It is such a shame that we have, in 2021, no way to perform secure computations in untrusted environment. Signal at least had the decency to try for Secure Value Recovery even if Intel SGX as a technology is not really mature.

So, what is the Telegram excuse for not being able to put the same amount of effort? That sounds dubious to say it is reasonable when in fact it is only the very bare minimum that everyone does.

As a matter of fact, trusted computing is a very active and practical field as far as I know.

> The reasons given by them are reasonable. Whatsapp ain't e2ee since all chats are backed to google drive and iCloud.

That's up to the user, I've never backed up my WA data to any cloud service.

Do you make sure that in group chats no one there ever enables it by accident? Because it's really, really easy to inadvertently do.

Telegram's UX is better for security. You know when you can expect difference levels of security, and the best that can be done is just as good if not better.

> Do you make sure that in group chats no one there ever enables it by accident? Because it's really, really easy to inadvertently do.

Fair comment. Still, at that point, you're trusting a third party just like in Telegram case. In any case, if anything, the default settings in WA are closer to an ideal E2EE than Telegram.

Telegram is not a third party. It's the only party you trust. When you use whatsapp, you trust Whatsapp, Facebook and Google.

The default setting in whatsapp is to show a full screen prompt asking you to backup to google drive. 98% of users enable this, meaning it is worse than Telegram. You don't even know who has enabled it.

> you trust Whatsapp, Facebook

You don't trust WA nor Facebook regarding your data, which is what we were discussing. You do trust them regarding your metadata, and it's indeed a problem.

There is also not-metadata data that WhatsApp stores (group names, status updates, ...). But I think the point is that if you're using WhatsApp (especially group chats), there is a high chance that Facebook, Google AND Apple end up storing your personal data - even if Facebook might not have access to message contents (but Google and Apple still do). Still your data is all over the place. Doesn't matter if you disabled cloud backups because the people you chat with most likely didn't. With Telegram your data is stored on their servers - but but only on their servers.

> That's up to the user, I've never backed up my WA data to any cloud service.

You don't but almost every person you chat with backs it up.

None of my whatsapp chats are backed up to Google drive and iCloud, it’s optional.

Have you gone and disabled the backup options for every contact you chat with, in every personal and group chat?

They back it up. Your chats are included in the backups that happens to their Google accounts.

WhatsApp pushes the drive backups frequently. Every single person I chat with has enabled it. I've checked.