10 ms·

Group Video Calls

241 points by jhabdas 5y ago

vishnumohandas 5y ago
I'm amazed by the pace at which Telegram ships features, and with what finesse.
- olah_1 5y ago
  They have the most productive and high quality engineers in the game. And I say this as someone that whinces at telegram for not having e2e encryption by default.
  - Yaina 5y ago
    The Telegram Apps are all great and have so many awesome features that are crucially also extremely well implemented. Everything seems so well thought through! It's just incredibly scary not to know anything about who these developers are, where they are located and most importantly how this is all financed! I understand Pavel Durov is a very wealthy man, but developing and hosting a popular global messenger service can't be cheap.
    - ticviking 5y ago
      TBH my threat model views Russian and Middle Eastern oligarchs and governments as less of an immediate threat to my freedoms than my own government or major US tech firms. Long run it's a problem, but until I have a app at the same risk/feature sweet spot I don't mind the downsides of telegram. (Edited cause I am utterly unable to spell)
      - nucleardog 5y ago
        This was part of how I settled on Telegram. Basically any western country can be secretly ordered to turn over all my information on the flimsiest of reasons, if it’s not already just intercepted through Five Eyes style arrangements. The chances of Russia volunteering to share my chat history with anyone that could actually impact my day to day life is pretty much nil, and I’m certainly not interesting to anyone in their sphere.
        stereoradonc 5y ago
        Bingo! Likewise. I'd like FSB to know what I did in the last one hour. I wonder if they really find it interesting to pursue me.
        deadalus 5y ago
        This is also the reason I prefer using VPN based in countries that are NOT based in USA/EU and that are not friendly to USA/EU -> Russia, China, Myanmar, Iran etc.
        novok 5y ago
        Secret 1:1 & group chat by default like signal, well labeled non-secret large chat rooms, open source clients and using standardized encryption and they'd do pretty well amongst the privacy crowd too.
        olah_1 5y ago
        sounds like you’re describing Matrix. It’s a shame that the only user friendly mobile client is called “fluffy chat” and seems to be targeted at furries or children.
    - finolex1 5y ago
      Is there anything secretive about their developers? I see a lot on LinkedIn for what it's worth.
  - fsflover 5y ago
    > whinces at telegram for not having e2e encryption by default On desktop* there is no e2ee even among the options. * where "desktop" includes GNU/Linux phones.
    - vetinari 5y ago
      As far that I'm aware, it is key management/distribution problem and how to expose it to the user. So in order to not manage them, only the device with the phone number that the account is registered with can do it. Desktop apps are not the ones where you create Telegram account; you only authorize them. For another example, Threema, which is E2EE by default, doesn't allow more than one device with the account (to use multiple devices, you must create several accounts, one for each device and link them, and then basically any chat is a group chat. For desktop use, the web client uses webrtc to talk to your device to use it as a proxy).
      - NilsIRL 5y ago
        I believe this is wrong based on the following: 1. I was able to use telegram without using the smartphone app at first, I just needed a phone number to register on desktop 2. The MacOS desktop app supports E2EE 3. Some third party desktop apps support E2EE 4. Signal has synced E2EE that works on both desktop and smartphone (And so does Matrix)
        vetinari 5y ago
        1. Does not really matter to the argument; you cannot do E2EE on the desktop with such an account. But you could on the mobile device, once you install the app there. They call it "device of origin". 2. Which one? There are several and the one I'm running (the official one; brew cask telegram-desktop) does not. 3. They are third party and if it doesn't work nicely or has missing functionality ("why are not my chats from other devices there?"), Telegram devs can still point fingers that's not the official client and should be discussed with the third party developers. Ultimately, they will find out why the original Telegram doesn't do it. 4. Signal doesn't do cloud messages as Telegram does. You might have noticed that functionality like that makes Telegram much more popular among normal users.
  - godelski 5y ago
    Same. This has been my frustration with Signal lately. They've had a large growth in a userbase but feels like they aren't growing their team fast enough to become real contenders with Telegram and WA. You don't have to move fast and break things, but you do have to move.
    - input_sh 5y ago
      The only feature I can think of since that growth annoys the shit out of me. They've started syncing notification settings, so I can either have both my laptop and my phone beeping or none. Combine that with working within a small team that primarily uses Signal and it's absolutely terrible. Leave them off and you'll miss something important. Leave them on and my phone beeps after work hours. And since there's nothing in between pausing them for 8h or 1 day, I forget to turn them on in the morning. Went from never needing to touch those settings to having to change them at least 5x every fucking work day.
      - godelski 5y ago
        Yeah the syncing issue has been hitting me more. Not as bad as Slack though, but still enough that where I've answered something on my desktop it'll still ring my phone. It's better than Slack because this is at least <5 minutes apart (Slack will message my phone >10 minutes after I responded on desktop). I'll admit that I'm willing to give Signal more leeway than Slack because they're small. But these things hinder growth. But the features I've seen since growth are: 1) group call (which happened during early growth), 2) screen share on desktop, 3) color hinting in chats removed (which now results me in messaging several people I didn't intend to because I've been trained for years to rely on colors for hinting and it takes longer to untrain users. Thank god delete exists...) 4) mobile coin. I'm still waiting on 1) usernames 2) channels 3) easy access to community based stickers (or just an official repository!). Things that I don't care about but the community does: 1) backup of messages 2) transferring messages between phones. Honestly after these two things a lot of other stuff is "cool." But these make it more usable. A 20 minute interaction with Signal users outside the community forums will illustrate how important these things are to people (the community forums have a real group think that's a big disconnect from what most users want). I'm all for more UX devs and making the app prettier, but it's no longer "early 2021" and we still don't have them (and have been waiting for years). It feels like there's a larger disconnect between devs and us users than there was in the past. People wouldn't throw a fit about MOB if the rest of the platform was moving along steadily and would probably be treated as "cool, but I'm not going to use it and have reservations." I'd welcome cool stuff like that, or noise canceling (featured in this update), or any other stuff if the rest of the platform was moving along. I'm losing faith in Signal. I fought so hard to get my friends on board (years!) and now that we have critical mass it feels things have slowed instead of accelerated. It isn't just us "hackers" and privacy conscious people anymore. To the devs reading this: I love you and appreciate the work you do, but help us out here. We don't understand why these weird decisions are being made and they feel like step backwards instead of forward.
- joecool1029 5y ago
  While the development teams at Telegram should be applauded I can't stress enough that it helps that they don't have E2EE and centralized most of the complexity to their server. Related regarding feature deployment: I got some negative feedback for dumping on Matrix for announcing Spaces without iOS client support. They should have waited until Element had all their major platforms covered before announcing it. It's maybe an unpopular take but when around 40% of my homeserver's users can't use a major feature, that's a shitty rollout.
  - 0xy 5y ago
    Telegram does have E2EE in secret chats. WhatsApp does NOT have E2EE because it backs up your private keys to cloud storage by default. Even if you don't, your contacts might. Therefore WhatsApp is less secure.
    - decrypt 5y ago
      This is incorrect. WhatsApp is E2EE as well. It does not backup the keys to their cloud. Rather, you seem to be referring to the fact that they offer cloud backup on Google Drive, in which case the chats are stored in plain text.
      - Popegaf 5y ago
        You're being unnecessarily pedantic and not actually even refuting anything they said. Using Whatsapp is like sending a locked chest to your friend and a copy thereof + a copy of the key to unlock it to a warehouse. Government employees and warehouse workers can enter the warehouse at will, use the key to open your chest, and copy everything too. Nice lock.
  - Arathorn 5y ago
    It wasn’t a roll-out - it was the announcement of the first public beta. Spaces has lots left to do: not just iOS but private spaces etc too.
    - 5y ago
- stereoradonc 5y ago
  Indeed. 7.8 is one of the most polished releases.
Trias11 5y ago
Lots of oppressive governments and controlling entities are not happy about it. Kudos to Telegram team!
- hda111 5y ago
  How is telegram funded? App is near perfection so I wonder how this can be an ad free app.
  - joecool1029 5y ago
    Pavel Durov is a billionaire and this is his (and his brother's) pet project. He made his money starting VK (Russia's Facebook)
    - skinnymuch 5y ago
      They raised a billion in bond sales in March. It likely became difficult to keep self funding Telegram.
  - smolyeet 5y ago
    https://www.engadget.com/telegram-channel-ads-192249765.html https://www.engadget.com/telegram-channel-ads-192249765.html
    - bobiny 5y ago
      Title is a bit misleading: many channels already have ads, Telegram just wants a cut now.
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    They raised a billion a few months ago.
- tptacek 5y ago
  If it's not encrypted end-to-end, why exactly would it be alarming to an oppressive government?
aledthemathguy 5y ago
Telegrams devs are next level
tptacek 5y ago
Is any of this end-to-end encrypted?
- joecool1029 5y ago
  Likely not, else they'd have confirmed it in their announcement and/or updated their E2E 1-to-1 video call documentation. The Verge asked and never got a response: https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/28/22407752/telegram-group-video-calls-may-launch https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/28/22407752/telegram-group-v... Documentation I mentioned: https://core.telegram.org/api/end-to-end/video-calls https://core.telegram.org/api/end-to-end/video-calls
- jhabdas 5y ago
  And ephemeral, when desired by the user.
  - joecool1029 5y ago
    This is kind of loaded. I do think Telegram does an excellent job at ephemerality from a practical standpoint. Without being able to audit their server though, we have no clue if 'disappeared' chats and messages are actually scrubbed from their server. I was once banned from the service for playing around with very old clients and had a back and forth with them over email for a week or so (it was re-enabled and they apologized for the inconvenience). They are prickly and refuse to give any details over how data is managed.
    - jhabdas 5y ago
      Interested to read a blog post about that story if you decide to write about it. Woz tought us never to trust a computer. Trusting software seems equally risky. Approaching comms from this perspective leads one to assume the best place to hide, so to speak, is in the open—in plain sight.
    - decrypt 5y ago
      >Telegram does an excellent job at ephemerality from a practical standpoint. Without being able to audit their server though, we have no clue if 'disappeared' chats and messages are actually scrubbed from their server. Aren't disappearing messages a feature of secret chats? If my understanding is correct here, these messages are not backed up to the cloud. Rather they are stored within your device. That's precisely why e2ee synced chats are not available.
yewenjie 5y ago
Telegram is getting so many cool features that I really wonder how long can it sustain being ad-free and user-centric.
- dt3ft 5y ago
  As long as the Russian government is able to keep funding it? :)
  - jhabdas 5y ago
    Be nice if Americans could make something this good again. Have you seen WhatsApp lately? It's a pure travesty.
    - madeofpalk 5y ago
      Is it? Granted, I've only been using it for three years but... its hasn't really changed that whole time? It's fine?
    - reidjs 5y ago
      I like whatsapp a lot, personally. The stickers aren't as good as Telegram, though.
    - rvz 5y ago
      They already have and it is called Quill. [0] Works on web, macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android and already looks promising to be the diamond standard of chat software and compete against the alternatives. Impressive piece of extremely high quality software so rare in this software industry. [0] https://quill.chat https://quill.chat
      - darkteflon 5y ago
        Holy s*t this looks amazing. Our (multi-disciplinary) team has been struggling with Zulip, which adopts the threaded messaging paradigm we need, but has a face only an engineer could love. This looks like it could be a drop-in replacement without the UX quirks. Thanks for the rec.
AegirLeet 5y ago
Telegram is not E2EE. Avoid.
- jhabdas 5y ago
  https://t.me/durov/158 https://t.me/durov/158
- vetinari 5y ago
  Your info is outdated.
  - AegirLeet 5y ago
    As far as I know, one-on-one chats are not E2EE by default (there's a "secret chat" opt-in) and group chats cannot be encrypted at all. Has that changed?
    - vetinari 5y ago
      Not supporting E2EE (cite: Telegram is not E2EE) and E2EE being not on by default are two very different things. Not being on by default has an impact on other things, that the users value more. If they were on by default, they would lose it and Telegram would lose part of its appeal. This way, users themselves can choose the trade-off they are happy with.
      - AegirLeet 5y ago
        Not having it enabled by default means most people will never enable it at all. That's just plain reckless. Privacy is a human right; it shouldn't be part of any "trade-off", just like you can't sell yourself into slavery, even if you really wanted to.
        vetinari 5y ago
        > Not having it enabled by default means most people will never enable it at all. That's just plain reckless. Yet, there we are. People value that other functionality more. You may not like it, but that's how they are. > Privacy is a human right; it shouldn't be part of any "trade-off", just like you can't sell yourself into slavery, even if you really wanted to. You are now off the rails. The problem with the trade-offs is not social.
EGreg 5y ago
I have long predicted that Telegram is the next facebook, but far better. Telegram is yet another centralized social network that is rolling out payments, video, etc. It's not open source backend or customizable. But it's probably the most libertarian/freest one from the closed source solutions, that won't kick you off, and the software is very good. We could consider integrating with them (for example, instead of connecting your mobile via sms, you could connect your telegram and then receive notifications there from some FTL bot). PROBLEM Still, of course, keep in mind it's a closed source and proprietary backend: https://yalantis.com/blog/whats-wrong-telegram-open-api/ https://yalantis.com/blog/whats-wrong-telegram-open-api/ If you want an open source network to power "Web 2.0" communities, there aren't many good solutions. Diaspora, Matrix, Mastodon, Inrupt, etc. are just not on the same level as Telegram for regular users. For Web 1.0 we have Wordpress, which powers 40% of all websites in the world now. But somehow for Web 2.0 there are no good alternatives, so all our public discourse is taking place on privately owned platforms, and now the US government has put out bills seeking to break up big tech. How about trying a more libertarian solution first: open source. SOLUTION We've been building something for the last 10 years, and giving it away as open source: https://github.com/Qbix https://github.com/Qbix Here is a demo that we did for Yang's campaign two years ago, and kept it around as a demo, it has payments, video, etc. also but it uses open Web standards like WebRTC and WebPayments to do so, and it's completely open source: https://yang2020.app https://yang2020.app PS Web 3.0 is value transfer and programmable smart contracts, e.g. Ethereum web3 l9brary, etc. That happens to be radically open source (just like Web 1.0) because (for now) these blockhains and the code they run are all public, and you are encouraged to verify your smart contracts on EtherScan, etc.
qwertox 5y ago
To me Telegram feels like the red corner district of a city. I simply don't feel like I can trust it, there's something very shady about it. I wouldn't be surprised if Telegram reads those exclusive Bitcoin whale groups and uses that insider info. Group chats are not end to end encrypted. That being said, WhatsApp is like the authorized garage where you know that you'll get the service which is officially recognized (by the government) and will keep your car's value "at its best", but which screws you over in so many ways. Everything else is somewhere in between these two platforms.
- godelski 5y ago
  I laughed at this, but am curious where you place Signal and Matrix in this analogy? Both feel like good services that aren't authorized, per say.
  - pmlnr 5y ago
    XMPP would be the local electrician with a mustache and a calm tone that can fix anything for you pennies. We used to have them in Hungary. I miss them. "Szaki"
    - jhugo 5y ago
      XMPP would be a loosely-organised community of people who know how to fix their own car and might be willing to fix yours for beers.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- dan-robertson 5y ago
  I’m not sure I’d want group chats with thousands of members to be end-to-end encrypted. It doesn’t even seem that clear what the actual utility of it would be.
  - meowface 5y ago
beigeoak 5y ago
Why can't the western titans of SV make something like Telegram? Why do billion dollar companies like FB, Google and even Discord consistently produce software that is low in performance? Is it an issue with western (web) development culture where "developer time" is "prioritized" over performance to the point where the developer knows everything about the business processes and product requirements and NOTHING about how computers actually work? What is it about Russian/Eastern European software culture that created developers capable of producing the smoothest and most well-thought out messaging app? If you reply to this comment, please ensure that the first sentence contains the phrase "E2E".
jaimehrubiks 5y ago
Telegram does not have group voice nor video calls. It has voice (and now video) chats. // Unless I am not aware of any recent change, I tested this last month and don't see any related update ever since. Which is not the same, and actually, for me is not useful at all. The main difference is that a "chat" does not ring the other participants' phones, which is a must for me to "call" my family either voice or video. You must first tell them through chat that you will create a voice or video room/chat. For 1-on-1 it does have calls, as it rings. For groups, it does not.
- webmobdev 5y ago
  That actually sounds the right way to do it - do you really want your phone to ring everytime someone in a group initiates a voice or video call?
- HunOL 5y ago
  I did not tested group (video or audio) calls, but 1 on 1 it works exactly as you (and me) expect. You could just call someone and it will ring on other side.
excalibur 5y ago
Am I missing something here? This just looks like Zoom or Teams or any of the other video calling apps that have been running the world for the past year. What's so special about it?
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  Telegram desktop client is written in C, takes 20MB or ram and can download 1,000 messages in 3 seconds. Teams takes 500MB of ram and pegs a quad-core cpu to 70% to updates some smileys
  - xvilka 5y ago
    Even mobile Telegram is so small and efficient despite being feature-packed. Just compare 67Mb of the Telegram installed Android app with 156Mb of Discord, 623Mb of WeChat, etc.
    - hansel_der 5y ago
      thou for ppl that grew up with operating systems on floppy disks, 67MB is quite a load for a chat software ;)
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  This does a bunch of great things. Its focus isn’t video chat. Teams and Zoom are awful for most situations or actions. Zoom excels at [group] video chat/meetings/webinars only.
Saris 5y ago
Telegram has absolutely amazing UX on all platforms I've used it on, I hope they can roll out encryption for group chats soon and show somehow that we can trust that encryption.
- dheera 5y ago
  Really? Every Telegram group I tried to chat started spamming me with notifications every few seconds and I uninstalled the damn thing. The UI also looks like it was made by a intern who just learned how to use Android Studio, not like something new and cool. The actual text "Telegram" and a magnifying glass button instead of a search bar, hamburger menu instead of your own profile pic, no big fat QR scan icon, ...
  - tpoacher 5y ago
    1) it's incredibly trivial and intuitive to mute a channel. i see no issue with receiving notifications by default to a channel you just subscribed to 2) hamburger menu is right here. the avatar-as-menu implies account details. the menu presented instead makes sense and has the stuff you'd expect. 3) magnifying bar makes sense since the real estate saved is used for useful information 4) there is a big fat qr scan icon. it's just not "first page material", which is the correct decision here. if abd when you need it, telegram tells you where to find it. In any case, you are entitled to your assessment. I just completely disagree with it.
  - Saris 5y ago
    That's pretty much how any group chat works on any platform, it's just a simple click to mute it except for direct mentions. Why do you need your profile instead of a menu? Why a QR icon? Why a search bar? Those are very minor things on an app that functions extremely well.
  - truth_ 5y ago
    Save some, I turn the notification off from all groups and channels. I just check them when I want. This has worked for me well.
birdyrooster 5y ago
I like the psychedelic inspired animated backgrounds
stereoradonc 5y ago
This is one of the best feature sets, and I waited for over two years; ever since WhatsApp had got it. I find that stance of the community strange here - no "e2ee". Privacy is important, but your chat history hardly reflects that. There are other ways to get your history or track your digital trails. 200,000 users for group chat. Unlimited users for voice chat (like clubhouse). 30 users for group video calling. That limit will be increased later. Flawless sync across platforms. Secret chats - the e2ee chats self-destruct between users and stay on the device where it has been initiated. Robust third party clients-that add more functionality to the official app. (I use Utyagram; Plus is another popular mod, but is closed source). Unlimited users for channels - that work as broadcast lists. The lists goes on and on.
- daredevil_kohai 5y ago
  If my understanding is correct. VC users at a time in a room in clubhouse is limited.
  - stereoradonc 5y ago
    Yes thats right.
- vinay427 5y ago
  > Secret chats - the e2ee chats self-destruct between users and stay on the device where it has been initiated. Is this supposed to be a feature? Telegram themselves claim that this inability to backup chats is at least part of why they don't enable E2EE before mentioning that it allows users choice over data storage, which seems silly in the face of apps that allow for encrypted backups of E2EE messages. [1] Signal backups are obviously E2EE and can be moved between devices by copying an encrypted blob or directly transferring over Wi-Fi, depending on your platform. Meanwhile, on Telegram if I reinstall the app all of these chats are gone. If I change phones and posess both devices concurrently, there's still no official way to move chat histories. E2EE feels like a crippled afterthought on Telegram considering so many of the interesting Telegram chat features (or just backups/transfers) don't seem to work with it. [1] https://telegram.org/faq#q-why-not-just-make-all-chats-39secret-39 https://telegram.org/faq#q-why-not-just-make-all-chats-39sec...
truth_ 5y ago
What nobody talks about is how beautiful and unique their illustrations are in every release notes and blog posts. It's refreshing to see original thoughts in illustration.
crossroadsguy 5y ago
I’m back to WhatsApp after many months of full time Signal usage. People started leaving Signal one by one. Some of them really tried. Not many had joined anyway. For most remaining contacts Signal was and for more it remained installed just for me. A medical emergency in the family and I was back on WhatsApp in a second. Signal kept crashing, remained full of UI bugs (the kind I just couldn’t believe is there has been there for months and years; yeah the simple and silly ones), functionality bugs, slightly better than barely useable calling, delayed messages, broken notifications, extremely frustrating and broken encryption key update even when there was no such actual update — while the foundation kept giving us new emojis/stickers and worked on crypto. Nice gesture I reckon. And yeah, still a closed garden. No opinion really. It’s just how it is. I use Apple’s phone and computer which is proprietary and closed garden by design, effort, and lobbying. Who am I kidding. So no, I’m not going to say Telegram is shady. Maybe it is but so are others. Maybe not Signal (or is it?). It’s just that Telegram is far from being the personal messaging/communication app, at least around me. It’s an extension of other online communities like subreddits. Discord is eating into that share anyway. It’s used for apartment groups. COVID update channels (especially in India where very high up offices still have public Gmail IDs) and all that. Oh, they do have literally the best mobile and desktop apps among its peers. By many miles.
jhabdas 5y ago
ICYMI https://t.me/RealVincentJames/8892 https://t.me/RealVincentJames/8892

Group Video Calls

241 points by jhabdas 5y ago

vishnumohandas 5y ago

I'm amazed by the pace at which Telegram ships features, and with what finesse.

olah_1 5y ago
They have the most productive and high quality engineers in the game. And I say this as someone that whinces at telegram for not having e2e encryption by default.
- Yaina 5y ago
  The Telegram Apps are all great and have so many awesome features that are crucially also extremely well implemented. Everything seems so well thought through! It's just incredibly scary not to know anything about who these developers are, where they are located and most importantly how this is all financed! I understand Pavel Durov is a very wealthy man, but developing and hosting a popular global messenger service can't be cheap.
  - ticviking 5y ago
    TBH my threat model views Russian and Middle Eastern oligarchs and governments as less of an immediate threat to my freedoms than my own government or major US tech firms. Long run it's a problem, but until I have a app at the same risk/feature sweet spot I don't mind the downsides of telegram. (Edited cause I am utterly unable to spell)
    - nucleardog 5y ago
      This was part of how I settled on Telegram. Basically any western country can be secretly ordered to turn over all my information on the flimsiest of reasons, if it’s not already just intercepted through Five Eyes style arrangements. The chances of Russia volunteering to share my chat history with anyone that could actually impact my day to day life is pretty much nil, and I’m certainly not interesting to anyone in their sphere.
      - stereoradonc 5y ago
        Bingo! Likewise. I'd like FSB to know what I did in the last one hour. I wonder if they really find it interesting to pursue me.
      - deadalus 5y ago
        This is also the reason I prefer using VPN based in countries that are NOT based in USA/EU and that are not friendly to USA/EU -> Russia, China, Myanmar, Iran etc.
      - novok 5y ago
        Secret 1:1 & group chat by default like signal, well labeled non-secret large chat rooms, open source clients and using standardized encryption and they'd do pretty well amongst the privacy crowd too.
        olah_1 5y ago
        sounds like you’re describing Matrix. It’s a shame that the only user friendly mobile client is called “fluffy chat” and seems to be targeted at furries or children.
  - finolex1 5y ago
    Is there anything secretive about their developers? I see a lot on LinkedIn for what it's worth.
- fsflover 5y ago
  > whinces at telegram for not having e2e encryption by default On desktop* there is no e2ee even among the options. * where "desktop" includes GNU/Linux phones.
  - vetinari 5y ago
    As far that I'm aware, it is key management/distribution problem and how to expose it to the user. So in order to not manage them, only the device with the phone number that the account is registered with can do it. Desktop apps are not the ones where you create Telegram account; you only authorize them. For another example, Threema, which is E2EE by default, doesn't allow more than one device with the account (to use multiple devices, you must create several accounts, one for each device and link them, and then basically any chat is a group chat. For desktop use, the web client uses webrtc to talk to your device to use it as a proxy).
    - NilsIRL 5y ago
      I believe this is wrong based on the following: 1. I was able to use telegram without using the smartphone app at first, I just needed a phone number to register on desktop 2. The MacOS desktop app supports E2EE 3. Some third party desktop apps support E2EE 4. Signal has synced E2EE that works on both desktop and smartphone (And so does Matrix)
      - vetinari 5y ago
        1. Does not really matter to the argument; you cannot do E2EE on the desktop with such an account. But you could on the mobile device, once you install the app there. They call it "device of origin". 2. Which one? There are several and the one I'm running (the official one; brew cask telegram-desktop) does not. 3. They are third party and if it doesn't work nicely or has missing functionality ("why are not my chats from other devices there?"), Telegram devs can still point fingers that's not the official client and should be discussed with the third party developers. Ultimately, they will find out why the original Telegram doesn't do it. 4. Signal doesn't do cloud messages as Telegram does. You might have noticed that functionality like that makes Telegram much more popular among normal users.
- godelski 5y ago
  Same. This has been my frustration with Signal lately. They've had a large growth in a userbase but feels like they aren't growing their team fast enough to become real contenders with Telegram and WA. You don't have to move fast and break things, but you do have to move.
  - input_sh 5y ago
    The only feature I can think of since that growth annoys the shit out of me. They've started syncing notification settings, so I can either have both my laptop and my phone beeping or none. Combine that with working within a small team that primarily uses Signal and it's absolutely terrible. Leave them off and you'll miss something important. Leave them on and my phone beeps after work hours. And since there's nothing in between pausing them for 8h or 1 day, I forget to turn them on in the morning. Went from never needing to touch those settings to having to change them at least 5x every fucking work day.
    - godelski 5y ago
      Yeah the syncing issue has been hitting me more. Not as bad as Slack though, but still enough that where I've answered something on my desktop it'll still ring my phone. It's better than Slack because this is at least <5 minutes apart (Slack will message my phone >10 minutes after I responded on desktop). I'll admit that I'm willing to give Signal more leeway than Slack because they're small. But these things hinder growth. But the features I've seen since growth are: 1) group call (which happened during early growth), 2) screen share on desktop, 3) color hinting in chats removed (which now results me in messaging several people I didn't intend to because I've been trained for years to rely on colors for hinting and it takes longer to untrain users. Thank god delete exists...) 4) mobile coin. I'm still waiting on 1) usernames 2) channels 3) easy access to community based stickers (or just an official repository!). Things that I don't care about but the community does: 1) backup of messages 2) transferring messages between phones. Honestly after these two things a lot of other stuff is "cool." But these make it more usable. A 20 minute interaction with Signal users outside the community forums will illustrate how important these things are to people (the community forums have a real group think that's a big disconnect from what most users want). I'm all for more UX devs and making the app prettier, but it's no longer "early 2021" and we still don't have them (and have been waiting for years). It feels like there's a larger disconnect between devs and us users than there was in the past. People wouldn't throw a fit about MOB if the rest of the platform was moving along steadily and would probably be treated as "cool, but I'm not going to use it and have reservations." I'd welcome cool stuff like that, or noise canceling (featured in this update), or any other stuff if the rest of the platform was moving along. I'm losing faith in Signal. I fought so hard to get my friends on board (years!) and now that we have critical mass it feels things have slowed instead of accelerated. It isn't just us "hackers" and privacy conscious people anymore. To the devs reading this: I love you and appreciate the work you do, but help us out here. We don't understand why these weird decisions are being made and they feel like step backwards instead of forward.
joecool1029 5y ago
While the development teams at Telegram should be applauded I can't stress enough that it helps that they don't have E2EE and centralized most of the complexity to their server. Related regarding feature deployment: I got some negative feedback for dumping on Matrix for announcing Spaces without iOS client support. They should have waited until Element had all their major platforms covered before announcing it. It's maybe an unpopular take but when around 40% of my homeserver's users can't use a major feature, that's a shitty rollout.
- 0xy 5y ago
  Telegram does have E2EE in secret chats. WhatsApp does NOT have E2EE because it backs up your private keys to cloud storage by default. Even if you don't, your contacts might. Therefore WhatsApp is less secure.
  - decrypt 5y ago
    This is incorrect. WhatsApp is E2EE as well. It does not backup the keys to their cloud. Rather, you seem to be referring to the fact that they offer cloud backup on Google Drive, in which case the chats are stored in plain text.
    - Popegaf 5y ago
      You're being unnecessarily pedantic and not actually even refuting anything they said. Using Whatsapp is like sending a locked chest to your friend and a copy thereof + a copy of the key to unlock it to a warehouse. Government employees and warehouse workers can enter the warehouse at will, use the key to open your chest, and copy everything too. Nice lock.
- Arathorn 5y ago
  It wasn’t a roll-out - it was the announcement of the first public beta. Spaces has lots left to do: not just iOS but private spaces etc too.
  - 5y ago
stereoradonc 5y ago
Indeed. 7.8 is one of the most polished releases.

Trias11 5y ago

Lots of oppressive governments and controlling entities are not happy about it. Kudos to Telegram team!

hda111 5y ago
How is telegram funded? App is near perfection so I wonder how this can be an ad free app.
- joecool1029 5y ago
  Pavel Durov is a billionaire and this is his (and his brother's) pet project. He made his money starting VK (Russia's Facebook)
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    They raised a billion in bond sales in March. It likely became difficult to keep self funding Telegram.
- smolyeet 5y ago
  https://www.engadget.com/telegram-channel-ads-192249765.html https://www.engadget.com/telegram-channel-ads-192249765.html
  - bobiny 5y ago
    Title is a bit misleading: many channels already have ads, Telegram just wants a cut now.
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  They raised a billion a few months ago.
tptacek 5y ago
If it's not encrypted end-to-end, why exactly would it be alarming to an oppressive government?

aledthemathguy 5y ago

Telegrams devs are next level

tptacek 5y ago

Is any of this end-to-end encrypted?

joecool1029 5y ago
Likely not, else they'd have confirmed it in their announcement and/or updated their E2E 1-to-1 video call documentation. The Verge asked and never got a response: https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/28/22407752/telegram-group-video-calls-may-launch https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/28/22407752/telegram-group-v... Documentation I mentioned: https://core.telegram.org/api/end-to-end/video-calls https://core.telegram.org/api/end-to-end/video-calls
jhabdas 5y ago
And ephemeral, when desired by the user.
- joecool1029 5y ago
  This is kind of loaded. I do think Telegram does an excellent job at ephemerality from a practical standpoint. Without being able to audit their server though, we have no clue if 'disappeared' chats and messages are actually scrubbed from their server. I was once banned from the service for playing around with very old clients and had a back and forth with them over email for a week or so (it was re-enabled and they apologized for the inconvenience). They are prickly and refuse to give any details over how data is managed.
  - jhabdas 5y ago
    Interested to read a blog post about that story if you decide to write about it. Woz tought us never to trust a computer. Trusting software seems equally risky. Approaching comms from this perspective leads one to assume the best place to hide, so to speak, is in the open—in plain sight.
  - decrypt 5y ago
    >Telegram does an excellent job at ephemerality from a practical standpoint. Without being able to audit their server though, we have no clue if 'disappeared' chats and messages are actually scrubbed from their server. Aren't disappearing messages a feature of secret chats? If my understanding is correct here, these messages are not backed up to the cloud. Rather they are stored within your device. That's precisely why e2ee synced chats are not available.

yewenjie 5y ago

Telegram is getting so many cool features that I really wonder how long can it sustain being ad-free and user-centric.

dt3ft 5y ago
As long as the Russian government is able to keep funding it? :)
- jhabdas 5y ago
  Be nice if Americans could make something this good again. Have you seen WhatsApp lately? It's a pure travesty.
  - madeofpalk 5y ago
    Is it? Granted, I've only been using it for three years but... its hasn't really changed that whole time? It's fine?
  - reidjs 5y ago
    I like whatsapp a lot, personally. The stickers aren't as good as Telegram, though.
  - rvz 5y ago
    They already have and it is called Quill. [0] Works on web, macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android and already looks promising to be the diamond standard of chat software and compete against the alternatives. Impressive piece of extremely high quality software so rare in this software industry. [0] https://quill.chat https://quill.chat
    - darkteflon 5y ago
      Holy s*t this looks amazing. Our (multi-disciplinary) team has been struggling with Zulip, which adopts the threaded messaging paradigm we need, but has a face only an engineer could love. This looks like it could be a drop-in replacement without the UX quirks. Thanks for the rec.

AegirLeet 5y ago

Telegram is not E2EE. Avoid.

jhabdas 5y ago
https://t.me/durov/158 https://t.me/durov/158
vetinari 5y ago
Your info is outdated.
- AegirLeet 5y ago
  As far as I know, one-on-one chats are not E2EE by default (there's a "secret chat" opt-in) and group chats cannot be encrypted at all. Has that changed?
  - vetinari 5y ago
    Not supporting E2EE (cite: Telegram is not E2EE) and E2EE being not on by default are two very different things. Not being on by default has an impact on other things, that the users value more. If they were on by default, they would lose it and Telegram would lose part of its appeal. This way, users themselves can choose the trade-off they are happy with.
    - AegirLeet 5y ago
      Not having it enabled by default means most people will never enable it at all. That's just plain reckless. Privacy is a human right; it shouldn't be part of any "trade-off", just like you can't sell yourself into slavery, even if you really wanted to.
      - vetinari 5y ago
        > Not having it enabled by default means most people will never enable it at all. That's just plain reckless. Yet, there we are. People value that other functionality more. You may not like it, but that's how they are. > Privacy is a human right; it shouldn't be part of any "trade-off", just like you can't sell yourself into slavery, even if you really wanted to. You are now off the rails. The problem with the trade-offs is not social.

EGreg 5y ago

I have long predicted that Telegram is the next facebook, but far better. Telegram is yet another centralized social network that is rolling out payments, video, etc. It's not open source backend or customizable. But it's probably the most libertarian/freest one from the closed source solutions, that won't kick you off, and the software is very good. We could consider integrating with them (for example, instead of connecting your mobile via sms, you could connect your telegram and then receive notifications there from some FTL bot). PROBLEM Still, of course, keep in mind it's a closed source and proprietary backend: https://yalantis.com/blog/whats-wrong-telegram-open-api/ https://yalantis.com/blog/whats-wrong-telegram-open-api/ If you want an open source network to power "Web 2.0" communities, there aren't many good solutions. Diaspora, Matrix, Mastodon, Inrupt, etc. are just not on the same level as Telegram for regular users. For Web 1.0 we have Wordpress, which powers 40% of all websites in the world now. But somehow for Web 2.0 there are no good alternatives, so all our public discourse is taking place on privately owned platforms, and now the US government has put out bills seeking to break up big tech. How about trying a more libertarian solution first: open source. SOLUTION We've been building something for the last 10 years, and giving it away as open source: https://github.com/Qbix https://github.com/Qbix Here is a demo that we did for Yang's campaign two years ago, and kept it around as a demo, it has payments, video, etc. also but it uses open Web standards like WebRTC and WebPayments to do so, and it's completely open source: https://yang2020.app https://yang2020.app PS Web 3.0 is value transfer and programmable smart contracts, e.g. Ethereum web3 l9brary, etc. That happens to be radically open source (just like Web 1.0) because (for now) these blockhains and the code they run are all public, and you are encouraged to verify your smart contracts on EtherScan, etc.

qwertox 5y ago

To me Telegram feels like the red corner district of a city. I simply don't feel like I can trust it, there's something very shady about it. I wouldn't be surprised if Telegram reads those exclusive Bitcoin whale groups and uses that insider info. Group chats are not end to end encrypted. That being said, WhatsApp is like the authorized garage where you know that you'll get the service which is officially recognized (by the government) and will keep your car's value "at its best", but which screws you over in so many ways. Everything else is somewhere in between these two platforms.

godelski 5y ago
I laughed at this, but am curious where you place Signal and Matrix in this analogy? Both feel like good services that aren't authorized, per say.
- pmlnr 5y ago
  XMPP would be the local electrician with a mustache and a calm tone that can fix anything for you pennies. We used to have them in Hungary. I miss them. "Szaki"
  - jhugo 5y ago
    XMPP would be a loosely-organised community of people who know how to fix their own car and might be willing to fix yours for beers.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
dan-robertson 5y ago
I’m not sure I’d want group chats with thousands of members to be end-to-end encrypted. It doesn’t even seem that clear what the actual utility of it would be.
- meowface 5y ago

beigeoak 5y ago

Why can't the western titans of SV make something like Telegram? Why do billion dollar companies like FB, Google and even Discord consistently produce software that is low in performance? Is it an issue with western (web) development culture where "developer time" is "prioritized" over performance to the point where the developer knows everything about the business processes and product requirements and NOTHING about how computers actually work? What is it about Russian/Eastern European software culture that created developers capable of producing the smoothest and most well-thought out messaging app? If you reply to this comment, please ensure that the first sentence contains the phrase "E2E".

jaimehrubiks 5y ago

Telegram does not have group voice nor video calls. It has voice (and now video) chats. // Unless I am not aware of any recent change, I tested this last month and don't see any related update ever since. Which is not the same, and actually, for me is not useful at all. The main difference is that a "chat" does not ring the other participants' phones, which is a must for me to "call" my family either voice or video. You must first tell them through chat that you will create a voice or video room/chat. For 1-on-1 it does have calls, as it rings. For groups, it does not.

webmobdev 5y ago
That actually sounds the right way to do it - do you really want your phone to ring everytime someone in a group initiates a voice or video call?
HunOL 5y ago
I did not tested group (video or audio) calls, but 1 on 1 it works exactly as you (and me) expect. You could just call someone and it will ring on other side.

excalibur 5y ago

Am I missing something here? This just looks like Zoom or Teams or any of the other video calling apps that have been running the world for the past year. What's so special about it?

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
Telegram desktop client is written in C, takes 20MB or ram and can download 1,000 messages in 3 seconds. Teams takes 500MB of ram and pegs a quad-core cpu to 70% to updates some smileys
- xvilka 5y ago
  Even mobile Telegram is so small and efficient despite being feature-packed. Just compare 67Mb of the Telegram installed Android app with 156Mb of Discord, 623Mb of WeChat, etc.
  - hansel_der 5y ago
    thou for ppl that grew up with operating systems on floppy disks, 67MB is quite a load for a chat software ;)
skinnymuch 5y ago
This does a bunch of great things. Its focus isn’t video chat. Teams and Zoom are awful for most situations or actions. Zoom excels at [group] video chat/meetings/webinars only.

Saris 5y ago

Telegram has absolutely amazing UX on all platforms I've used it on, I hope they can roll out encryption for group chats soon and show somehow that we can trust that encryption.

dheera 5y ago
Really? Every Telegram group I tried to chat started spamming me with notifications every few seconds and I uninstalled the damn thing. The UI also looks like it was made by a intern who just learned how to use Android Studio, not like something new and cool. The actual text "Telegram" and a magnifying glass button instead of a search bar, hamburger menu instead of your own profile pic, no big fat QR scan icon, ...
- tpoacher 5y ago
  1) it's incredibly trivial and intuitive to mute a channel. i see no issue with receiving notifications by default to a channel you just subscribed to 2) hamburger menu is right here. the avatar-as-menu implies account details. the menu presented instead makes sense and has the stuff you'd expect. 3) magnifying bar makes sense since the real estate saved is used for useful information 4) there is a big fat qr scan icon. it's just not "first page material", which is the correct decision here. if abd when you need it, telegram tells you where to find it. In any case, you are entitled to your assessment. I just completely disagree with it.
- Saris 5y ago
  That's pretty much how any group chat works on any platform, it's just a simple click to mute it except for direct mentions. Why do you need your profile instead of a menu? Why a QR icon? Why a search bar? Those are very minor things on an app that functions extremely well.
- truth_ 5y ago
  Save some, I turn the notification off from all groups and channels. I just check them when I want. This has worked for me well.

birdyrooster 5y ago

I like the psychedelic inspired animated backgrounds

stereoradonc 5y ago

This is one of the best feature sets, and I waited for over two years; ever since WhatsApp had got it. I find that stance of the community strange here - no "e2ee". Privacy is important, but your chat history hardly reflects that. There are other ways to get your history or track your digital trails. 200,000 users for group chat. Unlimited users for voice chat (like clubhouse). 30 users for group video calling. That limit will be increased later. Flawless sync across platforms. Secret chats - the e2ee chats self-destruct between users and stay on the device where it has been initiated. Robust third party clients-that add more functionality to the official app. (I use Utyagram; Plus is another popular mod, but is closed source). Unlimited users for channels - that work as broadcast lists. The lists goes on and on.

daredevil_kohai 5y ago
If my understanding is correct. VC users at a time in a room in clubhouse is limited.
- stereoradonc 5y ago
  Yes thats right.
vinay427 5y ago
> Secret chats - the e2ee chats self-destruct between users and stay on the device where it has been initiated. Is this supposed to be a feature? Telegram themselves claim that this inability to backup chats is at least part of why they don't enable E2EE before mentioning that it allows users choice over data storage, which seems silly in the face of apps that allow for encrypted backups of E2EE messages. [1] Signal backups are obviously E2EE and can be moved between devices by copying an encrypted blob or directly transferring over Wi-Fi, depending on your platform. Meanwhile, on Telegram if I reinstall the app all of these chats are gone. If I change phones and posess both devices concurrently, there's still no official way to move chat histories. E2EE feels like a crippled afterthought on Telegram considering so many of the interesting Telegram chat features (or just backups/transfers) don't seem to work with it. [1] https://telegram.org/faq#q-why-not-just-make-all-chats-39secret-39 https://telegram.org/faq#q-why-not-just-make-all-chats-39sec...

truth_ 5y ago

What nobody talks about is how beautiful and unique their illustrations are in every release notes and blog posts. It's refreshing to see original thoughts in illustration.

crossroadsguy 5y ago

I’m back to WhatsApp after many months of full time Signal usage. People started leaving Signal one by one. Some of them really tried. Not many had joined anyway. For most remaining contacts Signal was and for more it remained installed just for me. A medical emergency in the family and I was back on WhatsApp in a second. Signal kept crashing, remained full of UI bugs (the kind I just couldn’t believe is there has been there for months and years; yeah the simple and silly ones), functionality bugs, slightly better than barely useable calling, delayed messages, broken notifications, extremely frustrating and broken encryption key update even when there was no such actual update — while the foundation kept giving us new emojis/stickers and worked on crypto. Nice gesture I reckon. And yeah, still a closed garden. No opinion really. It’s just how it is. I use Apple’s phone and computer which is proprietary and closed garden by design, effort, and lobbying. Who am I kidding. So no, I’m not going to say Telegram is shady. Maybe it is but so are others. Maybe not Signal (or is it?). It’s just that Telegram is far from being the personal messaging/communication app, at least around me. It’s an extension of other online communities like subreddits. Discord is eating into that share anyway. It’s used for apartment groups. COVID update channels (especially in India where very high up offices still have public Gmail IDs) and all that. Oh, they do have literally the best mobile and desktop apps among its peers. By many miles.

jhabdas 5y ago

ICYMI https://t.me/RealVincentJames/8892 https://t.me/RealVincentJames/8892