51 ms·

700M users and Premium

256 points by bathory 4y ago

bathory 4y ago
Looking at the in-app purchase on iOS in Europe, the price seems to be about EUR 5.50 which I find to be quite steep, for these kinds of features. I've been wanting to support TG's development for a while now, but I would have hoped that this would be more in the vicinity of 1-3 Euros per month.
- BoumTAC 4y ago
  I think that's the main issue with those small subscriptions. We don't have an American salary here. I would happily pay for Telegram premium for 2-3€/month and have only a third of the features they propose. But 5-10€ for every service like this becomes expensive at the end of the month. I have the same issue with hey.com email provider, but they are too expensive too. I would love to have an email service provider for 2-3€/month, I'm not an hardcore email user so 8€ as they ask is too much for me. For 3€ and less "pro" features I would pay for the email service. Same for Spotify, I don't listen much, I would prefer to pay only 4€ a month and have only 2 hours a month of listening without ads. But 10€ for listening for less than 2 hours is a lot. And I don't think I'm the only one like this. The only company I know who is doing an affordable paid service is nextdns. For 2€ a month, I'm happy to pay for the service for having a DNS that filters trackers on all my devices.
  - loloquwowndueo 4y ago
    Some services have a yearly plan where you end up paying the equivalent to about 4€ a month - protonmail is an example that comes to mind.
    - decrypt 4y ago
      Fastmail as well. I just paid for 3 years which amounts to 3.11 USD or so, per month.
  - perch56 4y ago
    I’ve been a happy mailbox.org user for 4-5 years now and they’re cheap. Take a look at they’re features, primarily being that they’re hosted in Germany.
    - krn 4y ago
      Does Mailbox.org still lack app-specific passwords[1]? As I understand, using any external email client requires disabling 2FA. [1] https://userforum-en.mailbox.org/topic/deviceapp-specific-password https://userforum-en.mailbox.org/topic/deviceapp-specific-pa...
  - martin_a 4y ago
    I'm starting to feel spammy because I say that everytime it comes up, but have a look at hetzner.de or sth. alike. Their smallest webhosting package is 1,90 €/month and comes with your own domain. Configuration is done through their web-based interface, so no CLI fiddling and nothing. I think that's a good deal, you could even run your own NextCloud on that package, if you want to. That way you get a CalDav server, so you can ditch Google Calendar and Contacts, if you want to.
  - scns 4y ago
    https://posteo.de https://posteo.de offers email for 1€ a month
  - anadem 4y ago
    > The only company I know who is doing an affordable paid service ... Bitwarden paid is $10 per YEAR. I'm very happy to pay that. (Off-topic for discussion of Telegram though)
    - Ayesh 4y ago
      Yeah, I too vividly remember that purchase as more wholesome and a way of supporting them, rather than purchasing something. The free version is super feature-rich, and I believe most of those who go premium do it to support Bitwarden.
  - iRomain 4y ago
    Happy user of https://forwardemail.net https://forwardemail.net for $3/month for unlimited domains/aliases. This is the only subscription I pay that I believe has a fair (cheap?) price. I use it for all email forwards for my family: https://github.com/politician/barissat-infra https://github.com/politician/barissat-infra
neals 4y ago
So who here is using Telegram and for what? I'm consider myself pretty well connected, but I don't have the app. Tell me what I'm missing.
- Angostura 4y ago
  It's WhatsApp for people who don't trust Meta/Facebook.
  - aksgoel 4y ago
    Interestingly, Telegram by default is not even end to end encrypted.
    - fritigern 4y ago
      Neither is WhatsApp. It's a closed source app, no one outside of Meta knows if it is actually encrypted properly.
      - afiori 4y ago
        I always wondered how feasible it is to analyze whatsapp network traffic to test their claims.
        fritigern 4y ago
        I'm sure the traffic is encrypted. But it's trivially easy for Facebook to copy your private key to their servers.
      - hiq 4y ago
        That's not how it works: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11432661 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11432661
        tcfhgj 4y ago
        That's exactly how it works. You can claim a lot of the day is long when the app is closed source
scrollaway 4y ago
Telegram blows my mind. Say what you want about their security; they have the absolute best UX of any (primarily 1-on-1) messaging app, bar none. Discord is a close second. But the quality and polish of telegram blows me away to this day. And it’s lots of small features and details such as built in translation for messages in a foreign language, all the smooth animations, quick look and summaries of channels with aggregated links media etc, a super fast and responsive UI etc. And their stickers are actually ridiculously fun to play with (I used to not be into that, telegram converted me). Just yesterday I accidentally found out that it’s possible to replace a picture you have sent, with a new or different one - I sent a photo, realised it would have been better cropped, and just edited the message as I normally would have. And with all that it’s the only popular messenger that is actually easy to programmatically interact with. (And cheap! WhatsApp has a business offering and it’s ridiculously expensive)
- fartcannon 4y ago
  "it’s the only popular messenger that is actually easy to programmatically interact with." Let me introduce you to Matrix SDKs https://matrix.org/sdks/ https://matrix.org/sdks/
  - scrollaway 4y ago
    Keyword is popular. I’m a proponent of matrix, but it’s absolutely not popular.
    - fartcannon 4y ago
      It's very popular with people who value not having their data stored in plaintext.
      - scrollaway 4y ago
        Do you know how much comments like that help Matrix gain a foothold in the closed source messaging space? Not all all, that’s how much. Seriously. Again, huge proponent and financial supporter of matrix efforts here; I think they do an a amazing job. But comments like yours are detrimental to what they do.
bfuller 4y ago
I had a successful commercial arc completely built on interactions I had on telegram. I built a profitable company and exited all because I decided to download this app 4 years ago. Needless to say I will be paying for their premium services.
- avodonosov 4y ago
  Can you tell more? How that worked?
nixcraft 4y ago
Has telegram addressed these concerns? https://twitter.com/moxie/status/1474067549574688768 https://twitter.com/moxie/status/1474067549574688768
- dymk 4y ago
  There's nothing to address. Telegram chats are encrypted to and from the server, they're not E2E encrypted, they do not claim to be by default. They do offer E2E chats you can opt into, and there has not been a single example of an E2E message being cracked.
  - bjoli 4y ago
    The telegram web page claims on the first page: > Telegram messages are heavily encrypted and can self-destruct. How is Joe Average supposed to understand that? Adding to that, the secret chat encryption has always been Weird (capital W) and in one of the previous generations the server could actually MITM it. Trivially.
    - tryauuum 4y ago
      > How is Joe Average supposed to understand that? That's an interesting question. I don't know. Maybe he would understand it as "messages that are hard to read for NSA". To be honest, I don't understand your criticism. Surely people can put a video on their website about E2E, about privacy, integrity and authenticity. Maybe put an honest comparison with other messengers. But I'd only expect this kind of openness from a nonprofit organization.
  - milansuk 4y ago
    All HTTPS connections(most of web browsing last decade) are encrypted to and from the server. Signal showed us that is possible to have E2E encrypted messaging, why don't they provide it, but with better UI/UX? If Telegram doesn't read messages and doesn't provide access for 3rd parties(governments, etc.), It should provide E2E everywhere by default.
    - 4y ago
marcooliv 4y ago
Really liked the price and benefits. I will purchase. EUR 5.50 is less than a coffee.
- cheeze 4y ago
  Where in the heck are you buying coffee? I live in a VHCOL city and I pay $3.50 max
  - granddemolisher 4y ago
    Starbucks
    - fritigern 4y ago
      The black liquid Starbucks sells is not coffee...
  - tauchunfall 4y ago
    The average price of a cappuccino in Hamburg is 3.50 EUR already.
geerlingguy 4y ago
- ryanSrich 4y ago
  Interesting. I live in the US and nearly all of my fiends and I exclusively use Telegram to communicate.
- giansegato 4y ago
  in Europe it's quite popular and widespread for legit purposes as well
- danpalmer 4y ago
  This is also my experience in the UK. Messengers are extremely network-based services. Everything depends on your network, and experiences will differ dramatically between countries. For me, WhatsApp is everything legit and personal, Telegram is for extremist groups, Messenger is for parents, Instagram is for millennials, Twitter is for politics nerds, Discord is for gamers, iMessage is... for adverts from takeaways and SMS 2FA. But this will be completely different in other countries, social groups, industries, etc.
  - the_third_wave 4y ago
    See my reaction at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31803118 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31803118 and explain how Telegram can be so popular if it only is used by extremists.
  - blitzar 4y ago
    I have started getting WhatsApp spam …
    - danpalmer 4y ago
      No!! The only spam I've gotten so far is recruiters who do actually have my number but who I really don't want messages from on WhatsApp.
fartcannon 4y ago
Telegram has a very interesting development history. They were nomadic for the early 2010's, eventually landing in Dubai. Apparently this was because they feared being pressured by governments (the CEO and founders are Russian). Is Dubai a place with good protection against government pressure?
- fritigern 4y ago
  > Is Dubai a place with good protection against government pressure? Depends on the government :) The German government has been throwing a temper tantrum and threatening to bad Telegram because Telegram doesn't respond to data requests from German police and spies.
  - fartcannon 4y ago
    So they don't give it to Germany, that's good. Do they give it to Dubai's government?
    - vbezhenar 4y ago
      Of course they do. How would you expect legal entity to operate without cooperating with local government. The question is: can German police compel Dubai police to perform the query? Can Russian police to that? Can US police do that? May be UAE will be 21-century Switzerland which failed miserably at being independent, but this specialization of being independent is in demand.
    - mhoad 4y ago
      I don’t think UAE is particularly well known for taking a hands off approach. They almost certainly have an unspoken arrangement in exchange for an otherwise drama free existence there.
    - fritigern 4y ago
      It's hard to say no to the government that can send policeman to your house.
    - 4y ago
tucnak 4y ago
- DocTomoe 4y ago
  Better a GRU-managed honey pot than a CIA-managed honey pot. My country is a vassal to the US, not the Russians, and GRU power over me is considerably less threatening.
  - fritigern 4y ago
    Not to mention the Durov brothers are exiled from Russia after Russia took VKontakte from them.
    - valeg 4y ago
      Nice cover, close Putin's ally has also provided him with 250 million to make the app. Follow the money.
  - dmix 4y ago
    I feel the same way about TikTok. I'd rather have a Hong Kong based company with a threat of Chinese interception because I don't give a shit if the Chinese have my data (at least I dont yet). I do care about using US/Canada/UK/German/etc apps where you know at least 75% of your data is ending up in some database of a country you live in or your country is has a free-wheeling data sharing policy (with some rubber stamp exceptions which foreign partner interception easily bypasses).
    - HKH2 4y ago
      How is TikTok a Hong Kong based company?
      - dmix 4y ago
        Good point I don’t know why I thought they pretended to operate out of Hong Kong. Must be thinking of another company.
duskwuff 4y ago
I'm a happy Telegram user, but the features Telegram are introducing with their premium subscription are not particularly compelling, and some of them really seem like anti-features: • 4 GB uploads, faster downloads: I'm struggling to imagine what these would be useful for, other than movie piracy. The default upload limit is already 2 GB, and the download speed is fine. • Doubled limits: Most of these are client-side limits. Locking these features down behind a paywall is just obnoxious. • Voice-to-text: I have never intentionally used Telegram's voice messaging features. Most mobile phones can already do speech-to-text; making other people use a premium feature to get the same results is silly. • Unique stickers, unique reactions: Oh please god no. Animated stickers were bad enough. I'm going to be tempted to ban anyone using these in the groups I moderate. • Chat management: More paywalled client-side features. (Including one feature that was previously available to all users -- auto-archive for new chats used to be offered to any user that was getting a lot of chat requests.) • Animated profile pictures: See "unique stickers". • Premium badges, premium app icons: Yawn. • No ads: Where do ads even show up? I've never seen one, even in large channels.
- Sebb767 4y ago
  Given these features (and their desire to keep Telegram free), I view these as "donation bonuses", not features to pay for. Although Discord has a similar monetization strategy and people seem to not mind it, so maybe it's just us being out of touch.
  - stereoradonc 4y ago
    Completely agree.
  - 0x49d1 4y ago
    Agree: this seems like a perfect way to stay with only users' help in sustaining business. Features are not that critical to pay for, you just can greatly continue use the free tier. But you CAN support them and get small bonuses.
fritigern 4y ago
I'm happy that Telegram is shaking up the Facebook-dominated messaging and social network space. Also their client apps are open source and have very good Linux support.
benreesman 4y ago
Convenient and secure/private sometimes pull in opposite directions. That’s why it’s great that we have both Telegram and Signal. I keep mine right next to each other. They’re both great, I plan to support both, they’re just for different things.
rg111 4y ago
Many people are asking what are in Telegram that aren’t anywhere else? I can provide some answers. Telegram is my primary chat app. - It offers you to simply share an alphanumeric handle and you can connect with anyone in the world. I can do a voice chat or normal chat really quickly and easily. It is the only famous truly Instant Messenger there is. And I can do it without sharing my name (unlike FB), email address, or phone number (unlike WApp). - It is the only app where I add any woman to any group outside of family or other close-knit groups. When creepy dudes get women's cell numbers, it sometimes becomes very difficult for the women to handle. In Telegram, you can be part of large or large-ish groups without the women having to share phone numbers or real names. Blocking is really easy and tension-free. - The video quality in chats is really high. In Android, only Google Duo came close. - ONLY chat app in market with an excellent desktop app for Linux. Also Windows. - I love their non-SJW-everything approach to allowed stickers. Emojis can only be PG-13 and "wholesome" (like banning gun emoji and replacing it with water gun- where I live no one owns guns - and guns are irrelevant to my politics and everyone else's). Telegram's stickers are really fun and creative. - UI/UX is excellent. Really love chat themes and how I can edit them. Many components are customizable. Chat bubble colors, radii of rounded corners, etc. - I like the fine-grained control over notifications from different chats (groups and persons). - I like the lack of E2EE. I just like logging in and having access to all my chats. I don't have to be with the same device to be on the same chat. - The simple yet effective image editor is nice. So is the text formatting with no fuss. - I often use the auto image resize feature to downscale images. - It is so seamless. It has replaced email when I want to transfer small files to my own devices. - I am a selectively social person. It's good that even with 700 mn people, not many people are in it. The people with whom I don't want to interact more aren’t yet in Telegram. That's an appeal to me. - Developing bots is a bliss. So easy and effective. - SO helped a bunch of HS kids with their Bio study before a big test, the quiz feature was great. SO is not a technical person, and it was easy for her to set up a group, no phone numbers, create quizzes and so on. She loved it.
- rejectfinite 4y ago
  Discord does all this too? + the server rooms.
allarm 4y ago
Yesterday I chatted in Telegram with my friends about a gadget I was considering to purchase - I’ve got an ad of this gadget in Instagram almost immediately. I couldn’t reproduce it by mentioning some other trendy stuff, but it triggered me anyway. Has anyone experienced the same?
- indymike 4y ago
  So you have instagram on the device too?
- oaththrowaway 4y ago
  Not on Telegram, but I've had some eeirie ads shown on Facebook after conversations I've had.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    Facebook stalks your friends and knows your social graph thanks to enough people leaking their contacts list (you're still exposed even if you don't share your own list). It could very well be that one of your friends looked up the product being discussed and FB (correctly) guessed based on other data they had that you're the one most likely to be interested in it (or alternatively just shown this ad to everyone in your friends group, but only you picked up on it).
    - oaththrowaway 4y ago
      The first one was we were talking about getting pizza for dinner after my in laws showed up. 10 minutes later a Papa John's ad showed up. We don't eat pizza normally. Second one was talking to one of my neighbors about their dog. For a few days I kept getting ads about dog leashes. I don't have a dog.
joe-collins 4y ago
Of those features, I have one objection: speech to text should be available to everyone as an accessibility feature, not locked behind a paywall.
- hansel_der 4y ago
  on mobile it is a feature of the os, not the app, so kinda available to everyone.
dmix 4y ago
4GB uploads eh... so good for movie filesharing maybe?
lucb1e 4y ago
Read the whole post and I have just one small question... where the heck do I sign up? There is no link, no steps to follow, there is no update available for my clients that would perhaps spawn a subscribe button somewhere... how much does premium even cost? I don't get it. I want to buy it, I've been wanting to pay for this service for so long (it just feels so shady this whole time, it's gigabytes of (unencrypted) storage for free? WCPGW), I just can't figure out how to buy this.
- antirez 4y ago
  They will start the rolling out in the next days.
  - lucb1e 4y ago
    Oh that "This update is being rolled out gradually" refers to the payment becoming available? I thought it was about the text it belongs with, speaking of "over 100 fixes and optimizations" and other stuff, and that the subscription was available now (since "Today we're launching <star> Telegram Premium" in bold up top). Confusing, but thanks for the reply!
    - bathory 4y ago
      If you have an iOS device, you can force the app store to refresh and update Telegram. Then once updated, in the app under settings, you can select Telegram Premium and pay with Apple Pay
      - lucb1e 4y ago
        Not on iOS but thanks! I wonder if it'll come to the f-droid version, but otherwise I'm still using the official desktop client so it should be possible there.
- 19h 4y ago
  I was only able to buy premium when I switched my account to my US number and then back to my German number..
zamadatix 4y ago
After Hangouts died (yeah it's still Google Chat now but it's not the multi-function tool it used to be before they chopped it up to announce a piece is migrating to Chat) I switched to Signal. If I were to do that transition all over again I would do Telegram instead. Signal sounds nice but it's a bit overbearing - backups are somewhere between difficult to impossible depending on the device, there is no web client, and it's only open source in that you can audit source or run your own independent chat network (3rd party clients on the official server are treated as hostile) not as in it's an open community. Despite all of this kind of stuff being defended for contrived hyper-secure hyper-private reasoning you can't send a chat without giving out your phone number and it's ridiculously easy to cause your verification number to change making people numb to all of the protection in the first place. I did grab a Telegram account recently but only since Beeper supported it and I figured "why not" so I'm missing out on these features but I almost wonder if I would have even been so excited about new things like Beeper had I went Telegram originally. Interestingly of all the chat apps WhatsApp and Telegram usage seemed to align heavily. Not sure if that was just a quirk of my friend group or a more general thing.
- hackernewds 4y ago
  Most of this is expected for Signal, since they're the founders of Whatsapp after all.
- enraged_camel 4y ago
  Signal not having a web client annoys me to no end.
- up6w6 4y ago
  > and it's only open source in that you can audit source or run your own independent chat network (3rd party clients on the official server are treated as hostile) not as in it's an open community Do you happen to know why there is no Telegram client fork using Matrix protocol? it seems a pretty obvious thing to try given their advantage with UI and Matrix ecosystem's slow progress with friendly clients.
  - 4y ago
nazka 4y ago
Honest question: How is Telegram better than Signal? Is Signal not the best in term of security and privacy?
- HKH2 4y ago
  Signal is not as convenient. People want convenience.
- pmcginn 4y ago
  I really tried to like Signal and convince my family to use it, but the lack of iOS backups, CarPlay support, and web client were dealbreakers for me. I'm no Meta fan but I've found WhatsApp to be the best mix of secure default settings plus usability. It's ugly as sin and doesn't have a Linux app, though.
- prashantsengar 4y ago
  Signal is better than Telegram in terms of security and privacy. But people use Telegram for its plethora of features, the UX, and its attention to even the smallest of details.
stereoradonc 4y ago
I went through the entire thread of conversations here, and I am surprised that anything related to Telegram is downvoted and the familiar trope of "security" is added. It's got best-in-class applications with lovely animations. The server now governs reactions to specific messages. Stickers are fun, with premium stickers having additional animations. From a technical perspective, they occupy least space; is "fast" and have a great ecosystem of third party clients. (I use "Owlgram") that offers additional UI elements without cluttering the experience. Tabbed chats are possible now; on Windows desktop, Unigram offers a stellar experience. Threat perceptions or "privacy concerns" are not in the lexicon of ordinary users like me and I am better off without Signal or WhatsApp. WhatsApp reminds me of what Telegram was 5 years back. I think it is time to reconsider the association of Russia with the application. Criticism is fine, but much of it directed against Telegram appears biased and coloured. I don't work for Telegram, but am a happy user. I couldn't get my folks to understand XMPP or Matrix, or even get my colleagues to switch from any other competing application. This is fine by me. Other finely grained privacy options (ability to control who can call you or add you to groups) are critical for my needs. Yes, it could be better, but no other application offers those controls. Besides, it's easy to chat with others using "usernames" without the hassle of handing out phone numbers. Bravo!
- RyanShook 4y ago
  I don’t hav strong feelings about Telegram but the fact that they have 700m installs without any paid advertising is just incredible.
  - alfongj 4y ago
    WhatsApp got there faster with no ads either
- hiq 4y ago
  Telegram is criticized because it's way below than the state of the art when it comes to security, while still claiming (official website) that "messages are heavily encrypted" and that it "keeps your messages safe from hacker attacks" even though it does both way worse than e.g. WhatsApp and Signal. I don't think a potential association with Russia is the main problem; what about E2EE by default, including for group chats? It's mind-boggling that it's 2022 and we still have to trust that whoever controls Telegram's servers doesn't abuse their powers and is diligent enough to protect them. It's fine to celebrate Telegram for its features, but let's not pretend that this criticism is unwarranted.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
19h 4y ago
I’ve been using telegram since 2013 every single day. I don’t want my chat app to drain my battery, I don’t want it to waste bandwidth and I want to be able to have so little latency that I feels real-time no matter where I am. Telegram feels like that group of people they warned you about. Sexual and political freedom. Be whatever you want others to see you like. Easy bot API, deep event based td-lib SDK, censorship bypass through MTProto proxies. Delete messages you sent before your crush sees them because you changed your mind. Send messages anonymously in a group if you have multiple admins. Forbid people from clicking your profile when your messages are forwarded. See the people who saw your messages in a group. Telegram feels like the last place where as a European I’m not dealing with US-identity ideology, where I’m not dealing with copyright censorship, where everyone can speak up no matter how normal or insane. In this moment I have 17 bots keeping me up to date with all the things happening, and telegram has essentially become the single stream of news and online social interactions for me.
- kaba0 4y ago
  Could you recommend some useful bots? I use telegram heavily for communication, but never really looked into bots before, not sure what I’m missing.
  - 19h 4y ago
    One example is a bot I wrote for PsychonautWiki that posts changes from Jira, MediaWiki via UDP and Paypal via IPN: https://github.com/psychonautwiki/eyeOfProvidence https://github.com/psychonautwiki/eyeOfProvidence. Another one I wrote recently is a bot that I ported to Telegram from its original IRC incarnation: https://github.com/19h/minuteman-bot https://github.com/19h/minuteman-bot. A bot I wrote that, when seeing a voice message, transcribes it using AssemblyAI and finally uses OpenAI GPT3 to summarise it: https://github.com/19h/transcriptbot https://github.com/19h/transcriptbot. (Needs an api key for both) Finally, a bot that monitors a tcp / http endpoint configured via a yaml file, can be configured to send alerts via SMS (via AWS SNS), Slack or Telegram: https://github.com/19h/zuse https://github.com/19h/zuse. There's a bunch more but most of them are very specific to my needs.
Inocez 4y ago
Improve the ability to search chat history for Asian regional languages, such as Chinese and Japanese https://bugs.telegram.org/c/724 https://bugs.telegram.org/c/724

256 points by bathory 4y ago

Looking at the in-app purchase on iOS in Europe, the price seems to be about EUR 5.50 which I find to be quite steep, for these kinds of features. I've been wanting to support TG's development for a while now, but I would have hoped that this would be more in the vicinity of 1-3 Euros per month.

BoumTAC 4y ago
I think that's the main issue with those small subscriptions. We don't have an American salary here. I would happily pay for Telegram premium for 2-3€/month and have only a third of the features they propose. But 5-10€ for every service like this becomes expensive at the end of the month. I have the same issue with hey.com email provider, but they are too expensive too. I would love to have an email service provider for 2-3€/month, I'm not an hardcore email user so 8€ as they ask is too much for me. For 3€ and less "pro" features I would pay for the email service. Same for Spotify, I don't listen much, I would prefer to pay only 4€ a month and have only 2 hours a month of listening without ads. But 10€ for listening for less than 2 hours is a lot. And I don't think I'm the only one like this. The only company I know who is doing an affordable paid service is nextdns. For 2€ a month, I'm happy to pay for the service for having a DNS that filters trackers on all my devices.
- loloquwowndueo 4y ago
  Some services have a yearly plan where you end up paying the equivalent to about 4€ a month - protonmail is an example that comes to mind.
  - decrypt 4y ago
    Fastmail as well. I just paid for 3 years which amounts to 3.11 USD or so, per month.
- perch56 4y ago
  I’ve been a happy mailbox.org user for 4-5 years now and they’re cheap. Take a look at they’re features, primarily being that they’re hosted in Germany.
  - krn 4y ago
    Does Mailbox.org still lack app-specific passwords[1]? As I understand, using any external email client requires disabling 2FA. [1] https://userforum-en.mailbox.org/topic/deviceapp-specific-password https://userforum-en.mailbox.org/topic/deviceapp-specific-pa...
- martin_a 4y ago
  I'm starting to feel spammy because I say that everytime it comes up, but have a look at hetzner.de or sth. alike. Their smallest webhosting package is 1,90 €/month and comes with your own domain. Configuration is done through their web-based interface, so no CLI fiddling and nothing. I think that's a good deal, you could even run your own NextCloud on that package, if you want to. That way you get a CalDav server, so you can ditch Google Calendar and Contacts, if you want to.
- scns 4y ago
  https://posteo.de https://posteo.de offers email for 1€ a month
- anadem 4y ago
  > The only company I know who is doing an affordable paid service ... Bitwarden paid is $10 per YEAR. I'm very happy to pay that. (Off-topic for discussion of Telegram though)
  - Ayesh 4y ago
    Yeah, I too vividly remember that purchase as more wholesome and a way of supporting them, rather than purchasing something. The free version is super feature-rich, and I believe most of those who go premium do it to support Bitwarden.
- iRomain 4y ago
  Happy user of https://forwardemail.net https://forwardemail.net for $3/month for unlimited domains/aliases. This is the only subscription I pay that I believe has a fair (cheap?) price. I use it for all email forwards for my family: https://github.com/politician/barissat-infra https://github.com/politician/barissat-infra

neals 4y ago

So who here is using Telegram and for what? I'm consider myself pretty well connected, but I don't have the app. Tell me what I'm missing.

Angostura 4y ago
It's WhatsApp for people who don't trust Meta/Facebook.
- aksgoel 4y ago
  Interestingly, Telegram by default is not even end to end encrypted.
  - fritigern 4y ago
    Neither is WhatsApp. It's a closed source app, no one outside of Meta knows if it is actually encrypted properly.
    - afiori 4y ago
      I always wondered how feasible it is to analyze whatsapp network traffic to test their claims.
      - fritigern 4y ago
        I'm sure the traffic is encrypted. But it's trivially easy for Facebook to copy your private key to their servers.
    - hiq 4y ago
      That's not how it works: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11432661 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11432661
      - tcfhgj 4y ago
        That's exactly how it works. You can claim a lot of the day is long when the app is closed source

scrollaway 4y ago

Telegram blows my mind. Say what you want about their security; they have the absolute best UX of any (primarily 1-on-1) messaging app, bar none. Discord is a close second. But the quality and polish of telegram blows me away to this day. And it’s lots of small features and details such as built in translation for messages in a foreign language, all the smooth animations, quick look and summaries of channels with aggregated links media etc, a super fast and responsive UI etc. And their stickers are actually ridiculously fun to play with (I used to not be into that, telegram converted me). Just yesterday I accidentally found out that it’s possible to replace a picture you have sent, with a new or different one - I sent a photo, realised it would have been better cropped, and just edited the message as I normally would have. And with all that it’s the only popular messenger that is actually easy to programmatically interact with. (And cheap! WhatsApp has a business offering and it’s ridiculously expensive)

fartcannon 4y ago
"it’s the only popular messenger that is actually easy to programmatically interact with." Let me introduce you to Matrix SDKs https://matrix.org/sdks/ https://matrix.org/sdks/
- scrollaway 4y ago
  Keyword is popular. I’m a proponent of matrix, but it’s absolutely not popular.
  - fartcannon 4y ago
    It's very popular with people who value not having their data stored in plaintext.
    - scrollaway 4y ago
      Do you know how much comments like that help Matrix gain a foothold in the closed source messaging space? Not all all, that’s how much. Seriously. Again, huge proponent and financial supporter of matrix efforts here; I think they do an a amazing job. But comments like yours are detrimental to what they do.

bfuller 4y ago

I had a successful commercial arc completely built on interactions I had on telegram. I built a profitable company and exited all because I decided to download this app 4 years ago. Needless to say I will be paying for their premium services.

avodonosov 4y ago
Can you tell more? How that worked?

nixcraft 4y ago

Has telegram addressed these concerns? https://twitter.com/moxie/status/1474067549574688768 https://twitter.com/moxie/status/1474067549574688768

dymk 4y ago
There's nothing to address. Telegram chats are encrypted to and from the server, they're not E2E encrypted, they do not claim to be by default. They do offer E2E chats you can opt into, and there has not been a single example of an E2E message being cracked.
- bjoli 4y ago
  The telegram web page claims on the first page: > Telegram messages are heavily encrypted and can self-destruct. How is Joe Average supposed to understand that? Adding to that, the secret chat encryption has always been Weird (capital W) and in one of the previous generations the server could actually MITM it. Trivially.
  - tryauuum 4y ago
    > How is Joe Average supposed to understand that? That's an interesting question. I don't know. Maybe he would understand it as "messages that are hard to read for NSA". To be honest, I don't understand your criticism. Surely people can put a video on their website about E2E, about privacy, integrity and authenticity. Maybe put an honest comparison with other messengers. But I'd only expect this kind of openness from a nonprofit organization.
- milansuk 4y ago
  All HTTPS connections(most of web browsing last decade) are encrypted to and from the server. Signal showed us that is possible to have E2E encrypted messaging, why don't they provide it, but with better UI/UX? If Telegram doesn't read messages and doesn't provide access for 3rd parties(governments, etc.), It should provide E2E everywhere by default.
  - 4y ago

marcooliv 4y ago

Really liked the price and benefits. I will purchase. EUR 5.50 is less than a coffee.

cheeze 4y ago
Where in the heck are you buying coffee? I live in a VHCOL city and I pay $3.50 max
- granddemolisher 4y ago
  Starbucks
  - fritigern 4y ago
    The black liquid Starbucks sells is not coffee...
- tauchunfall 4y ago
  The average price of a cappuccino in Hamburg is 3.50 EUR already.

geerlingguy 4y ago

ryanSrich 4y ago
Interesting. I live in the US and nearly all of my fiends and I exclusively use Telegram to communicate.
giansegato 4y ago
in Europe it's quite popular and widespread for legit purposes as well
danpalmer 4y ago
This is also my experience in the UK. Messengers are extremely network-based services. Everything depends on your network, and experiences will differ dramatically between countries. For me, WhatsApp is everything legit and personal, Telegram is for extremist groups, Messenger is for parents, Instagram is for millennials, Twitter is for politics nerds, Discord is for gamers, iMessage is... for adverts from takeaways and SMS 2FA. But this will be completely different in other countries, social groups, industries, etc.
- the_third_wave 4y ago
  See my reaction at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31803118 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31803118 and explain how Telegram can be so popular if it only is used by extremists.
- blitzar 4y ago
  I have started getting WhatsApp spam …
  - danpalmer 4y ago
    No!! The only spam I've gotten so far is recruiters who do actually have my number but who I really don't want messages from on WhatsApp.

fartcannon 4y ago

Telegram has a very interesting development history. They were nomadic for the early 2010's, eventually landing in Dubai. Apparently this was because they feared being pressured by governments (the CEO and founders are Russian). Is Dubai a place with good protection against government pressure?

fritigern 4y ago
> Is Dubai a place with good protection against government pressure? Depends on the government :) The German government has been throwing a temper tantrum and threatening to bad Telegram because Telegram doesn't respond to data requests from German police and spies.
- fartcannon 4y ago
  So they don't give it to Germany, that's good. Do they give it to Dubai's government?
  - vbezhenar 4y ago
    Of course they do. How would you expect legal entity to operate without cooperating with local government. The question is: can German police compel Dubai police to perform the query? Can Russian police to that? Can US police do that? May be UAE will be 21-century Switzerland which failed miserably at being independent, but this specialization of being independent is in demand.
  - mhoad 4y ago
    I don’t think UAE is particularly well known for taking a hands off approach. They almost certainly have an unspoken arrangement in exchange for an otherwise drama free existence there.
  - fritigern 4y ago
    It's hard to say no to the government that can send policeman to your house.
  - 4y ago

tucnak 4y ago

DocTomoe 4y ago
Better a GRU-managed honey pot than a CIA-managed honey pot. My country is a vassal to the US, not the Russians, and GRU power over me is considerably less threatening.
- fritigern 4y ago
  Not to mention the Durov brothers are exiled from Russia after Russia took VKontakte from them.
  - valeg 4y ago
    Nice cover, close Putin's ally has also provided him with 250 million to make the app. Follow the money.
- dmix 4y ago
  I feel the same way about TikTok. I'd rather have a Hong Kong based company with a threat of Chinese interception because I don't give a shit if the Chinese have my data (at least I dont yet). I do care about using US/Canada/UK/German/etc apps where you know at least 75% of your data is ending up in some database of a country you live in or your country is has a free-wheeling data sharing policy (with some rubber stamp exceptions which foreign partner interception easily bypasses).
  - HKH2 4y ago
    How is TikTok a Hong Kong based company?
    - dmix 4y ago
      Good point I don’t know why I thought they pretended to operate out of Hong Kong. Must be thinking of another company.

duskwuff 4y ago

I'm a happy Telegram user, but the features Telegram are introducing with their premium subscription are not particularly compelling, and some of them really seem like anti-features: • 4 GB uploads, faster downloads: I'm struggling to imagine what these would be useful for, other than movie piracy. The default upload limit is already 2 GB, and the download speed is fine. • Doubled limits: Most of these are client-side limits. Locking these features down behind a paywall is just obnoxious. • Voice-to-text: I have never intentionally used Telegram's voice messaging features. Most mobile phones can already do speech-to-text; making other people use a premium feature to get the same results is silly. • Unique stickers, unique reactions: Oh please god no. Animated stickers were bad enough. I'm going to be tempted to ban anyone using these in the groups I moderate. • Chat management: More paywalled client-side features. (Including one feature that was previously available to all users -- auto-archive for new chats used to be offered to any user that was getting a lot of chat requests.) • Animated profile pictures: See "unique stickers". • Premium badges, premium app icons: Yawn. • No ads: Where do ads even show up? I've never seen one, even in large channels.

Sebb767 4y ago
Given these features (and their desire to keep Telegram free), I view these as "donation bonuses", not features to pay for. Although Discord has a similar monetization strategy and people seem to not mind it, so maybe it's just us being out of touch.
- stereoradonc 4y ago
  Completely agree.
- 0x49d1 4y ago
  Agree: this seems like a perfect way to stay with only users' help in sustaining business. Features are not that critical to pay for, you just can greatly continue use the free tier. But you CAN support them and get small bonuses.

fritigern 4y ago

I'm happy that Telegram is shaking up the Facebook-dominated messaging and social network space. Also their client apps are open source and have very good Linux support.

benreesman 4y ago

Convenient and secure/private sometimes pull in opposite directions. That’s why it’s great that we have both Telegram and Signal. I keep mine right next to each other. They’re both great, I plan to support both, they’re just for different things.

rg111 4y ago

Many people are asking what are in Telegram that aren’t anywhere else? I can provide some answers. Telegram is my primary chat app. - It offers you to simply share an alphanumeric handle and you can connect with anyone in the world. I can do a voice chat or normal chat really quickly and easily. It is the only famous truly Instant Messenger there is. And I can do it without sharing my name (unlike FB), email address, or phone number (unlike WApp). - It is the only app where I add any woman to any group outside of family or other close-knit groups. When creepy dudes get women's cell numbers, it sometimes becomes very difficult for the women to handle. In Telegram, you can be part of large or large-ish groups without the women having to share phone numbers or real names. Blocking is really easy and tension-free. - The video quality in chats is really high. In Android, only Google Duo came close. - ONLY chat app in market with an excellent desktop app for Linux. Also Windows. - I love their non-SJW-everything approach to allowed stickers. Emojis can only be PG-13 and "wholesome" (like banning gun emoji and replacing it with water gun- where I live no one owns guns - and guns are irrelevant to my politics and everyone else's). Telegram's stickers are really fun and creative. - UI/UX is excellent. Really love chat themes and how I can edit them. Many components are customizable. Chat bubble colors, radii of rounded corners, etc. - I like the fine-grained control over notifications from different chats (groups and persons). - I like the lack of E2EE. I just like logging in and having access to all my chats. I don't have to be with the same device to be on the same chat. - The simple yet effective image editor is nice. So is the text formatting with no fuss. - I often use the auto image resize feature to downscale images. - It is so seamless. It has replaced email when I want to transfer small files to my own devices. - I am a selectively social person. It's good that even with 700 mn people, not many people are in it. The people with whom I don't want to interact more aren’t yet in Telegram. That's an appeal to me. - Developing bots is a bliss. So easy and effective. - SO helped a bunch of HS kids with their Bio study before a big test, the quiz feature was great. SO is not a technical person, and it was easy for her to set up a group, no phone numbers, create quizzes and so on. She loved it.

rejectfinite 4y ago
Discord does all this too? + the server rooms.

allarm 4y ago

Yesterday I chatted in Telegram with my friends about a gadget I was considering to purchase - I’ve got an ad of this gadget in Instagram almost immediately. I couldn’t reproduce it by mentioning some other trendy stuff, but it triggered me anyway. Has anyone experienced the same?

indymike 4y ago
So you have instagram on the device too?
oaththrowaway 4y ago
Not on Telegram, but I've had some eeirie ads shown on Facebook after conversations I've had.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  Facebook stalks your friends and knows your social graph thanks to enough people leaking their contacts list (you're still exposed even if you don't share your own list). It could very well be that one of your friends looked up the product being discussed and FB (correctly) guessed based on other data they had that you're the one most likely to be interested in it (or alternatively just shown this ad to everyone in your friends group, but only you picked up on it).
  - oaththrowaway 4y ago
    The first one was we were talking about getting pizza for dinner after my in laws showed up. 10 minutes later a Papa John's ad showed up. We don't eat pizza normally. Second one was talking to one of my neighbors about their dog. For a few days I kept getting ads about dog leashes. I don't have a dog.

joe-collins 4y ago

Of those features, I have one objection: speech to text should be available to everyone as an accessibility feature, not locked behind a paywall.

hansel_der 4y ago
on mobile it is a feature of the os, not the app, so kinda available to everyone.

dmix 4y ago

4GB uploads eh... so good for movie filesharing maybe?

lucb1e 4y ago

Read the whole post and I have just one small question... where the heck do I sign up? There is no link, no steps to follow, there is no update available for my clients that would perhaps spawn a subscribe button somewhere... how much does premium even cost? I don't get it. I want to buy it, I've been wanting to pay for this service for so long (it just feels so shady this whole time, it's gigabytes of (unencrypted) storage for free? WCPGW), I just can't figure out how to buy this.

antirez 4y ago
They will start the rolling out in the next days.
- lucb1e 4y ago
  Oh that "This update is being rolled out gradually" refers to the payment becoming available? I thought it was about the text it belongs with, speaking of "over 100 fixes and optimizations" and other stuff, and that the subscription was available now (since "Today we're launching <star> Telegram Premium" in bold up top). Confusing, but thanks for the reply!
  - bathory 4y ago
    If you have an iOS device, you can force the app store to refresh and update Telegram. Then once updated, in the app under settings, you can select Telegram Premium and pay with Apple Pay
    - lucb1e 4y ago
      Not on iOS but thanks! I wonder if it'll come to the f-droid version, but otherwise I'm still using the official desktop client so it should be possible there.
19h 4y ago
I was only able to buy premium when I switched my account to my US number and then back to my German number..

zamadatix 4y ago

After Hangouts died (yeah it's still Google Chat now but it's not the multi-function tool it used to be before they chopped it up to announce a piece is migrating to Chat) I switched to Signal. If I were to do that transition all over again I would do Telegram instead. Signal sounds nice but it's a bit overbearing - backups are somewhere between difficult to impossible depending on the device, there is no web client, and it's only open source in that you can audit source or run your own independent chat network (3rd party clients on the official server are treated as hostile) not as in it's an open community. Despite all of this kind of stuff being defended for contrived hyper-secure hyper-private reasoning you can't send a chat without giving out your phone number and it's ridiculously easy to cause your verification number to change making people numb to all of the protection in the first place. I did grab a Telegram account recently but only since Beeper supported it and I figured "why not" so I'm missing out on these features but I almost wonder if I would have even been so excited about new things like Beeper had I went Telegram originally. Interestingly of all the chat apps WhatsApp and Telegram usage seemed to align heavily. Not sure if that was just a quirk of my friend group or a more general thing.

hackernewds 4y ago
Most of this is expected for Signal, since they're the founders of Whatsapp after all.
enraged_camel 4y ago
Signal not having a web client annoys me to no end.
up6w6 4y ago
> and it's only open source in that you can audit source or run your own independent chat network (3rd party clients on the official server are treated as hostile) not as in it's an open community Do you happen to know why there is no Telegram client fork using Matrix protocol? it seems a pretty obvious thing to try given their advantage with UI and Matrix ecosystem's slow progress with friendly clients.
- 4y ago

nazka 4y ago

Honest question: How is Telegram better than Signal? Is Signal not the best in term of security and privacy?

HKH2 4y ago
Signal is not as convenient. People want convenience.
pmcginn 4y ago
I really tried to like Signal and convince my family to use it, but the lack of iOS backups, CarPlay support, and web client were dealbreakers for me. I'm no Meta fan but I've found WhatsApp to be the best mix of secure default settings plus usability. It's ugly as sin and doesn't have a Linux app, though.
prashantsengar 4y ago
Signal is better than Telegram in terms of security and privacy. But people use Telegram for its plethora of features, the UX, and its attention to even the smallest of details.

stereoradonc 4y ago

I went through the entire thread of conversations here, and I am surprised that anything related to Telegram is downvoted and the familiar trope of "security" is added. It's got best-in-class applications with lovely animations. The server now governs reactions to specific messages. Stickers are fun, with premium stickers having additional animations. From a technical perspective, they occupy least space; is "fast" and have a great ecosystem of third party clients. (I use "Owlgram") that offers additional UI elements without cluttering the experience. Tabbed chats are possible now; on Windows desktop, Unigram offers a stellar experience. Threat perceptions or "privacy concerns" are not in the lexicon of ordinary users like me and I am better off without Signal or WhatsApp. WhatsApp reminds me of what Telegram was 5 years back. I think it is time to reconsider the association of Russia with the application. Criticism is fine, but much of it directed against Telegram appears biased and coloured. I don't work for Telegram, but am a happy user. I couldn't get my folks to understand XMPP or Matrix, or even get my colleagues to switch from any other competing application. This is fine by me. Other finely grained privacy options (ability to control who can call you or add you to groups) are critical for my needs. Yes, it could be better, but no other application offers those controls. Besides, it's easy to chat with others using "usernames" without the hassle of handing out phone numbers. Bravo!

RyanShook 4y ago
I don’t hav strong feelings about Telegram but the fact that they have 700m installs without any paid advertising is just incredible.
- alfongj 4y ago
  WhatsApp got there faster with no ads either
hiq 4y ago
Telegram is criticized because it's way below than the state of the art when it comes to security, while still claiming (official website) that "messages are heavily encrypted" and that it "keeps your messages safe from hacker attacks" even though it does both way worse than e.g. WhatsApp and Signal. I don't think a potential association with Russia is the main problem; what about E2EE by default, including for group chats? It's mind-boggling that it's 2022 and we still have to trust that whoever controls Telegram's servers doesn't abuse their powers and is diligent enough to protect them. It's fine to celebrate Telegram for its features, but let's not pretend that this criticism is unwarranted.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

19h 4y ago

I’ve been using telegram since 2013 every single day. I don’t want my chat app to drain my battery, I don’t want it to waste bandwidth and I want to be able to have so little latency that I feels real-time no matter where I am. Telegram feels like that group of people they warned you about. Sexual and political freedom. Be whatever you want others to see you like. Easy bot API, deep event based td-lib SDK, censorship bypass through MTProto proxies. Delete messages you sent before your crush sees them because you changed your mind. Send messages anonymously in a group if you have multiple admins. Forbid people from clicking your profile when your messages are forwarded. See the people who saw your messages in a group. Telegram feels like the last place where as a European I’m not dealing with US-identity ideology, where I’m not dealing with copyright censorship, where everyone can speak up no matter how normal or insane. In this moment I have 17 bots keeping me up to date with all the things happening, and telegram has essentially become the single stream of news and online social interactions for me.

kaba0 4y ago
Could you recommend some useful bots? I use telegram heavily for communication, but never really looked into bots before, not sure what I’m missing.
- 19h 4y ago
  One example is a bot I wrote for PsychonautWiki that posts changes from Jira, MediaWiki via UDP and Paypal via IPN: https://github.com/psychonautwiki/eyeOfProvidence https://github.com/psychonautwiki/eyeOfProvidence. Another one I wrote recently is a bot that I ported to Telegram from its original IRC incarnation: https://github.com/19h/minuteman-bot https://github.com/19h/minuteman-bot. A bot I wrote that, when seeing a voice message, transcribes it using AssemblyAI and finally uses OpenAI GPT3 to summarise it: https://github.com/19h/transcriptbot https://github.com/19h/transcriptbot. (Needs an api key for both) Finally, a bot that monitors a tcp / http endpoint configured via a yaml file, can be configured to send alerts via SMS (via AWS SNS), Slack or Telegram: https://github.com/19h/zuse https://github.com/19h/zuse. There's a bunch more but most of them are very specific to my needs.

Inocez 4y ago

Improve the ability to search chat history for Asian regional languages, such as Chinese and Japanese https://bugs.telegram.org/c/724 https://bugs.telegram.org/c/724