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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

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
      - lambda_lover 8y ago
        If I recall correctly one was created by a non-Telegram dev as a bit of a fanproject, and eventually adopted by the company as a pseudo-official app. At some point actual Telegram devs decided to create (I think) Telegram for Desktop based on native stuff like Swift. But both applications get bugfixes and updates because it's easy enough to maintain both.
        eitland 8y ago
        Telegram at least used to support a second non-official client. Lately, IIRC, they have made huge chunks of their core app available as a library to simplify the creation of more clients.
    - saagarjha 8y ago
      Calling either of those "native" is a bit of a conceit, since both reimplement standard system controls and eschew the use of system frameworks such as Cocoa.
      - amedvednikov 8y ago
        The Swift app and the original Objective-C app are native.
        saagarjha 8y ago
        Again, they are native only in that they run native code and use the bare minimum Cocoa (Touch) controls that they are required to do by the system. Everything else is reimplemented, rather poorly IMO.
        fnord123 8y ago
        >they are native only in that they run native code so... native. I'm glad everyone agrees then.
        saagarjha 8y ago
        > so... native. No. You're missing the bit where "native" means different things in different contexts; for code it means that the code ends up being compiled for the architecture it's running on, but for UI it means that you're using the platform APIs and following system conventions, which Telegram does not.
        fnord123 8y ago
        I'm not missing it, I just don't care. The only think of interest to me is whether its a shitty memory hog like Teams or other electron programs or not. I don't think I use a single program that uses Cocoa aside from Activiy Monitor.
h91wka 8y ago
My not-so-tech-savvy relatives use matrix. It's as easy as opening a web page.
throwaway9d0291 8y ago
> something like Matrix/Riot is too much to ask from "normal people" I disagree. It's no harder to grasp than email: - You go to a website and create an account - Your share your address with others and they can send mail to you - Given someone's address, you can send mail to them I have my (quite technologically challenged) wife using it on mobile and desktop quite happily.

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
    - lambda_lover 8y ago
      If I recall correctly one was created by a non-Telegram dev as a bit of a fanproject, and eventually adopted by the company as a pseudo-official app. At some point actual Telegram devs decided to create (I think) Telegram for Desktop based on native stuff like Swift. But both applications get bugfixes and updates because it's easy enough to maintain both.
      - eitland 8y ago
        Telegram at least used to support a second non-official client. Lately, IIRC, they have made huge chunks of their core app available as a library to simplify the creation of more clients.
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    Calling either of those "native" is a bit of a conceit, since both reimplement standard system controls and eschew the use of system frameworks such as Cocoa.
    - amedvednikov 8y ago
      The Swift app and the original Objective-C app are native.
      - saagarjha 8y ago
        Again, they are native only in that they run native code and use the bare minimum Cocoa (Touch) controls that they are required to do by the system. Everything else is reimplemented, rather poorly IMO.
        fnord123 8y ago
        >they are native only in that they run native code so... native. I'm glad everyone agrees then.
        saagarjha 8y ago
        > so... native. No. You're missing the bit where "native" means different things in different contexts; for code it means that the code ends up being compiled for the architecture it's running on, but for UI it means that you're using the platform APIs and following system conventions, which Telegram does not.
        fnord123 8y ago
        I'm not missing it, I just don't care. The only think of interest to me is whether its a shitty memory hog like Teams or other electron programs or not. I don't think I use a single program that uses Cocoa aside from Activiy Monitor.

h91wka 8y ago

My not-so-tech-savvy relatives use matrix. It's as easy as opening a web page.

throwaway9d0291 8y ago

> something like Matrix/Riot is too much to ask from "normal people" I disagree. It's no harder to grasp than email: - You go to a website and create an account - Your share your address with others and they can send mail to you - Given someone's address, you can send mail to them I have my (quite technologically challenged) wife using it on mobile and desktop quite happily.