I’m from Mexico, and the most used chat application is WhatsApp. It’s used for EVERYTHING. I use Telegram only for contacting my family members (both my parents and my brother). They also use it only for this family chat. All my (and their) contacts use WhatsApp instead.

Now with the news that Telegram will collaborate with Twitter, I feel that I should delete it. Not that Zuck is any better than Musk, but still…

Also I don’t think it’s worth the effort to teach my parents yet another messaging app, like signal.

          • Routhinator@startrek.websiteEnglish
            0·
            2 months ago

            Its what makes it more secure. Why do you need a chat app that allows your parents to accidentally stumble into a group of con artists or kids to stumble into things they shouldn’t be exposed to? It’s a messaging app, not gamer group chat.

            This is what puts is way ahead of the others.

            • Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              0·
              2 months ago

              Also, making it harder for pedophiles to find each other and groups where they can share their shit is a good way to defeat all the shitty “think about the children” laws that European countries are constantly trying to pass to make encryption illegal

      • Hadriscus@lemm.ee
        0·
        2 months ago

        There’s a search bar which will filter your conversations, and you can create a new group with new message (pen icon) ->new group

  • ilmagico@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    Despite being in the hands of the zuck, whatsapp is more private and secure than telegram, and not because of any collaboration with X/twitter, it’s been that way forever… so go ahead and use it (but if you can, signal is even better on that front).

    • 利斯科@sopuli.xyz
      English
      0·
      2 months ago

      WhatsApp is more secure by design, but one suspects that Meta is up to something. But I suppose to whatever extent it’s possible to trust Meta, they are nonetheless likely a better guarantor of your security than Telegram is

      • pulsewidth@lemmy.world
        0·
        2 months ago

        Meta don’t need to see your chats to get a lot of value out of WhatsApp.

        They can see who you message (the phone number) and from there they can probably ~90% of the time identify who that person is via Facebook/Instagram databases. They can see who you message when, and how often you message them, and what time of day you send and recieve messages - all of that is very valuable to help them create an advertising profile for you.

  • destructdisc@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    Switch to Signal. It’s not like there’s anything to learn, the UI isn’t all that different from WhatsApp

  • Azzu@lemm.ee
    0·
    2 months ago

    Also I don’t think it’s worth the effort to teach my parents yet another messaging app, like signal.

    My friend, just set up Signal on their phones, put it in place of the Telegram app and watch them not even notice anything changed.

    • creamlike504@jlai.luEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      Not if they’re the kind of users my parents are. An update moves a button from the bottom-left to the bottom-right and suddenly “the app you gave me is broken again”.

      Also, don’t sneak-change things on other people’s phones.

  • Lootboblin@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    Telegram was developed by Russians and HQ is in United Arab Emirates. They have always been sketchy af.

    • SpongyAneurism@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz
      0·
      2 months ago

      Telegram’s owners are at odds with the Russian government though, hence the move to another country.
      There’s plenty of problems with Telegram without having to resort to Russophobia already.

      For example their chats aren’t even E2E-encrypted by default and afaik there’s no way to have encrypted group chats either.

  • Mitex leo@buddyverse.one
    0·
    2 months ago

    I personally avoid telegram for anything sensitive or personal. Because there is no end to end encryption. You should move to Signal.

  • Dr. Moose@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    I really distrust telegram. There are some many dark patterns around it and the server is closed source so I’d say the distrust is very well deserved.

  • N-E-N@lemmy.ca
    0·
    2 months ago

    I’d take Telegram over WhatsApp as I find Telegram, ignoring privacy concerns, is an excellent messenger. Much better than WhatsApp

    But, Signal’s pretty great.

      • Refurbished Refurbisher@lemmy.sdf.org
        0·
        2 months ago

        End to end encrypted doesn’t mean they don’t potentially store a copy of the keys somewhere. With proprietary software, you never know what it’s actually doing since you can’t verify the code does what it says on the tin.

      • N-E-N@lemmy.ca
        0·
        2 months ago

        Yes, but it’s not open source and it’s Meta so I don’t have a lot of trust there. Plus you can always just activate the Secret Chat feature on Telegram for E2E encryption that I’d just more than WhatsApp’s.

  • Zak@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    Collaborating with Xitter is not the most distasteful thing Telegram has done. Its marketing model has been to consistently lie to people about being encrypted when that’s only true in very limited cases. It has also catered to criminals by attempting to make it difficult to comply with legal demands for information, while holding that information for its own purposes.

    Signal, on the other hand is always encrypted and does its best to hold as little information about users as possible.

    Also I don’t think it’s worth the effort to teach my parents yet another messaging app, like signal.

    What is there to learn? Every popular messaging app has pretty much the same UI.

    • BossDj@lemm.ee
      0·
      2 months ago

      Isn’t it good for a communication company to be noncompliant with people’s conversations?

      • Zak@lemmy.world
        0·
        2 months ago

        It usually wasn’t conversations that were at issue. People would engage in criminals acts, such as trading child sexual abuse media in large unencrypted group chats. Law enforcement would find links to those chats, join them, and observe criminal acts, leading to court orders to Telegram to disclose whatever identifying information it had about the offenders, such as phone numbers and IP addresses.

        Telegram intentionally split storage of that kind of information across jurisdictions that do not cooperate so that it was effectively impossible to obtain orders for all of them. They bragged their marketing materials that they have never complied with a court order for user information. Taken as a whole, I see that as intentionally facilitating child abuse.

        Signal’s approach is pretty much the inverse; rather than hoard data about users and shield people they know have done evil, Signal has ensured that it does not know the contents of any conversation, nor anything about users other than when they created the account and most recently accessed it.

      • stormdelay@sh.itjust.works
        0·
        2 months ago

        Being unable to comply (signal) and selectively refusing to comply while still having access to the data (telegram) is not equivalent

        • BossDj@lemm.ee
          0·
          2 months ago

          “Selectively” is a new word that wasn’t mentioned in the post I replied to. I get that it’s better to not have access to the data at all, and lying to customers is shitty, etc. I use signal and not telegram. But ‘refusing to comply with demands from other groups for data access is correct behavior’ was my only argument. Nothing about equivalence