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> 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 se

by 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
  Honestly I think the docs/official feature map at telegram.org would do a better job than me. I don't think you'd enjoy TG if none of your friends are using it, though [obviously]. Edit: ok I launched Signal which was installed on my phone since forever but never saw any active use, and I must say I remember it to be much worse than it actually is. Either it's seen a lot of improvement, or my initial experience frustrated me away.
  - Arnt 8y ago
    What an underwhelming assessment.
  - afiori 8y ago
    There are some nice bots and channels, I often read hn via https://t.me/hacker_news_feed https://t.me/hacker_news_feed
- newscracker 8y ago
  My "qualifications": I use Telegram, Wire, Signal and Matrix, in that order of volume and frequency of use. Telegram delivers messages quickly. Signal...it's anyone's guess whether messages will be delivered or not and how long it may take. Many a times it can be quite slow. Since Telegram is multi-device (including a web client), activating it on another device is quick. You either get the verification code by a push message on your current client or get an SMS. This happens within a few seconds (for push messages) and within a minute for SMS. Signal is quite flakey, and its verification code SMS may never arrive. Telegram syncs chats across devices and anytime you switch to a new device and activate it, all your previous chats and groups and channel subscriptions are available on the new device immediately. Signal (this is specific to iOS) prevents backing up chats on iTunes and iCloud. So if you get a new iPhone, then you have to start afresh with no older chat history and have to rejoin groups again. Telegram has many other features, of which a few are listed below (none of these are on Signal): * You can set a username and share a https://t.me/<username> https://t.me/<username> link to someone else to get in touch with you, without revealing your phone number to that person. In groups, if there are people who aren't in your contacts list, you would never see their phone number. In Signal, the phone number is shown everywhere, just like on WhatsApp. You cannot hide it from strangers. * You can @mention people in chats using the username and they get appropriate notifications about the mention, taking them to that message. * You can edit sent messages for a while (you don't have to send additional messages to correct typos). * You can start anonymous polls (currently only from phones) in the chats and get responses. * You can use bots for many different purposes. * You can create broadcast "channels" that people subscribe to. * In group chats, the administrators can decide if new members can see all messages from the time the group was started or only the recent 100 messages.

by dpq 8y ago

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
Honestly I think the docs/official feature map at telegram.org would do a better job than me. I don't think you'd enjoy TG if none of your friends are using it, though [obviously]. Edit: ok I launched Signal which was installed on my phone since forever but never saw any active use, and I must say I remember it to be much worse than it actually is. Either it's seen a lot of improvement, or my initial experience frustrated me away.
- Arnt 8y ago
  What an underwhelming assessment.
- afiori 8y ago
  There are some nice bots and channels, I often read hn via https://t.me/hacker_news_feed https://t.me/hacker_news_feed
newscracker 8y ago
My "qualifications": I use Telegram, Wire, Signal and Matrix, in that order of volume and frequency of use. Telegram delivers messages quickly. Signal...it's anyone's guess whether messages will be delivered or not and how long it may take. Many a times it can be quite slow. Since Telegram is multi-device (including a web client), activating it on another device is quick. You either get the verification code by a push message on your current client or get an SMS. This happens within a few seconds (for push messages) and within a minute for SMS. Signal is quite flakey, and its verification code SMS may never arrive. Telegram syncs chats across devices and anytime you switch to a new device and activate it, all your previous chats and groups and channel subscriptions are available on the new device immediately. Signal (this is specific to iOS) prevents backing up chats on iTunes and iCloud. So if you get a new iPhone, then you have to start afresh with no older chat history and have to rejoin groups again. Telegram has many other features, of which a few are listed below (none of these are on Signal): * You can set a username and share a https://t.me/<username> https://t.me/<username> link to someone else to get in touch with you, without revealing your phone number to that person. In groups, if there are people who aren't in your contacts list, you would never see their phone number. In Signal, the phone number is shown everywhere, just like on WhatsApp. You cannot hide it from strangers. * You can @mention people in chats using the username and they get appropriate notifications about the mention, taking them to that message. * You can edit sent messages for a while (you don't have to send additional messages to correct typos). * You can start anonymous polls (currently only from phones) in the chats and get responses. * You can use bots for many different purposes. * You can create broadcast "channels" that people subscribe to. * In group chats, the administrators can decide if new members can see all messages from the time the group was started or only the recent 100 messages.