Signal. This isn't even up for discussion.
Uhm, yeah why are we even comparing the two? Definitely isn't a discussion. Signal is superior
Signal seems like an obvious choice over Telegram if privacy is the exclusive priority.
I do love Telegram tho for the ability to send full-quality photos/videos, log-on with 2+ phones simultaneously, visual customization, etc
🤔
both require phone numbers, and both concentrate metadata in a central location (Amazon servers, in the case of signal).
both sort of pretend to be free open source software, and sort of are but with a lot of caveats.
telegram doesn't even have end-to-end encryption (except for some wacky not-peer-reviewed thing in 1:1 'secret chats' which are rarely used); at least signal has it beat there.
https://simplex.chat/ is a new messenger which doesn't have any of the above problems and seems quite promising imo.
Hey fellow SimpleX enjoyer. It's still very early but only by spreading the word we can inform people about this great alternative!
Telegram probably doesn’t have E2E so that people can have always active desktop sessions
I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "always active desktop sessions" but for any definition I could imagine it is possible to do that while having e2ee. Many e2ee messengers have multi-device support nowadays.
Telegram doesn't need to have e2ee because they've pulled some trick of becoming widely perceived as being privacy friendly despite not actually offering any e2ee in most cases, and offering only some 🤡-protocol in the few cases where they do.
Another reason for them not to implement e2ee is that they're most likely monetizing their users content data as well as the metadata (and in more ways than just charging some types of police for access to it, which is presumably only a small fraction of their revenue).
E2ee doesn't have to be 2 devices. It can be for any amount of endpoints as long as they have the key to decrypt the data.
For example my nextcloud instance has e2ee for my phone, computer, and tablet.
Why make this post hard to search for by using an image, instead of directly asking which is more trustworthy between Telegram and Signal? It just makes it look like you're sharing an article link.
The question isn't even really relevant, you can mistrust Signal and still use it because it's made in such a way that even if the server operators were malicious, they could get little data out of you.
Telegram has secret chats and already having to "toggle-on" your privacy undermines the privacy of the whole application because your profile is partially clear to the service, which leaves it open to make various inferences on you
I’m still not sure whether the post is just spam.
I have this impression too with the profile's posts, but I'll give the benefit of the doubt
Yeah it took me a while to figure out it was about those two apps. I thought OP meant any app.
I wish we would move away from centralized messengers entirely. They are always just one law away from being banned. See: whatever the UK is doing.
For people I don't know or just started talking, I give them my telegram username that's not linked to my personal phone number. For friends and family, I use signal.
Lots of opensource projects have telegram channels for updates. Not to mention news and local updates as well.
People need to incorporate a social aspect of the real world. Everyone isn't as privacy conscious as you are and you can have multiple apps for different scenarios.
If you don't ever want to meet anyone new, signal is perfect.
Using signal but planning to switch. SimpleX and XMPP are my candidates.
I use Signal, it's about as private as I can get other normal people to use.
Signal. SimpleX is a second to that.
I ”trust” Signal the most because there is 100% transparency, I can look into the inner workings of the app and see what it does at all time.
Telegram is the best (in sense of privacy) message app you can actually manage to get your friends and family to use.
In my case, the hardest app to convince my friends and family to use is Telegram.
There’s definitely the stigma that Telegram is only used by criminals
Wait what? I thought Telegram pretty much was Discord but for people who prefer phones over computers.
Wasn't there also a controversy where some people believed that telegram was private and secure, but that only was for a very limited subset of their features?
Disclaimer: I've only ever installed telegram once for one single person, but promptly removed it afterward for sending out messages to some of my contacts on its own, so I have no clue how it actually works. Feel free to correct or educate me.
Automatically sending messages to your contacts?? Someone might have access to your account
My friends are already on telegram, I don't have to force change. I can make any chat more secure from the start. I am not using massive government level secrets anyhow. I mean, security is nice, but my cat photos, bad code, homegrown mint tea, and plans for the beach this coming summer are hardly a top secret problem anyway, I'm not planning a murder, I just don't want meta or facebook using them for advertising. Telegram is good enough.
I would never trust telegram. The company behind it is mostly Russian scammers. I would use the opensource alternative to signal called Molly
One of those had an entire Ph.D thesis written on the topic of compromising the encryption used. The other did not. I use the latter.
I can generally convince people to use Telegram, but not signal. Telegram is better than SMS, GroupMe, WhatsApp, Discord, Facebook Messenger, SnapChat, etc so its what I use.
If anything, I've got hopes that Element/Matrix will get enough polish to become viable.
SimpleX or Briar
Signal is privacy focused Telegram is a privacy nightmare
First choice is always talk on SimpleX, second is Signal/Molly for something easier, there is no other app that I use.
1.- jami 2.- xmpp + omemo 3.- matrix 4.- signal
It's hard no one cares. Where I live everyone uses whatsapp, and unfortunately what comes closer, and still without enough users base is signal on my list, and it's the last. Jami is distributed, which makes it best in class, and there are good efforts trying to make it not to steal the whole battery, as opposed to briar. I which more people were interested on not using centralized stuff, not even what has been called lately decentralized, which means centralized but with several central points (only if everyone self hosts it would be decentralized, which is not the case). Currently I use Jami and signal, though I've tried all those, plus briar, plus tox, even telegram...
Default Signal is better although Telegram has Secret Chat. I love thar Telegram let's you use a username to connect to others without exposing your mobile number to contacts.
But I have way more friends who actually use Telegram than Signal. No idea why although for many the massive community groups are used by a lot communities for staying in touch, as well as safety/security groups in communities.
I trust Signal more, but the main reason I use Signal is because a lot of people I know use it. I would personally love if Briar caught on more, but given that isn't really happening SimpleX is your best bet.
Threema
me and my zero friends who use it
Like telegram, threema insists on making up their own 🤡-crypto constructions which (unsurprisingly) are not very good: https://breakingthe3ma.app/ (see also The Register's summary, and/or here for some earlier research).
Their response to those findings was to reinvent and replace everything (again). It seems like a pretty safe bet that their new amateur cryptographic constructions will get broken too, just as soon as the next bored researcher gets around to looking closely at it.
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.
[Matrix/Element]Dead
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
