In recent years, WhatsApp has become one of the most popular messaging apps worldwide, connecting billions of people across the globe. However, beneat

Is Telegram really that bad and should i look more into it or is sticking to signal really the best option?

  •  people_are_cute   ( @people_are_cute@lemmy.sdf.org ) 
    English
    3•1 year ago

    Well, movie pirates use it so it must be safe! /s

    Telegram has a lot of pros, but it can be safe only as long as you and every person in your circle sets it as such. Chats are not encrypted by default, you have to set it in group settings. Your phone number isn’t hidden by default, you have to manually set its visibility to “Nobody”. It even asks to let it pull your contacts, Facebook-style. There might be several such gimmicks, but generally they are easy to notice and control.

    The biggest advantage(?) Telegram has is that everything is saved server-side instead of your phone. So you don’t need to keep having to back up your chats and be scared of losing everything if you lost your phone.

      •  constantokra   ( @constantokra@lemmy.one ) English
        4•1 year ago

        Pulling your contacts lets it get a pretty good fingerprint of who you are, from who you talk to. It can already get that from who you actually message, but it’s getting a lot more information about you from pulling the whole list and not just who you talk to through telegram.

        •  fuckyou_m8   ( @fuckyou_m8@lemmy.fmhy.ml ) English
          2•1 year ago

          I understand, but if you are new to this conversation app, right after installing it would be good to know which of your contacts your are able to talk to there. I don’t see asking one by one and adding them manually a good solution, maybe there is another one I don’t see