this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2024
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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[–] [email protected] 118 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Blocking a large messaging platform because a minority of people are using it for piracy, of all things, seems extremely disproportionate

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And it is pointless too as there are countless other messaging apps that can be used and countless others ways that can be created to circumvent. Law makers clearly do not get tech.

[–] RamblingPanda 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The other messaging apps offering better privacy on top of that, making it harder to control.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Honestly, Telegram sucks. Use Signal for private communications and Matrix for groups/communities.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

Telegram is great for nothing related to privacy.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's the best app when it comes to functionality. It has it all.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can you name a feature that other apps are missing?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)
  • You can schedule messages
  • Have supergroups, subgroups, broadcasts, admin roles in groups,...
  • Channels can be configured in various ways. For example, you can post messages and choose the type of previews links render.
  • You can add voting options to posts
  • Members of the channel can only reply in threads so the replies are bundled.
  • You can decide wheter new group members can view chat history or not.
  • Members can be muted.
  • Bots can be built withing the app
  • Chats can be arranged in folders *...

I could go on.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Ok, I see. Telegram tries to combine Discord, WhatsApp and WeChat, but it isn't a great replacement for either of them.

Discord has groups, chanels, threaded conversations, allows you to mute people, great support for bots, folders, etc. Signal is much better for private chats though, it has a very secure encryption protocol and enables E2EE by default and is very focused on privacy in general. Btw Signal also allows scheduling messages. I tried Telegram for both groups/chanels and private chats and I found it really annoying to have my groups and channels in the same app as my normal conversations. Just use Signal and Discord/Matrix/Revolt.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Matrix is good for personal communications too The us companies made you to use phone numbers for chatting Id's are convenient

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I mean, sure, you can use Matrix for personal chats. It's perfectly secure, but it's not as easy to use as Signal. For example, if I told my grandma to install Element and send me her Matrix ID, she would be really confused. Signal is very easy to use, and the user experience is basically the same as on mainstream platforms like WhatsApp. I also don't think that the phone number requirement is a US thing, as Telegram also has it. Signal only requires phone numbers to prevent spam, but they recently introduced usernames, so you don't have to give people your phone number in order for them to message you.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Does Telegram have anything that torrents and usenet don't?

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago

It indeed empowers common people by distributing full seasons of series all in one place in a somewhat user friendly way without "10 chicks in 10mt" popups.

A bunch of my friends, who don't even know how to install an adblocker, have a very rich catalog of things there.

Also, it is more difficult for a telegram channel to be banned than a website.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

It's normie-accessible

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Probably not, but Telegram is very easy to use.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So are Signal, Element, Revolt and many other apps. What's to special about Telegram?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

It has it all and 900 million users.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (4 children)

You know Telegram is secure when every government in the world is trying to ban it.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Just use Signal if you want an easy, relatively privacy friendly and secure messenger.

Telegram hands over data to goverments, is infested with spammers and scammers and its encryption is not end to end for group chat which lets Telegram access those chats.

Edit: Telegram is great for lots of things like big groups, communities, piracy, drugs etc but its just not the place where you should expect secure communication.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I'm not using Signal as long as Signal Foundation is based in the US. Also Signal is not on FDroid, so I can't use it anyway.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I installed Signal via Obtanium. Just use this URL when searching/adding the app

https://signal.org/android/apk/

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

But RusSSian/UAE-based Telegram is fine? 😂

Also, it really doesn't matter where Signal is based, as long as it's client code is open source and it uses E2EE by default. Telegram doesn't encrypt chats by default, and even if you enable 'secret chats' it uses a pretty weak encryption protocol.

Btw the official version of Telegram isn't available on F-Droid either, only a fork called Telegram-FOSS. You can get the exact same thing for Signal from a 3rd-party repo: https://www.twinhelix.com/apps/signal-foss/, or use Molly.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Absolutely not.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This might not be relevant because you have other reasons not to use Signal, but you can get android signal directly from their website and via aurora store (on fdroid)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (5 children)

It's more the attitude that bothers me. Signal's refusal to support alternative appstores and clients is very disturbing. It gives the impression that Signal is a honeypot.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

You seem to have really high standards around who you trust and in the same moment you call Telegram secure. I feel like you should atleast use the same amount of scepticism for Telegram that you use for Signal.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can side load.signal though from their website

https://signal.org/download/android/

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

It's Signal Foundation's hostility to open and non-Google platforms that is very disturbing.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The CEO is a Russian, the company is based out of Dubai, and messages aren't encrypted by default. In fact, only private messages can be encrypted, group messages cannot. Telegram is not a trustworthy platform and a champion for user privacy like most people think, Signal is what you're looking for.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

All of that is more reliable then an entity based in the US.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

WTF is this ignorant "I know what they want but I'm smarter" crap, if you don't know how it works you know nothing, and "what they want" you get from news.

I know of a few governments not trying to really. Like the Russian one.

Read something about its internals before saying something as stupid.

XMPP with OMEMO is secure (not for targeted attacks, in that case you'll just get a trojan on your Android device via some unclosed vulnerability and finita la comedia, or rubber hose cryptanalysis will be applied).

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

Good luck ban it, Telegram runs everywhere without playstore and with proxy.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Truly Spain without the S

My buddy in Spain says the block it pretty easier to get around at least.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Spain? Really? I thought they had a pretty left government?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

They do, but this is coming from a right-dominated tribunal known to be extremely conservative and reactionary in nature.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What is the relationship between the government ideology and the court system? Both are independent from each other.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

It's a monarchy

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I hijack the post to ask for a telegram client suggestions?

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