  - oda 8y ago
    > Signal is way worse because it requires you to have the cellphone always on. Bullcrap. Signal works fine on data alone. I have Tasker automatically turn on airplane mode when I'm on WiFi and it's never caused me to miss a Signal message.
  - detaro 8y ago
    No it doesn't. you only need the phone for the initial link.
    - kome 8y ago
      so, yeah, every time you open your desktop you need a cellphone
      - detaro 8y ago
        No. To set up Signal Desktop on a computer, you need a cellphone once.
      - newscracker 8y ago
        Maybe you're thinking of WhatsApp, which requires the phone to be around. Signal Desktop doesn't need the phone to be around once you've finished linking the desktop to your account (which is one time). From the second time onwards, you could as well leave your phone turned off and/or in a different country and Signal Desktop would still work fine.
reacharavindh 8y ago
I mean, say Telegram is bad, but don't hype up Signal as the pariah to this peril. It is open source in the sense that you can read the source of the project, but can't really build it and use it for yourselves or verify the build you get via the App Store is the same as open source project. Practically open source as a marketing strategy. Secondly, it needs a phone number all the time to use, which ties in with personal identity. Why? A better alternative would be a project that allows someone to choose a username and be done with it! Like HN! The true danger of security is the false sense of it. It makes you feel okay to share personal and sensitive information. ️ I'd love for the Mattix project and riot.im to take off. Hopefully the government of France can throw its weight behind it for good causes.
- kruczek 8y ago
  > Secondly, it needs a phone number all the time to use, which ties in with personal identity. Why? A better alternative would be a project that allows someone to choose a username and be done with it! Like HN! Thousand times this! And it is actually a problem both with Signal and Telegram. In the latter case, I managed to avoid installing Telegram app on the phone, by using Android emulator and registering from that, but why forcing users to use such workarounds, instead of simply allowing to register without any ties to the telephone. I'd be willing to pay for a messenger which provides privacy and is not tied to the phone.
- meruru 8y ago
  >A better alternative would be a project that allows someone to choose a username and be done with it! Like HN! Like Riot!
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- ubercow13 8y ago
  It's on fdroid
kome 8y ago
Just saying: with Telegram you need a cellphone to open an account, but you don't need a cellphone to use Telegram. With Signal you have to use a cellphone. And that's so unsafe and against any reasonable definition of privacy. Cellphones are tightly closed, data hungry, tracking devices. A IM that force the user to use a cellphone is a BAD at privacy.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
krageon 8y ago
You say Signal has a superior user experience, but you then start talking about privacy features. Privacy features are important, but they have nothing to do with the user experience. That is leaving aside completely how much of a lunatic the main dev of Signal is (see his extreme reluctance to release on f-droid, for example. It took ages to get an apk that you could sideload and it comes with a lot of warnings about how much of a bad boy you are for using it), which is a compelling argument to never use it in my opinion.
aclsid 8y ago
Let's see, Signal is based in the US. Wechat is a Chinese system with a great UX that is based in China. Telegram used to be based in Russia. Whatsapp is owned by Facebook. I think it is pretty self-explanatory that in all these countries, governments haven't been exactly subtle when it comes to their efforts to intercept communications. In my mind, Telegram is the only software that resisted such interference in an almost heroic way and ended up having to move out of the country.
- amedvednikov 8y ago
  Telegram is still banned in Russia.
- AtHeartEngineer 8y ago
  Signal is in no way tied to the US government though, just because the developers are here doesn't mean anything. And if you are talking about the servers being here, everything is end to end encrypted, even if the government was to try to get useful data off signal servers, there is nothing to get.
- fernandotakai 8y ago
  >Telegram used to be based in Russia. no, it's not. it was created by a russian (pavel durov) but it's developed by a company registered in london with servers all over the world[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegram_(software)#Servers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegram_(software)#Servers
codedokode 8y ago
Signal requires a phone number which discloses your identity and location and doesn't allow any alternative options. If you could use it anonymously there would be more privacy.
gsich 8y ago
>Signal has a far superior user experience Signal has no bots. [0] is terrible to use, since you need a new phone number for every new bot you make. (Of course you could all cram it into a single number) 0 https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli
Fice 8y ago
Neither Signal nor Telegram are acceptable communication systems. Both are isolated and fully controlled by a single company, both require mobile phone numbers and unduly trust mobile carriers for user authentication (at least by default), see https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2016/04/30/russia-telegram-hack/ https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2016/04/30/russia-telegram-h....
Kye 8y ago
Signal lacks a key feature that drives everyone I talk to regularly to use it: custom stickers. Maybe other chat platforms let people upload stickers, but Telegram already has them from hundreds of artists.
Krasnol 8y ago
Its funny how much drama you can stir up with that. It seems it's more important to kids today to have stickers and all kind of fancy useless crap. So yeah, it is "borderline unusable" for them. I get this and I don't care. I guess we have a way to filter out a certain audience with Signal ;)

sz4kerto 8y ago

> Signal has a far superior user experience. Why? I think Telegram is cool, not because of privacy but because of overall UX (speed, battery usage, reliability, etc.) Is Signal way superior in anything apart from privacy?

AiaMD13 8y ago
Can't agree more. Have been using Telegram since I quit using Facebook, and it proved to be far more reliable then even whatsapp. The only problem is that most of people I know prefer and use whatsapp and it's been challenging fo me to maintain all the contacts in one app.
- fvjft 8y ago
  In my experience Telegram has an outage every couple of months, while WhatsApp only drops dead once a year or so.
  - renholder 8y ago
    Since we're talking personal experience, Signal has never had an outage (that I was aware of).
    - fvjft 8y ago
      We were talking about apps that have users.
    - detaro 8y ago
      Group chats have been quite unreliable at times, although probably not due to outages, but bugs.
    - robjan 8y ago
      In my experience, signal doesn't have reliable push notifications and sometimes takes a while to deliver group messages. Sometimes my friends send me messages on WhatsApp asking me to check Signal and the message hasn't arrived yet. I do prefer signal though because there is less chance that one of my contacts has backed up our conversation to Google Drive.
  - AiaMD13 8y ago
    I wasn't really implying that whatsapp is in any way better. I personally enjoy using Telegram. I just expressed my frustration, because I'd really like to have only one app in my phone with all the contacts in it instead of 3 or 4.
    - martin_a 8y ago
      Same for me. I want end-to-end-encryption by default, bot integration and all people in one place. Would even pay monthly for that.
- mat4magic 8y ago
  Telegram wins because it has a usable Desktop Client
  - kome 8y ago
    So true. People still sit in front of desktop SO much. Why can't whatsapp come out with a client that is not total crap and linked to a phone?

purerandomness 8y ago

Telegram is used primarily as a replacement for Facebook Groups, not for one-to-one communication. Signal doesn't offer Groups, so it's not something people will switch to. (Signal has Group Chats however, which is something completely different)

mourner 8y ago
That's not true, at least not in areas where Telegram is prevalent (Eastern Europe). Here, it's quickly becoming the default 1-1 messenger.
reitanqild 8y ago
Using Telegram heavily for both one-to-one, groups and channels. I don't know if it is different in other markets but this seems to be common in my circles. Oh, and BTW: The security situation around Telegram continues to confuse me so I'm personally only recommending it for postcard-style messaging.
roel_v 8y ago
What is the difference?
lavezzi 8y ago
>Telegram is used primarily as a replacement for Facebook Groups, not for one-to-one communication. That's simply not true. People using it for group chat is a much more recent turn of events.
robjan 8y ago
Telegram groups and Facebook Groups are incomparable. Facebook Groups is more like a forum with threaded discussions and Telegram groups is more like IRC channels with one realtime chat

franky47 8y ago

Signal on Android relies upon Google Play Services for the microphone and camera permissions, which can't be turned off. It is open-source [1] so one could install it without going through the Google Play Store (it's not on F-Droid though), but it's another case of Google's ever-expanding grasp over "interesting" (read: competing) Android apps. [1] https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android

Vinnl 8y ago
It only depends on GPS if you actually have that installed. I don't, and Signal works fine using an official package (which you install the first time from their website, after which it self-updates).
_Microft 8y ago
Wasn't the real reason that Moxie Marlinspike considered hosting with Google less questionable than allowing installing apps from third party sites?

simias 8y ago

I've never used Telegram but I do use Signal daily and if it really offers a "far superior experience" then Telegram must be akin to connecting to an IRC server with telnet as a client. Seriously though, Signal's UI is pretty terrible and they go out of their way to discourage third party clients. It's fine as a replacement for SMS (the way I use it) but if you're used to more fully featured web messengers it's a pretty big leap backwards.

kochthesecond 8y ago
Feature wise I feel Signal has all the stuff I want in a messenger now. I use it on many different platforms and still experience a few too many bugs. I report them, but it breaks in subtle ways that are hard to reproduce. I think Telegram still has a better user experience.
emerongi 8y ago
Which features are missing? I text and call through Signal and I've not felt like there is anything missing. For a while they didn't have support for front-facing cameras, but that was added some time in the last year. Only other problem I've had is that on some Android phones the "voicemail" feature (or w/e it's called) wasn't working well, but not sure if it's still a thing.
- simias 8y ago
  The desktop app is electron junk that lacks basic features like changing spellchecking language and there's no pure web client like Whatsapp for instance. I also think it lacks some features of the mobile client like creating new groups and adding new contacts (or at least I haven't figured out how to do it). When I install the client on a new computer I can't access the history of the messages from the phone for a reason that eludes me. Frankly 90% of my frustrations with Signal come from this client, the experience on mobile is better, although still far from perfect. I'm not a fan of pure web clients but web.whatsapp.com is lightyears ahead of Signal's electron bloated and under-featured mess. The Android client crops the image when I take a picture through the app. No other application does that so I don't really know why it does it. I suspect it's a bug or maybe a bad setting I flipped by mistake but I can't figure out what's going on. As far as I can tell when you get a new phone the only way to synchronize message history is to create a local backup on one phone, write down the ~24 digit passphrase, transfer the backup by yourself on the new phone then load it from there. If there's a simpler way I haven't found it. Also I don't think you can move your "secret key" to the new phone, so you have to re-validate your safety number with them. Maybe there's a way to do all that but if I as a technical user wasn't able to figure it out while actively looking for it I have little hope for the average Facebooker. There's also no support for WhatsApp-style stickers, URL preview, Youtube embedding and all these bells and whistles that I personally don't care for but I'm sure would be missed by many WhatsApp/messenger users.

lucideer 8y ago

> Signal has a far superior user experience No. It doesn't. If you're going to advocate for an open alternative, at least be intellectually honest about it's pros/cons. You might have gotten used to Signal, and be unfamiliar with Telegram (and sure, much of usability has an element of subjectivity to it), but... the above statement simply isn't true in the general sense. Personally, I tend to try and advocate for Riot.im over Signal when trying to push friends to an alternative platform—it's preferable from an openness perspective for a lot of reasons. I am however well aware that Signal (along with most things) has a better user experience than Riot.im does currently. Telegram and WhatsApp are quite close in usability (they've each copied quite a few UI features back and forth, so there's a lot of familiarity in switching). And unfortunately not many alternatives really come close to either of them.

roel_v 8y ago
Having just installed Signal yesterday, in what respect is it worse than Whatsapp (from a UI pov)? The only thing I found so far is the bad integration with contacts.
- cosarara 8y ago
  Bad integration with contacts sounds pretty serious.
  - roel_v 8y ago
    Well yeah but it's not the mess the gp alludes to.
    - kekebo 8y ago
      plus Signal doesn't store all your contacts on their server as Telegram and WhatsApp do
      - roel_v 8y ago
        Do you mean that as a positive or a negative thing? Also, apart from what I mentioned above, I've also found out that with Signal it's very hard to transfer your chat history to another phone. (involves manually copying over a backup, entering 30 char key). I can't in good conscience recommend an app like that as a replacement to anyone, so I guess my Signal experiment will be short-lived.

dpq 8y ago

> Telegram has made very dubious privacy claims My love for the word "dubious" cannot be overstated. While there's been a lot of solidly-seeming (I am not a security researcher) criticism of TG security infrastructure, I don't recall a single instance of chats or metadata being actually compromised so far. > Signal has a far superior user experience. Not in this Universe, unfortunately. Signal is borderline unusable, and if I have the choice of pushing Signal vs pushing Telegram, I'll choose the latter - simply because it provides a much much better experience and will be able to retain the audience to a better degree, while people who install Signal will probably go back to Whatsapp/Messenger. > When you are using private messaging, numerous other features are disabled defeating the point Such as? The only feature that comes to mind is the absence of sync to other devices (which is kinda expected). Basically all one-on-one chat features are retained in Telegram's secret chats, and keep in mind that Signal doesn't offer these features to begin with.

DownGoat 8y ago
> The only feature that comes to mind is the absence of sync to other devices (which is kinda expected). Why is that expected? Just because things are encrypted does not mean that they shouldn't be syncable. Signal offers this.
- dpq 8y ago
  I stand corrected then: which was expected by me. It's awesome that Signal provides this feature, but I'm afraid it alone won't be sufficient to entice users to switch to Signal en masse. Still, this doesn't invalidate my question as of which other features are missing from TG secret chats; being an active Telegram user I can't put my finger on any.
Arnt 8y ago
Signal is borderline unusable? I've never used Telegram but if that's your assessment of Signal, Telegram must be great. Can you tell me about it?
- dpq 8y ago

ymolodtsov 8y ago

Even cloud synced messages alone will be a better user experience for the majority of users.

teekert 8y ago

The user experience of Telegram is by far the best of all apps with the sleekest ui's and the native (electron) apps for all platforms. Moreover because of the lack of e2e encryption (on standard chat) all your messages are just there when you log in and are easily searchable. Telegram also has very nice channels and some excellent bots and a very nice feature to send yourself stuff you want accessible anywhere... But imo Signal is superior and has my preference due to its privacy focus. It also has a desktop app by the way and it works ok. Of course Signal's server implementation is still closed but something like Matrix/Riot is too much to ask from "normal people" (like my mother and father who I got onto Singal with ease...).

j16sdiz 8y ago
It is Qt-based, not electron
- runn1ng 8y ago
  At least on Mac, Telegram has mysteriously two apps in Mac App Store, one is Electron and one is native. I never know which is which One is named "Telegram" and one is "Telegram for Desktop" and they have exactly the same icon, but different sets of features. edit: I was wrong, neither of the two is Electron, see below
  - fnord123 8y ago
    Telegram for Desktop is https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop https://github.com/telegramdesktop/tdesktop (Qt, open source stuff) Telegram is https://github.com/overtake/TelegramSwift https://github.com/overtake/TelegramSwift (Swift, Core* libraries) Both are native.
    - runn1ng 8y ago
      Oh. In that case, I was wrong. I still don't understand the need for two official apps though

lloeki 8y ago

Seriously, you have to realise this is about migrating from Messenger. Messenger, from Facebook. Any doubts about the "dubious claims" of Telegram are completely overshadowed by the definitive certainty that Messenger is extremely privacy invasive. Also, the Telegram experience is simply stellar throughout, performing brilliantly even under harsh network conditions. Signal just offers an insanely bad user experience.

Vinnl 8y ago
> Signal just offers an insanely bad user experience. I don't agree with the claim that Signal has superior UX over Telegram, but it's definitely not insanely bad either. It has some rough edges, and it's desktop client is not that fully featured and doesn't look that great, but otherwise it's a perfectly fine app that my mother can use without problems and without specific instructions. That's leagues above, say, Riot, or IRC, and I feel that "insanely bad UX" really paints the wrong picture.

tadzik_ 8y ago

Please, please don't. Open Whisper Systems is a company that uses "open-source" as a marketing term while bullying the people who choose to take advantage of it. You can build your own client, but if you start to distribute it, they'll ban you from using their servers[1], with an explanation plain ridiculous for a company that took thousands of dollars from various open source foundations. The server is open source, but again, you have no guarantee that the official (and only) signal server is anything close to the software they published as open source. Telegram at least publishes libraries that you can actually use with their official service [2]. You still have to „trust the company” to a certain degree: you'll never get proper security without something like Matrix or XMPP where you can be in control over both ends of the communication. Still, a company like OWS or Telegram can do more or less to put users more in control over their end: and I'd argue that OWS is doing way less for that than Telegram does. [1] https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issuecomment-217211165 https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco... [2] https://github.com/tdlib/td https://github.com/tdlib/td EDIT: removed "dishonest" – I wish I had strikethrough to use :)

detaro 8y ago
That's not dishonest. You might not like their policy (I'm not a fan of it either), but it's clearly stated, based on consistent logic and not at odds with the software being open-source.
- tadzik_ 8y ago
  Fair point; I guess too often I expect "free software" when I see "open-source". I don't think I'm the only one though, at least to a degree. When the only thing you allow your users is to read the source code, you are technically open-source, but it's the kind of openness that doesn't guarantee anything. More and more often companies use the term "Open source software" because they know that people will walk around the internet and say "it's safe and secure: after all, it's open source!" OWS is aware of this, which is especially valuable when you brag about privacy as a communications network, but they deliberately chose to limit what you can do with said "open source" – to a degree that's quite ridiculous for a company that calls themselves "Open (...) Systems" :)

h91wka 8y ago

Both Signal and Telegram use SMS for authN tokens, enough said. Being secure and censorship proof while relying on mobile networks just doesn't compute. Correction: or at least they used to? Now I realize that I am not completely sure.

kome 8y ago
Signal is way worse because it requires you to have the cellphone always on. With Telegram you need a phone number to sign-in and then you can forget about it, and use it just on desktop/laptop. You can set a password as a 2 factor authentication (1st: sms or code to another telegram client 2nd: password).
- oda 8y ago
  > Signal is way worse because it requires you to have the cellphone always on. Bullcrap. Signal works fine on data alone. I have Tasker automatically turn on airplane mode when I'm on WiFi and it's never caused me to miss a Signal message.
- detaro 8y ago
  No it doesn't. you only need the phone for the initial link.
  - kome 8y ago
    so, yeah, every time you open your desktop you need a cellphone
    - detaro 8y ago
      No. To set up Signal Desktop on a computer, you need a cellphone once.
    - newscracker 8y ago
      Maybe you're thinking of WhatsApp, which requires the phone to be around. Signal Desktop doesn't need the phone to be around once you've finished linking the desktop to your account (which is one time). From the second time onwards, you could as well leave your phone turned off and/or in a different country and Signal Desktop would still work fine.

reacharavindh 8y ago

I mean, say Telegram is bad, but don't hype up Signal as the pariah to this peril. It is open source in the sense that you can read the source of the project, but can't really build it and use it for yourselves or verify the build you get via the App Store is the same as open source project. Practically open source as a marketing strategy. Secondly, it needs a phone number all the time to use, which ties in with personal identity. Why? A better alternative would be a project that allows someone to choose a username and be done with it! Like HN! The true danger of security is the false sense of it. It makes you feel okay to share personal and sensitive information. ️ I'd love for the Mattix project and riot.im to take off. Hopefully the government of France can throw its weight behind it for good causes.

kruczek 8y ago
> Secondly, it needs a phone number all the time to use, which ties in with personal identity. Why? A better alternative would be a project that allows someone to choose a username and be done with it! Like HN! Thousand times this! And it is actually a problem both with Signal and Telegram. In the latter case, I managed to avoid installing Telegram app on the phone, by using Android emulator and registering from that, but why forcing users to use such workarounds, instead of simply allowing to register without any ties to the telephone. I'd be willing to pay for a messenger which provides privacy and is not tied to the phone.
meruru 8y ago
>A better alternative would be a project that allows someone to choose a username and be done with it! Like HN! Like Riot!
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
ubercow13 8y ago
It's on fdroid

kome 8y ago

Just saying: with Telegram you need a cellphone to open an account, but you don't need a cellphone to use Telegram. With Signal you have to use a cellphone. And that's so unsafe and against any reasonable definition of privacy. Cellphones are tightly closed, data hungry, tracking devices. A IM that force the user to use a cellphone is a BAD at privacy.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

krageon 8y ago

You say Signal has a superior user experience, but you then start talking about privacy features. Privacy features are important, but they have nothing to do with the user experience. That is leaving aside completely how much of a lunatic the main dev of Signal is (see his extreme reluctance to release on f-droid, for example. It took ages to get an apk that you could sideload and it comes with a lot of warnings about how much of a bad boy you are for using it), which is a compelling argument to never use it in my opinion.

aclsid 8y ago

Let's see, Signal is based in the US. Wechat is a Chinese system with a great UX that is based in China. Telegram used to be based in Russia. Whatsapp is owned by Facebook. I think it is pretty self-explanatory that in all these countries, governments haven't been exactly subtle when it comes to their efforts to intercept communications. In my mind, Telegram is the only software that resisted such interference in an almost heroic way and ended up having to move out of the country.

amedvednikov 8y ago
Telegram is still banned in Russia.
AtHeartEngineer 8y ago
Signal is in no way tied to the US government though, just because the developers are here doesn't mean anything. And if you are talking about the servers being here, everything is end to end encrypted, even if the government was to try to get useful data off signal servers, there is nothing to get.
fernandotakai 8y ago
>Telegram used to be based in Russia. no, it's not. it was created by a russian (pavel durov) but it's developed by a company registered in london with servers all over the world[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegram_(software)#Servers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegram_(software)#Servers

codedokode 8y ago

Signal requires a phone number which discloses your identity and location and doesn't allow any alternative options. If you could use it anonymously there would be more privacy.

gsich 8y ago

>Signal has a far superior user experience Signal has no bots. [0] is terrible to use, since you need a new phone number for every new bot you make. (Of course you could all cram it into a single number) 0 https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli https://github.com/AsamK/signal-cli

Fice 8y ago

Neither Signal nor Telegram are acceptable communication systems. Both are isolated and fully controlled by a single company, both require mobile phone numbers and unduly trust mobile carriers for user authentication (at least by default), see https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2016/04/30/russia-telegram-hack/ https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2016/04/30/russia-telegram-h....

Kye 8y ago

Signal lacks a key feature that drives everyone I talk to regularly to use it: custom stickers. Maybe other chat platforms let people upload stickers, but Telegram already has them from hundreds of artists.

Krasnol 8y ago

Its funny how much drama you can stir up with that. It seems it's more important to kids today to have stickers and all kind of fancy useless crap. So yeah, it is "borderline unusable" for them. I get this and I don't care. I guess we have a way to filter out a certain audience with Signal ;)