5 ms·

Tell HN: Telegram sole reason why I still have my contacts since 10 years

31 points by xkcd1963 4y ago

Today my new Android Motorola just died, I don't know why, maybe it was a terrestrial cosmic ray? And I don't use backups because of privacy reasons and the Cloud options have anyway too little storage space. So all my stuff over the last year is gone. Now Whatsapp, every time something like that happens, just deletes everything. On contrare, Telegram saved me like 5x already. Why do we still use Whatsapp I don't understand, its such a crappy experience in comparison.

dieselgate 4y ago
What’sapp is kind of a communication monopoly in a way especially because it’s owned by Meta. I severely dislike using it but while traveling for example in Mexico it’s the default communication method for most people including locals so while I don’t use it now have been roped into using it in the past Not familiar with telegram personally
- sofixa 4y ago
  > What’sapp is kind of a communication monopoly in a way especially because it’s owned by Meta It's near monopoly status (despite the poor UX) predates the Meta acquisition, and in fact was probably the main reason for the it.
planitup 4y ago
Consider https://www.etesync.com/ https://www.etesync.com/ , an end-to-end encrypted contacts/calendar service. It's available as self hosted, or paid hosting.
1ba9115454 4y ago
WhatsApp is end 2 end encrypted. Its not that you lost your data you lost your private key. WhatsApp has your data but they can't decrypt it. With telegram your data must be unencrypted in the cloud. If you value privacy stay with WhatsApp.
- izacus 4y ago
  He obviously values not having his personal connections destroyed much more than some nebulous privacy talk.
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 4y ago
  Bullshit. Facebook makes all the software so of course it has keys to your data so by extension the US government does too.
dvngnt_ 4y ago
I'm confused. you don't use local backups for privacy reasons, but you use a 3rd party telegram service to store your contacts
- MrDresden 4y ago
  Also confused over this. If privacy is a concern (and it should be) then why not simply host an instance of say Nextcloud and use something like DavX5 to sync contacts to it. Add incremental encrypted backups to a 3rd service and your good. This is my setup at least.
  - ashwagary 4y ago
    >Also confused over this. I think he means Telegram already has his contacts since he uses it to communicate with them.
    - MrDresden 4y ago
      >>Also confused over this. >I think he means Telegram already has his contacts since he uses it to communicate with them. I am confused over the statement that local backups are not being done due to privacy concerns, while Telegram, which is not a end-to-end encrypted service, is. These two facts stand at odds with each other. If your immediate local surroundings are not safe enough for encrypted backups of your own data, then remote environments which you have no control over are not going to be any more secure or safe.
      - xkcd1963 4y ago
        Whatsapp gives the option to store backups on my google's drive account which has a free max. of 15 GB compare that to the limitless storage on Telegram and whatsapp offers the encryption of the backup optionally. https://i.imgur.com/R3j0a3h.jpg https://i.imgur.com/R3j0a3h.jpg One way or another my backup is stored on a 3rd party service, though I confess, it is of course better if it is encrypted. I don't buy that Whatsapp cares about my privacy. Why would the option to encrypt be optional?
MrJohz 4y ago
You don't use backups because of privacy reasons, but the reason Telegram can save your data is because it's using backups. I'm also not the biggest fan of WhatsApp, but a lot of its quirks and oddities do come down to one big design decision, which is that all your chats are e2e encrypted, with the key to the encryption living in your phone. This makes for (relatively) secure communication, but it has the side effect of making the UX in other areas suffer. For example, if your phone dies and you don't back up your chats, there's no way of getting the data back, because the encryption key necessary to unlock the data in the first place lives in your old, dead phone. Or the kind of irritating way that WhatsApp Web works: it needs to connect to your phone because your phone is the only place that your messages are stored. If you compare this to Telegram, they can do a lot of this stuff more clearly, but this is because they store your messages on their servers, which means that you only need to connect to their servers to view the data. This is obviously a lot more convenient, but the cost is privacy: your communication can no longer be e2e encrypted because otherwise the Telegram servers wouldn't be able to act as a middleman. (Which, as I said earlier, is necessary for the UX experience you're after.) This is a broad simplification, and there's a bit more going on than just this, but it's a good mental model to have when understanding why the UX of Telegram and the UX of WhatsApp are so different in certain places. That said: * "WhatsApp isn't completely e2e, there's flaws/loopholes/situations where not everything is encrypted" - this is almost certainly the case, I'm not saying that WhatsApp is the be-all-and-end-all of encrypted communication, and it is still a company that you're trusting with your data. Think of WhatsApp more like a bike lock: for most people it doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to be hard enough to get in that it's not worth doing. If your actions make you more likely to be targeted, then WhatsApp may well not cut it as a tool. * "You can encrypt messages in Telegram" is another valid point, and I did do this with my partner for a few years. In practice, the UX here is far worse than that of WhatsApp, and now we mostly use normal Telegram chats. This might have changed more recently, but a lot of the big issues (like not being able to see the chat on multiple devices) are limitations of the technology rather than implementation. * "There are tools that do have end-to-end encryption but much better UX" - I am sure this is true, but at least where I am, the three main competitors are SMS, WhatsApp, and Telegram. I'm told Signal is pretty good, but no-one around me uses it so there's not much point using it. Hopefully with the new EU legislation around being able to sync up messages from different applications, this space will become more active.
antman 4y ago
Viber keeps them but if you had renamed them they revert back to your friend's original username. Does telegram keep the way you renamed your contacts?
- xkcd1963 4y ago
  I don't know. I would assume they use the name that you define in Telegram for them, and the initial name was the contact that you used on the phone before it was synced.
quickthrower2 4y ago
Whatsapp is also crap in that you cannot block unknown numbers in general. Just one at a time. So unlimited 24/7 spam bot calls are more than possible.
tinus_hn 4y ago
“I still have all my data, I would have lost it because I did not want to store it with the Americans, but it was saved because I stored it with the Russians.” Okay, good for you. Consider using a phone that allows you to store backups on your own disk if you care about privacy.
- xkcd1963 4y ago
  In your own terminology: "At least the Russians don't pretend to lose all my candies, which is highly convenient for me, and I don't have to spend money on storage"
  - tinus_hn 4y ago
    Whatsapp doesn’t ‘pretend to lose your candies’ it doesn’t store them. For your privacy.
    - xkcd1963 4y ago
      Meta has been storing contacts for many years now. I mean, you can find relevant information also on hackernews e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20881512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20881512
      - tinus_hn 4y ago
        Your link does not relate to your point. WhatsApp stores the list of numbers who are in your contacts, not the rest of the information and does not share the list with the rest of Meta: https://faq.whatsapp.com/1191526044909364/ https://faq.whatsapp.com/1191526044909364/ > We care about your privacy and we don't share your contact list with Meta Platforms Inc. or other Meta Companies for their own use, even when they provide us with services. If your argument is nothing more than ‘Meta is evil and everything they do is evil and they do everything that is evil’ then just say so, we can just end this thread because it is pointless.
        4y ago

31 points by xkcd1963 4y ago

dieselgate 4y ago

What’sapp is kind of a communication monopoly in a way especially because it’s owned by Meta. I severely dislike using it but while traveling for example in Mexico it’s the default communication method for most people including locals so while I don’t use it now have been roped into using it in the past Not familiar with telegram personally

sofixa 4y ago
> What’sapp is kind of a communication monopoly in a way especially because it’s owned by Meta It's near monopoly status (despite the poor UX) predates the Meta acquisition, and in fact was probably the main reason for the it.

planitup 4y ago

Consider https://www.etesync.com/ https://www.etesync.com/ , an end-to-end encrypted contacts/calendar service. It's available as self hosted, or paid hosting.

1ba9115454 4y ago

WhatsApp is end 2 end encrypted. Its not that you lost your data you lost your private key. WhatsApp has your data but they can't decrypt it. With telegram your data must be unencrypted in the cloud. If you value privacy stay with WhatsApp.

izacus 4y ago
He obviously values not having his personal connections destroyed much more than some nebulous privacy talk.
Am4TIfIsER0ppos 4y ago
Bullshit. Facebook makes all the software so of course it has keys to your data so by extension the US government does too.

dvngnt_ 4y ago

I'm confused. you don't use local backups for privacy reasons, but you use a 3rd party telegram service to store your contacts

MrDresden 4y ago
Also confused over this. If privacy is a concern (and it should be) then why not simply host an instance of say Nextcloud and use something like DavX5 to sync contacts to it. Add incremental encrypted backups to a 3rd service and your good. This is my setup at least.
- ashwagary 4y ago
  >Also confused over this. I think he means Telegram already has his contacts since he uses it to communicate with them.
  - MrDresden 4y ago
    >>Also confused over this. >I think he means Telegram already has his contacts since he uses it to communicate with them. I am confused over the statement that local backups are not being done due to privacy concerns, while Telegram, which is not a end-to-end encrypted service, is. These two facts stand at odds with each other. If your immediate local surroundings are not safe enough for encrypted backups of your own data, then remote environments which you have no control over are not going to be any more secure or safe.
    - xkcd1963 4y ago
      Whatsapp gives the option to store backups on my google's drive account which has a free max. of 15 GB compare that to the limitless storage on Telegram and whatsapp offers the encryption of the backup optionally. https://i.imgur.com/R3j0a3h.jpg https://i.imgur.com/R3j0a3h.jpg One way or another my backup is stored on a 3rd party service, though I confess, it is of course better if it is encrypted. I don't buy that Whatsapp cares about my privacy. Why would the option to encrypt be optional?

MrJohz 4y ago

You don't use backups because of privacy reasons, but the reason Telegram can save your data is because it's using backups. I'm also not the biggest fan of WhatsApp, but a lot of its quirks and oddities do come down to one big design decision, which is that all your chats are e2e encrypted, with the key to the encryption living in your phone. This makes for (relatively) secure communication, but it has the side effect of making the UX in other areas suffer. For example, if your phone dies and you don't back up your chats, there's no way of getting the data back, because the encryption key necessary to unlock the data in the first place lives in your old, dead phone. Or the kind of irritating way that WhatsApp Web works: it needs to connect to your phone because your phone is the only place that your messages are stored. If you compare this to Telegram, they can do a lot of this stuff more clearly, but this is because they store your messages on their servers, which means that you only need to connect to their servers to view the data. This is obviously a lot more convenient, but the cost is privacy: your communication can no longer be e2e encrypted because otherwise the Telegram servers wouldn't be able to act as a middleman. (Which, as I said earlier, is necessary for the UX experience you're after.) This is a broad simplification, and there's a bit more going on than just this, but it's a good mental model to have when understanding why the UX of Telegram and the UX of WhatsApp are so different in certain places. That said: * "WhatsApp isn't completely e2e, there's flaws/loopholes/situations where not everything is encrypted" - this is almost certainly the case, I'm not saying that WhatsApp is the be-all-and-end-all of encrypted communication, and it is still a company that you're trusting with your data. Think of WhatsApp more like a bike lock: for most people it doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to be hard enough to get in that it's not worth doing. If your actions make you more likely to be targeted, then WhatsApp may well not cut it as a tool. * "You can encrypt messages in Telegram" is another valid point, and I did do this with my partner for a few years. In practice, the UX here is far worse than that of WhatsApp, and now we mostly use normal Telegram chats. This might have changed more recently, but a lot of the big issues (like not being able to see the chat on multiple devices) are limitations of the technology rather than implementation. * "There are tools that do have end-to-end encryption but much better UX" - I am sure this is true, but at least where I am, the three main competitors are SMS, WhatsApp, and Telegram. I'm told Signal is pretty good, but no-one around me uses it so there's not much point using it. Hopefully with the new EU legislation around being able to sync up messages from different applications, this space will become more active.

antman 4y ago

Viber keeps them but if you had renamed them they revert back to your friend's original username. Does telegram keep the way you renamed your contacts?

xkcd1963 4y ago
I don't know. I would assume they use the name that you define in Telegram for them, and the initial name was the contact that you used on the phone before it was synced.

quickthrower2 4y ago

Whatsapp is also crap in that you cannot block unknown numbers in general. Just one at a time. So unlimited 24/7 spam bot calls are more than possible.

tinus_hn 4y ago

“I still have all my data, I would have lost it because I did not want to store it with the Americans, but it was saved because I stored it with the Russians.” Okay, good for you. Consider using a phone that allows you to store backups on your own disk if you care about privacy.

xkcd1963 4y ago
In your own terminology: "At least the Russians don't pretend to lose all my candies, which is highly convenient for me, and I don't have to spend money on storage"
- tinus_hn 4y ago
  Whatsapp doesn’t ‘pretend to lose your candies’ it doesn’t store them. For your privacy.
  - xkcd1963 4y ago
    Meta has been storing contacts for many years now. I mean, you can find relevant information also on hackernews e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20881512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20881512
    - tinus_hn 4y ago
      Your link does not relate to your point. WhatsApp stores the list of numbers who are in your contacts, not the rest of the information and does not share the list with the rest of Meta: https://faq.whatsapp.com/1191526044909364/ https://faq.whatsapp.com/1191526044909364/ > We care about your privacy and we don't share your contact list with Meta Platforms Inc. or other Meta Companies for their own use, even when they provide us with services. If your argument is nothing more than ‘Meta is evil and everything they do is evil and they do everything that is evil’ then just say so, we can just end this thread because it is pointless.
      - 4y ago