• whitecapstromgard@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Telegram is a suprisingly good app.

    • Open source clients
    • Decent Linux client on the laptop (whatsapp desktop is just terrible)
    • It can be downloaded without Google’s appstore.

    I wish other apps were half as good as Telegram.

      • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It bothers me that the major complaint is not the privacy issues or the people who own it behind the scenes…

        but the technology used to build the desktop application. Electron is just a tool.

    • smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      Telegram has the best clients ever. But those clients need to connect to something and this is where we encounter a big problem.

      • Virkkunen@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        But isn’t that the whole point of a messaging service? Connect to something else that’s not local and have your messages exchanged?

        • Muehe@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          I think smileyhead is alluding to the fact that Telegram servers are not open source, just the clients are.

          • ඞmir@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Why would it matter if the servers are open source? How would you ever verify they are running the exact build they claim they are?

            • Muehe@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              It’s not about what build they are running. It matters because somebody just glancing at it might misinterpret the situation as “Telegram is open source”, but it actually isn’t because the server isn’t. Just some clients are, which is pretty useless if you can’t run a server to talk to them. Just for arguments sake, let’s say Telegram gets busted tomorrow in an international sting operation and all their servers get taken offline. The clients will be entirely useless at that point, somebody would have to reverse engineer the server.

            • TheEntity@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              I’d like to at the very least be able to run my own server. Not even necessarily federated with the original ones. Just run my own instance if I don’t trust the main one runs what they claim.

            • Muehe@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              That’s kind of an apples an oranges comparison, WhatsApp doesn’t even try to present a facade of being open source. Telegram does, betting that the distinction between server and client code will go over most peoples heads, which it probably does to be honest.

              • whitecapstromgard@sh.itjust.works
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                1 year ago

                There are two realistic alternatives with hundreds of millions of users. Whatsapp has a closed source client, Telegram has an open source one. The choice for me is easy.

                • Muehe@lemmy.ml
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                  1 year ago

                  That sounds like a false dichotomy and I’m not sure why you even think the number of users is relevant. Why not choose something fully open source?

          • smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de
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            1 year ago

            Not open source, centralized servers that store messages mostly without E2EE. By using Telegram we are locking ourself in situation where they can turn the knobs as they like, while we can’t do anything about it.

    • Clot@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      yeah it is too good for just to be called a messaging app, hope it will be more privacy focused

    • axo@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Well, thats also easy since telegram clients dont do much more than displaying messages stored on a server. Its more a viewer than a full client.

      And that compromises hard on privacy and security, which Signal and Whatsapp dont do, they have proper Clients that have to really handle and store incoming messages. And the E2EE makes it harder, developing an independent desktop client, like Signal always had and Whatsapp recently got. But both are mediocre at best, sure.

    • jack@monero.town
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      1 year ago

      Being foss and available on Linux is the prerequisite, it doesn’t make the app “good”