this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2024
8 points (83.3% liked)

Privacy

31876 readers
1 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Related communities

Chat rooms

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
k_o_t@lemmy.ml
tmpod@lemmy.pt
Yayannick@lemmy.ml
ranok@sopuli.xyz
8
Finally got rid of telegram, congratulations to me (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 year ago by Gooey0210@sh.itjust.works to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
43 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

It was a many months transition, and it's finally done

Fun thing, you can actually make a backup of all* your messages, groups, contacts, etc. So before leaving you can have all of your data in case you need that one contact or something

The final red flag was as that allegedly Russian authorities were messing with people's deleted messages. Not for the first time there are news that they could read, modify, delete, see location, and etc. Screw it, this is unsafe, I'm out.

Also, these days telegram is really at the state of a pile of garbage, bloated, buggy, and shady messenger.

all 44 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] trippingonthewire@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

I deleted telegram long ago, but not my account, just the apps.

As of recent, I wanted to log back in and actually delete my phone number from there, so there's no more association.

I can't login. I download the app, and it sends a verification code through Telegram and won't do SMS, but I'm not logged in at all so I can't get the code.

I'm stuck there. I contacted support and they're yet to respond. :p

[–] Kiryu@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Why did Telegram get so popular in the privacy scene compared to Signal in the first place? To my knowledge Signal came out first and never had a history of breaches or leaks.

[–] Quintus@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I can't speak for the privacy scene but in my country it's pretty popular merely because of anonimity (which boils down to not having to use a phone number) and Discord-like server/groups. For porn and other NSFW content, it is pretty popular.

[–] Kiryu@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ah I did not know Signal required a phone number compared to Telegram not requiring one. Thanks.

[–] Matt@lemdro.id 1 points 1 year ago

Telegram still requires a phone number to sign up, but they have had usernames that can be used to contact people without needing their phone number. Signal is only now finally rolling out usernames.

[–] Gooey0210@sh.itjust.works -1 points 1 year ago

Telegram came out a year earlier in that signal, and because immediately popular amongst young people and drug dealers in Russia

[–] rdri@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Maybe because it offers public chats and channels? Something other apps lack.

Also the best desktop experience out of all apps I've tried.

[–] spaduf@slrpnk.net -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think the big reason that nobody's mentioned yet is simply that they were earlier. Back when projects like Tox and Matrix were first starting to pop up, telegram was already fully formed. Signal didn't come until at least a year later and didn't have feature parity until several years later. Telegram by contrast was a much closer experience to WhatsApp and Messenger, making the transition much easier, particularly for low-tech knowledge users.

[–] scratchandgame@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Also, these days telegram is really at the state of a pile of garbage, bloated, buggy, and shady messenger.

Every messenger is.

[–] Ascend910@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have been living under a rock, what happened to Telegram?

[–] ritchie@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It is not considered a good alternative as a messaging app for privacy folks and because the source code is not open, it is not E2E encrypted by default (you need to start a secret chat or something to make your conversation encrypted) if I remember correctly.

[–] ris@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

You remember incorrect. All Clients are open source:

Telegram apps are open source and support reproducible builds. Anyone can independently verify that Telegram apps you download from App Store or Google Play were built using the exact same code that we publish

In Fdroid there are also forks. But yes, their servers are closed source and centralized.

Still its not recommended. It requires Phone number and as you said its E2ee is not on by default and is not soooo good.

[–] Safipok@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

So what do you use to send, receive and store 2GB ish files to other people?

Edit: Would be great if some non-selfhosting solution was suggested here.

[–] toastal@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Magic wormhole, Bitorrent

[–] Safipok@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

How do you share using BitTorrent. I had a lot of problem sharing with BT, especially on tracker choosing reasons and port problems.

[–] dukethorion@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago

Nobody in this entire thread of FUD has posted a single link to support any claim of Russian data intrusion.

[–] progettarsi@feddit.it 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

tg premium user here, WTF? i tought telegram was privacy respectfull and pretty secure, what changed/happened? that's not the first post i saw abt It. also, any alternatives? with almost same features and as many channels/groups as telegram ofc like don't suggest me signal or Matrix nobody Is on that platforms...

EDIT: lmao people Just downvoted me for asking... what a world

[–] LWD@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Telegram hasn't been secure since basically day 1. IIRC it went something like

Security experts: Never roll your own cryptography.
Telegram: We rolled our own cryptography!
Security experts: Don't. And it's broken.
Telegram: uhhhh.... We fixed it.
Security experts: It still looks really bad. Stop it.
Telegram: says nothing

[–] myplacedk@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Security is a spectrum. Telegram has never been the most secure alternative, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have any security.

[–] LWD@lemm.ee -1 points 1 year ago

From my first link

The safest way to use Telegram would be not to. However, if you have no other choice, the best approach would be to use a clean burner phone to communicate with another clean burner phone. Change them regularly.

...

In short, for better protection, use anything else.

[–] LordKitsuna@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Gonna have to disagree. Telegram is the ONLY chat app with ACTUALLY NATIVE code clients on desktop and mobile. Its the only one that isn't website in a box trash that's slow heavy and buggy. I use discord mostly because it's where everyone is but i fucking hate everything about it and wish people would use telegram.

If you think other chat apps don't read/process metadata from your dms and such your an idiot. Nothing is safe short of self hosted matrix with full E2E encryption or similar and ain't nobody doing that.

[–] Im_old@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Nothing is safe short of self hosted matrix with full E2E encryption or similar and ain’t nobody doing that.

Well, I'm doing that. But I'm nobody, so I guess your point still stands 😅

But also, I don't judge the chats mainly by their client, but the protocol. Telegram is not open and so can't be audited properly, that's my concern.

[–] FunnyFondue576@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Good for you. I still don't know how to move my friends and relatives to Signal. Any tips with that?

[–] jjlinux@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do what I did. Let everyone you care about on TG that you're closing that crap, with your reasons for doing so. Inform them of your moving to signal, session, whatever. Be clear that, otherwise, they can try calling you and wish them good luck. Close TG on the day you set as deadline. I did that and whomever didn't get a Signal or Session account has to call me. I've never looked back.

[–] Delusion6903@discuss.online 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

My family is all on iMessage. I told them if they didn't install Signal I wouldn't reply to their texts.

At first, whenever they texted I would just reply with something that looked automated like "This user is no longer available via text message. Please install Signal if you wish to communicate."

[–] jjlinux@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago

That's freaking epic. Love it.

[–] Hanrahan@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

I did something similar and just sent a link to Signal when IPhone friends and family SMS'd me, worked....eventually :) (am on Android)

[–] Scirocco@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Easy! Just replace their usual SMS app with Signal, and then every contact they have that does use Signal is private and secure!

Oh. Wait. That's exactly the functionality that Signal removed in their effort to ensure that Signal is never widely adopted.....

[–] Synnr@sopuli.xyz 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I didn't agree with their decision at all at the time, but now that I realize they made it a little while after it gained widespread adoption and people stopped using it because "Signal isn't actually secure!" ... seems like people were expecting a secure messenger to be, well, secure. So they would chat about anything and everything thinking "I am using a secure messenger, these messages can't be read..." and tech ignorance is a dangerous thing if you're trying to be secure. I would've preferred a colored window and un-closable message for SMS chats, but oh well. I like that they've introduced usernames so you don't have to give out your real number.

[–] Scirocco@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago

And that irony now is that messenger on Android is RCS compliant and currently has this exact functionality, except it's less trustworthy.

Once again I'm using one messenger and everyone else who's using an RCS messenger gets encrypted, but SMS (clearly marked as such) is a viable fallback.

[–] SnokenKeekaGuard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Honestly, signal is the only thing I would ideally use. But whatsapp is still a better second messenger than telegram.

[–] kratoz29@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But whatsapp is still a better second messenger than telegram.

You didn't mean that.

[–] SnokenKeekaGuard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm sorry. It might be meta owned, but its metadata theyre stealing. I still trust the e2e encryption. Naively perhaps

[–] Vilian@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

telegram e2e encryption is open-source, whatsapp not

[–] Anamana@feddit.de -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Almost no one uses telegram e2e, because it's not automatically activated. Also group chats are not e2e.

I still like to use telegram tho.

Also doesn't Whatsapp just use the signal protocol for e2e?

[–] pipariturbiini@sopuli.xyz 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Also Telegram's E2EE chats don't work on desktop apparently, and you are not able to see message contents in the notification (which is a plus or minus depending on you)

Asked a friend earlier today if we could use secret chat. He declined because he mostly chats on desktop, and apparently wants to see messages from notifications while driving.

[–] Anamana@feddit.de -1 points 1 year ago

Jep, all of this is true. I have two chats with some people because of that.

Also you can't search for words within e2e chats, which is a pain in the ass sometimes.

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is it even possible to get a telegram account these days? I heard their SMS service was down or something making it impossible to sign up and they don't support email.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

[–] Yamayo@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Stop it with the creative commons link in your comments.

Also, there is nothing wrong with Telegram logins or new accounts.

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Stop it with the creative commons link in your comments.

No.

Also, there is nothing wrong with Telegram logins or new accounts.

Just gave it a shot. Doesn't work.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

[–] Yamayo@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I get notifications of new contacts that join Telegram so it does. I don't need to try it myself.

And I don't understand your cc link and your down votes speak for themselves so stop the silliness.

[–] onlinepersona@programming.dev -1 points 1 year ago

And I don’t understand your cc link and your down votes speak for themselves so stop the silliness.

Do you fear what you don't understand? "I don't understand it, so stop".

And I don't care about downvotes. Go on, downvote. It has no real life effect.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0