I know a lot of people have / are considering moving to Telegram because of the upcoming changes to their Terms & Conditions, but the vibe in general was busy moving across anyway.
For the following reasons.
- Telegram operates on all your devices. So your world doesn’t stop if your phone gets smashed or goes flat or missing. You can access Telegram on iPad, MacBook, PC and even on the web, so you never have to drop the ball.
- WhatsApp uses an outrageous amount of space on your device. Smartphones aren’t cheap these days, and the prices vary considerably when it comes to phone memory size. As your WhatsApp chats grow, you’re constantly chasing the dragon with phone size. Getting more and more memory each time you buy a phone. It’s gonna end in tears.
- You can schedule messages on Telegram. I often want to message someone but the time or day of the message might be inappropriate. Like a business-related message at 4:30AM on a Sunday morning. Not everyone is part of the 4:30AM club, so I would schedule that message for Monday 8AM.
- Double speed for Telegram audio and video notes. That’s right – you just click X2 and you can get through your mate’s five-minute rambling message chop-chop.
- Telegram Audio notes keep playing while you use your phone. You can press play on a voice note and it keeps playing if you leave the chat. And it keeps going even when you leave the app to do other things on your phone.
- Telegram shows who forwarded message came from. So when you forward me a message, I can see who sent it to you.
- Telegram has cool one-minute video chat circles. You can leave a short video note, in the same way as you send a voice note. And it plays in a little circle – it’s pretty cool and fun.
- Telegram has ‘secret chats’. Telegram lets you have ‘secret chats’ with friends. Which means the chat is not stored in the cloud, but rather on your phone. It’s not often I use this feature, but it must be great for spies. Also because you can set the messages to self-destruct after a certain amount of time. Boom.
- Telegram lets you delete messages without telling everyone. Why WhatsApp feels it necessary to mention to everyone that you deleted something, we’ll never know. Does it ever not result in the other person asking you what you deleted? Telegram let’s you delete without everyone knowing.
- Telegram has almost no limits on file transfer size. You can send files up to 1,5gb in size on Telegram. Entire movies. Which means you can actually send more than 20 photos at a time. Imagine the freedom.
- Telegram’s channels and bots will change your life. You can access a myriad of incredibly useful ‘channels’ on Telegram – offering everything from streaming movies to stock tips. Anyone who orders Butler’s Pizza will know about their Tele Butler Bot (@tele_butler_bot) which handles everything from payment, to tracking your pizza from production to your door.
- Telegram lets you create folders. So chats with friends are in my ‘friends’ folder. Chats with idiots in my ‘idiots’ folder, and so on and so forth.
- No limit on Telegram group chat sizes (well, 200k people). Imagine having the freedom to grow a group bigger than 250 people? Imagine not being treated like a child?
- WhatsApp’s end-to-end nonsense. WhatsApp is only ‘end-to’ end’ encrypted because all the data is stored on your phone. But then you back that up to the cloud, right? Well, guess what, your backup is not encrypted. It’s all a bit silly. Get a grip – you’re not a spy. And when you want to be a spy, then make a secret chat on Telegram.
- It’s not owned by Facebook. I think you understand the great importance of this.
- Telegram allows multiple accounts. And you can jump from one account to the next, inside Telegram – on the same device.
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If you’re on iPhone, CLICK HERE to get the Telegram app.
If you’re on Android, CLICK HERE to get the Telegram app.
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THEN – FOR THE CONSPIRACY THEORISTS.
At about 500 million users and growing, Telegram has become a major problem for the Facebook corporation. Unable to compete with Telegram in quality and privacy, Facebook’s WhatsApp seems to have switched to covert marketing: Wikipedia editors have recently exposed multiple paid bots adding biased information into the WhatsApp Wikipedia article [1].
We have also detected bots which spread inaccurate information about Telegram on social media. Here are the three myths they are pushing:
Myth 1. “Telegram’s code is not open-source”.
In reality, all Telegram client apps have been open-source since 2013 [2]. Our encryption and API are fully documented and have been reviewed by security experts thousands of times. Moreover, Telegram is the only messaging app in the world that has verifiable builds both for iOS and Android [3]. As for WhatsApp, they intentionally obfuscate their code, making it impossible to verify their encryption and privacy.
Myth 2. “Telegram is Russian”.
In fact, Telegram has no servers or offices in Russia and was blocked there from 2018 to 2020 [4]. Telegram is still blocked in some authoritarian countries such as Iran, while WhatsApp and other “supposedly secure” apps have never had any issue in these places.
Myth 3. “Telegram is not encrypted”.
Every chat on Telegram has been encrypted since launch. We have Secret Chats that are end-to-end and Cloud Chats that also offer real-time secure and distributed cloud storage [5]. WhatsApp, on the other hand, had zero encryption for a few years, and then adopted an encryption protocol funded by the US Government [6]. Even if we assume that the WhatsApp encryption is solid, it’s invalidated via multiple backdoors and reliance on backups [7].
In 2019 alone, Facebook spent almost 10 billion dollars on marketing [8] (I guess this includes paid bots on Wikipedia and other sites).
Unlike Facebook, Telegram doesn’t spend any money, let alone billions of dollars, on marketing. We believe that people are smart enough to choose what is best for them. And, judging by the half a billion people using Telegram, this belief is justified.
[1] – WhatsApp Gives Users Ultimatum – Share Data with Facebook or Lose Access
[2] – In December 2020, the Wikipedia article about WhatsApp had the label “This article may have been created or edited in return for undisclosed payments, a violation of Wikipedia’s terms of use”. Related investigation is discussed here.
[3] – Telegram Source Code here
[4] – Reproducible Builds for Telegram Apps here
[4] – On Digital Resistance in Russia here
[5] – On Telegram Encryption here
[6] – U.S. Government Funded The WhatsApp Encryption here
[7] – Why WhatsApp Will Never Be Secure here
[8] – Facebook Marketing Spending from 2010 to 2019 here
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