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Comment by nikivi | Hacker News Reader

Despite Telegram's shortcomings in not using well supported crypto and not having default end to end encryption on all conversations. Their clients for both iOS and mac are amazing in that they are native.

And unlike WhatsApp you don't need to carry your phone with you all the time just to send a message to someone on desktop.

Their bot API is also really rich. I am thinking of rewriting some of the Alfred workflows I wrote in Go as Telegram bots. For example I always wanted my Web Searches workflow (https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/alfred-web-searches) be present on my phone in some way. It seems I can actually do just that and reuse the Go code I wrote already.

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I agree, without taking security into consideration, Telegram's user experience is great.

The clients are very nice, as the data is stored on the server, you can access it from any device (great on desktops and tablets, I hate not being able to send whatsapp messages from my iPad) and it doesn't fill your phone with the stupid videos people send to groups (many of my family members ask me why their phones are full and WhatsApp is always the culprit).

Furthermore, Telegram Channels are great. It is all the advantages of Twitter, without the noise. Some Spanish journalists that I like are starting to create Telegram Channels and it is a great experience to just receive their messages, without the RTs, and angry answers of other users.

Furthermore, I have a Channel myself which I use to publish opinions. It has only 10 followers, which are friends of mine which I know will appreciate. I really like the experience.

Also, Telegram has great integration with IFTTT, which I use a lot!

I'm also a big fan of the bot API. I think it's very elegant in its approach to solving the problem of spam (bots can't really initiate chats, they can only respond to messages, or post to chats / groups where they were directly invited by a human).

The performance and convenience of their desktop app is also very good. As a "I'll use it if I have to" WhatsApp user, I find having to re-authenticate the web app basically every time I launch it, and it constantly complaining about me switching off WhatsApp on my phone is almost a dealbreaker.

Here you go https://www.whatsapp.com/download/

Also, Telegram has private keys stored on their server, and recently the Russian government demanded they hand over the key otherwise they will be banned from Russia. This can only happen because the key is on their server. I think that's a big deal.

WhatsApp desktop is an Electron app that is leagues behind the Telegram clients. It also requires your phone to be on and connected to the network. It's not comparable at all.

As far as I know, secret Telegram chats don't have a private key stored anywhere but your phone.

WhatsApp mac app is Electron wrapper over web chat. And it still requires your phone to be present and on battery to chat.

> And it still requires your phone to be present and on battery to chat.

That's a cheap price to pay for E2EE only.

Wire[1], another E2EE chat application (using libsignal, just like WhatsApp and Signal itself), does not require this. It also has open-sourced its client and server applications[2], and is in the process of documenting how to run them yourself.

It also has a pretty solid API[3].

One downside for JS haters, though, is that while the application isn't a wrapper for the site it is still Electron.

1. https://wire.com/en/security/ 2. https://github.com/wireapp/wire-server 3. https://developer.wire.com

I'd recommend https://about.riot.im/

Solid crypto (Megolm)[1], open source, federated.

[1] https://matrix.org/docs/guides/e2e_implementation.html

In Matrix, E2EE isn't enabled by default[1], and the option to enable it is in fact marked with a warning that it comes with potentially unwanted side-effects. This isn't the same, and the arguments that call recommending Telegram for E2EE encryption disingenuous apply to Matrix/Riot recommendations too.

One other issue I have with Matrix is the fact that they're in the process of completely rewriting their reference implementation in Go despite the fact that - as far as I remember - the first one, in Python, isn't entirely complete[2]. Combined with the app-bridge song and dance[3] there's too much in flux for me to recommend in good conscience.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly (speaking as a "regular" user - the type needed to achieve mass adoption), the client is horrendous. This is especially apparent when compared with Wire, but I'd go as far as saying it's apparent even when compared with some IRC clients. At least Signal's UI/UX is passable. Encryption didn't catapult Telegram to 200 million monthly users. A slick UI, a half-decent UX, and some good marketing did.

1. Your link - https://about.riot.im/security/

2. https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse#introduction

3. https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-bridge

The difference is that there is no way to even enable encryption on Telegram desktop clients.

Edit: Aside from that, while the Telegram UI is nice, it doesn't even try to compete with the interfaces commonly found in IRC clients (i.e. no bubbles, one or more lines per message, can actually fit more than a handful of messages without scrolling, and so on... see qwebirc).

1) So it’s true that Matrix is still in beta and E2E is not yet on by default on private rooms (but we’re working on it).

2) Synapse (python impl) is however “complete” (for implementing the Matrix 0.3 spec at least, and newer stuff) and has been for several years. We should spell this out better in the README.

The reason for Dendrite (go impl) is to escape the python GIL and switch to a multidb/multiwriter architecture to keep up with the load on massive HSes like matrix.org’s.

3. I have no idea what the “app-bridge” song and dance is that you’re complaining about: bridges are one of the most powerful and fun bits of Matrix. Perhaps you don’t like the config used to provision them? I’m not sure how this impacts normal users.

4. You may need to give more info on why you feel Riot is “horrendous” so we can fix specifics :)

I'm not the poster you replied to, but my current complaint is that message deletion is rather slow.

Any ideas if they're planning on doing something about not being able to see conversation history on new devices? That was the limitation that drove me away the last time I tried it out.

As far as I'm aware they consider it to be a feature, and I don't particularly disagree. The rationale is that if somehow someone else manages to add a device to your account (which you get notified about on your other devices), they cannot see your chat history up until the moment the device was linked.

Once they're all linked you don't have this issue again so it's kind of a one-time thing.

By the way it should not be difficult to take open-source Telegram c++ client and replace its backend to work with any other protocol.

> That's a cheap price to pay for E2EE only.

It may be cheap for you.

But why not let me make that decision? You're assuming

- a) everyone has a phone number

- b) everyone has ONE phone number

- c) everyone has a phone

- d) everyone has ONE phone

- e) said phones have a good battery life, lots of storage, and are always on a fast unlimited internet.

- f) you want to give your phone number to everyone you want to talk to

For some of my chats, I'd want that sure, and the price in those cases is cheap.

For many other cases, no, I'm not willing to pay that price. I'm not willing to keep my phone on and with me all the time and provide it with fast expensive internet, just so I could say hello to some people.

You might say that I can find another service, or that I don't understand the price I'm paying. I did and I do. I'm only debating your claim that the price is cheap and putting it into general perspective.

But Facebook gets all your metadata which sucks. You'd better use something like Threema or Signal.

"This can only happen because the key is on their server."

No, they can ask them for the keys even if they don't have them on their servers. And one would think that a likely response would be "We can't do that, we don't store the keys on our servers". Which is exactly what happened

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/21/telegram_ordered_ha...

It doesn't mean anything. Once you have allowed Durov to read your contact list and to store your messages on his server, you cannot control what we will do with them. Even without any laws Durov can voluntarily share this data with any government or corporation and you won't be able to prevent this.

And WhatsApp is Facebook. It's kinda a bad deal all 'round.

Yes I wish people would start using it. I am more or less locked into Whatsapp because many of my friends won't change. Its annoying siting at the computer, a Whatsapp message comes in and you need to switch to the shitty tocuhscreen keyboard then back again. I can reply to a telegram message from the computer and use a proper keyboard. The context switch seems far less interrupting to me as a result.

This. I absolutely hate that.

By the way, there is Whatsapp Web where you can type with your keyboard. But it's clunky (somewhat less clunky with the Opera integration, if you use Opera), fickle and still requires you to have your phone on and with enough battery in the same wifi as the computer, which isn't always trivial.

Just a small correction: it doesn't need to be on the same network as the computer.

Thanks, I thought it did.

I was in the same boat, but I decided to just make a jump. I've managed to persuade few closest friends to just try it out (half of them also ditched whatsapp altogether. With rest I just communicate via SMS. While I do lack groups, I've found out I'm not missing out much.

Very concerned about the security but I want to add that Telegram voice calls work excellent while with WhatsApp I have constant hiccups.

I also wrote a wrapper for their bot API to send myself notifications from a server, 10/10 painless, easy, reliable so far. Would recommend.

Of course they have good apps because they hire best developers to make you give them away all of your contacts and messages.

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