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Telegram is great if you like shiny native features like stickers and having lightweight native clients, but at everything else Telegram is at risk of losing in

Telegram is great if you like shiny native features like stickers and having lightweight native clients, but at everything else Telegram is at risk of losing in the long-term. The big reason for this is that Telegram decided to roll everything mostly on their own (including e.g. MTProto), Telegram is not compatible with Matrix unless you use a bridge, it is not e2e encrypted (unless you use mobile 1-to-1 secret chats. The server side code is proprietary, and the builds of the clients that are published to the app stores could be anything. While I love using Telegram right now for talking to some groups of friends, I would look at supporting https://matrix.org https://matrix.org , since it will likely become the de-facto standard of building messaging platforms.

behnamoh 5y ago
Telegram the app, is the best among all messenger apps. Telegram the company, maybe not.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  It is best because they don't bother encrypting user data, loading it directly from its own servers.
  - behnamoh 5y ago
    I meant feature-wise, the app is spectacular, but security-wise, it's not that trustworthy.
    - pkulak 5y ago
      Exactly. Features are way easier with everything plain text.
RF_Savage 5y ago
Matrix still has ways to go but Elemental is now actually usable. On the Telegram security side of things my group of friends uses it as a more modern IRC. So no NSA proof security is truly even expected. We even bridge some IRC channels to Telegram with bots.
stanmancan 5y ago
>Telegram is great if you like shiny native features like stickers and having lightweight native clients, but at everything else Telegram is at risk of losing in the long-term. Whatever ends up winning is going to need: - Native clients on all major platforms - Full support for all the fun little extra's like emoji's, reactions, gifs, file transfers etc. - True multi-device support that doesn't require any sort of forwarding from another device - Group chats - Searchable history - Your full history to automatically load when you log in on a new device (manually transferring isn't going to be an acceptable solution) - No concept of selecting a server or anything. Users need to be able to just log in with a username/password and carry on. - E2E encryption that doesn't sacrifice the user experience Anything missing from this list? Also, does Matrix support all of that? Last time I checked Matrix out it seemed clunky and confusing (especially for non-technical users) and it was missing a ton of the 'basics' that people expect out of a chat app.
- phreack 5y ago
  - An option to not have a password at all and log in just by having a phone. It's a 100% must have feature for a phone IM, most people will forget a password the very moment they are forced to create it.
  - stanmancan 5y ago
    I agree that it's a great option, but unfortunately it's also not secure at all. You're what, one SIM swap away from having your whole chat history owned?
- pkulak 5y ago
  I think I can speak to how Matrix deviates from your list: - There are technically native clients on every platform, so best kind of correct? However, the "official/main/most popular" client is Electron on Desktop. Partial credit? - Yup - Yup, even when using E2E, which is a hell of an accomplishment. You transfer keys from other devices, but not entire messages. - Yup. E2E or not, your choice. - Searchable history plus E2E is... hard, to say the least. Some clients will index your conversations while they happen, but that's obviously not the perfect solution. That said, the APIs are so open that I've written python scripts before that download and search entire rooms. It would be possible for a client to do the same, though I don't think any do. Non-encrypted rooms are trivial to search, or course. - This as well. As before, keys transfer from other devices, messages load from the server. - This seems like it was engineered to exclude Matrix. The default in every client is matrix.org, and there's no reason you ever need to change it if you're not concerned with it. In fact, most clients make it a couple clicks to change it (https://app.element.io/#/login https://app.element.io/#/login). - Not totally sure this is possible, but Matrix comes very close. On par with Signal, though with different tradeoffs (stored history, for example).
skinkestek 5y ago
> and the builds of the clients that are published to the app stores could be anything. Isn't Telegram one of very few that provides verifiable builds, (including on iOS if you root it)? I might be wrong but I think not. Edit, see : https://core.telegram.org/reproducible-builds https://core.telegram.org/reproducible-builds So it seems even on this point Telegram shines.
- saagarjha 5y ago
  Telegram doesn’t even post their source code to match their releases on macOS and iOS. Sometimes they’ll do a code dump somewhere around that time, but it’s not a guarantee.
  - skinkestek 5y ago
    In the same boat as Signal there. WhatsApp doesn't post source code at all.

behnamoh 5y ago

Telegram the app, is the best among all messenger apps. Telegram the company, maybe not.

Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
It is best because they don't bother encrypting user data, loading it directly from its own servers.
- behnamoh 5y ago
  I meant feature-wise, the app is spectacular, but security-wise, it's not that trustworthy.
  - pkulak 5y ago
    Exactly. Features are way easier with everything plain text.

RF_Savage 5y ago

Matrix still has ways to go but Elemental is now actually usable. On the Telegram security side of things my group of friends uses it as a more modern IRC. So no NSA proof security is truly even expected. We even bridge some IRC channels to Telegram with bots.

stanmancan 5y ago

>Telegram is great if you like shiny native features like stickers and having lightweight native clients, but at everything else Telegram is at risk of losing in the long-term. Whatever ends up winning is going to need: - Native clients on all major platforms - Full support for all the fun little extra's like emoji's, reactions, gifs, file transfers etc. - True multi-device support that doesn't require any sort of forwarding from another device - Group chats - Searchable history - Your full history to automatically load when you log in on a new device (manually transferring isn't going to be an acceptable solution) - No concept of selecting a server or anything. Users need to be able to just log in with a username/password and carry on. - E2E encryption that doesn't sacrifice the user experience Anything missing from this list? Also, does Matrix support all of that? Last time I checked Matrix out it seemed clunky and confusing (especially for non-technical users) and it was missing a ton of the 'basics' that people expect out of a chat app.

phreack 5y ago
- An option to not have a password at all and log in just by having a phone. It's a 100% must have feature for a phone IM, most people will forget a password the very moment they are forced to create it.
- stanmancan 5y ago
  I agree that it's a great option, but unfortunately it's also not secure at all. You're what, one SIM swap away from having your whole chat history owned?
pkulak 5y ago
I think I can speak to how Matrix deviates from your list: - There are technically native clients on every platform, so best kind of correct? However, the "official/main/most popular" client is Electron on Desktop. Partial credit? - Yup - Yup, even when using E2E, which is a hell of an accomplishment. You transfer keys from other devices, but not entire messages. - Yup. E2E or not, your choice. - Searchable history plus E2E is... hard, to say the least. Some clients will index your conversations while they happen, but that's obviously not the perfect solution. That said, the APIs are so open that I've written python scripts before that download and search entire rooms. It would be possible for a client to do the same, though I don't think any do. Non-encrypted rooms are trivial to search, or course. - This as well. As before, keys transfer from other devices, messages load from the server. - This seems like it was engineered to exclude Matrix. The default in every client is matrix.org, and there's no reason you ever need to change it if you're not concerned with it. In fact, most clients make it a couple clicks to change it (https://app.element.io/#/login https://app.element.io/#/login). - Not totally sure this is possible, but Matrix comes very close. On par with Signal, though with different tradeoffs (stored history, for example).

skinkestek 5y ago

> and the builds of the clients that are published to the app stores could be anything. Isn't Telegram one of very few that provides verifiable builds, (including on iOS if you root it)? I might be wrong but I think not. Edit, see : https://core.telegram.org/reproducible-builds https://core.telegram.org/reproducible-builds So it seems even on this point Telegram shines.

saagarjha 5y ago
Telegram doesn’t even post their source code to match their releases on macOS and iOS. Sometimes they’ll do a code dump somewhere around that time, but it’s not a guarantee.
- skinkestek 5y ago
  In the same boat as Signal there. WhatsApp doesn't post source code at all.