I am a vivid Telegram user, and it is my primary method of communication with friends. The Telegram communities are so large, that you are going to find all kind of people there. (They have claimed to have 500+ million users)

I am in over 100 chat rooms of varying sizes. Ranging from groups with 100+ members, in which I usually just ignore, and check from time to time to see what is going on. Groups of 20-100 members in which more close friends keep together, and is more similar to IRC chatrooms with tech talk and the ilk, and then a then a lot of groups with 5-20 members, in which friends organize parties, going out for dinner, etc... (I organize my chat rooms into folders for ease of access)

Telegram has been my favorite form of communication because of great performance, very good sync between PC/mobile, great search (I can find messages from 5 years ago with no effort!), and ease of use. My experience with Telegram pales in comparison with any other chat program I have used for how I like to stay in touch with friends.

Furries have heavily used the platform since before it went mainstream because of the custom sticker pack feature which amazingly, no other IM platform has reliably copied.

But yes, recently nutcases have taken to the platform since there is no big tech corp behind it to moderate the platform. They do delete illegal groups and spam, but if it’s legal and not causing disruption to other users, it’s almost certainly not getting deleted.

Active user here - telegram

* is fast

* has native apps

* has amazing stickers

* lets you share almost unlimited media

* has a decent bot API

* is secure enough for my personal use (though I don’t pretend to use it as a secure messenger nor do I advocate for it if this is important for someon. Please do not start an argument about this again, search up telegram on hn.algolia for plenty of comments about security)

* calls and video is not as high quality as FaceTime but way better than WhatsApp

The stickers are completely open; Anyone can submit new packs. Animated stickers are also supported.

The clients are all opensource, and the APIs usable by anyone.

It has tons of little nice features as well. E.g., organizational directories, great search, fine grained notification settings, … .

There is also voice chat support, which is pretty nice.

I use Telegram regularly with friends who don't find Signal user friendly enough.

Facebook is the biggest platform for far-right content, child pornography, terrorism, whatnot.

As far as child sexual abuse material goes, Facebook may only be number one because they do a good job of automatically detecting and reporting CSAM. I don't think it's fair to hold that against them. I've not seen anything to suggest that Facebook actually has the most CSAM either on a per Capita basis or total - only that they report the most on their platform.

It's the WhatsApp of my social circle. The question for me is who doesn't use it?

Maybe its a region specific thing? I've honest never met or heard of someone using it IRL.

The only time i come across it is when a youtube news show what's to laugh at some Q people.

It always is :) I was just arguing in another thread how things like iMessage, facetime and FB messanger simply only have little relevance because of all the people not having access to that here in Switzerland.

Signal and Threema went kinda popular too the more media talked about WhatsApp. But Telegram was THE IM app with simply the most fun functionality.

On the other hand I also know people refusing to use Telegram so nobody would think they are in weird channels now.

Adding to that I may also have a privacy focused circle, I am sure you'll find a group of people here too who life the exact opposite

Active user here. There are some great channels related to my hobbies, it has proper desktop version etc.

Comparable to something like Reddit would you say?

Somewhat? I often compare it to a mix of Twitter and Reddit for people that haven't experienced IRC.

If you have experienced IRC, it's basically that. You have smaller rooms (groups) and bigger ones. Every room has their active 1%, their own rules and customs and after a while, their own inside jokes etc.

Otherwise, it's a bit like reddit because you join groups that are usually about a certain topic / niche (general programming, JavaScript, Counter Strike, cooking, what have you) and it's also a bit like twitter because there's often a "hot topic" for a day or two with small things happening in between. Also because no one in their right mind treats those chats like actual group chats, as in, you don't read all the messages you missed. After a weekend i have at least 10k "missed messages".

This comparison is also cool because it reminds you to treat telegram just like reddit and twitter: it's public basically. Anyone can join groups you're in and log every message (there's plenty bots that do that) and they can see the contents of a public group even without joining. It's not encrypted by default and frankly, barely anyone uses secret chats, if only because ppl are on their desktop half the time anyway

I’m not using Reddit, so cannot compare the experience, but Telegram is a messenger app, not a forum.

Not even close globally. But in countries where it's popular, it's comparable.

I find it more comparable to Discord communities.

It's definitely a country and region specific thing. Where I come from Telegram reigns supreme amongst young people. It's practically the default at universities. Custom stickers, polls, really useful bots - make it perfect for group settings and collaboration. It even scales really nicely from small groups for conversation to large groups for polls and dissemination of info.

No numbers needed means it's a no-brainer using Telegram for group communication where you may not want everyone in the group to know your number. Some university modules have large Telegram groups for everyone reading the course.

  > Any Telegram users here?

Telegram vs Whatsapp use today is sort of a Shibboleth. Those who only use Whatsapp are typically lax about privacy and security, whereas Telegram users typically take these thing seriously.

So those who target the vulnerable are definitely focusing on Whatsapp right now. The self-selection is working very well in Telegram's favour, though that probably is just a happy side effect.

>whereas Telegram users typically take these thing seriously.

And yet they don't mind the lack of encryption?

I cannot speak for everybody, but for me the lack of encryption - thus allowing state actors to intercept - is a far better trade off than the explicit sharing of data with advertisers.

Note that I live in a nation in which I support and trust my state. Yet I do not trust advertisers and other entities who seek to influence my opinion. I'm sure that for those who live in states where the government is viewed as adversarial then Signal would be a better choice.

That's the thing, though: Telegram cannot be intercepted by state actors. They are jurisdiction hopping to evade that responsibility.

> Note that I live in a nation in which I support and trust my state.

Given the above: Do you trust any state's government?

  > They are jurisdiction hopping to evade that responsibility.

From a technical perspective, whoever is running those servers can access the data. That aspect is far more important than the legal hurdles.

  > Given the above: Do you trust any state's government?

Yes, my own. But I understand that not everybody has that privilege.

Er, sorry, I meant "every", because you don't trust yours with Telegram – you trust a more or less random one, depending on their jurisdiction hopping location of the day.

I see. Well, you are correct. I'm sure that a particularly motivated entity with access to my Telegram could find something on me, and coercing foreigners with blackmail could be a good strategy for any government.

I understand and respect your motive for saying that telegram has no encryption. At the same time I cannot stop hating you for improper use of words.

I wish there was a simple and catchy word for describing a "vulnerable to the government" encryption

For me, transport encrypted (e.g. TLS) is the bare minimum everything going over a wire should be encrypted with, so encryption in the context of messenger is for me always about E2E. As far as I know, Google and Apple don't even allow apps to use unecrypted HTTP if dev's want them to be in their respective app store.

As a term, e2e encryption is quite short, and is also easy to search for, if someone does not know what it is.

Can we stop comparing the lack of default-on e2ee in Telegram to "no encryption"? There is transport encryption in MTProto since the beginning. There are e2ee chats for those who want them.

>Can we stop comparing the lack of default-on e2ee in Telegram to "no encryption"?

I don't think we should. In the context of messaging at least, encryption should mean E2E encryption.

Bragging about client-to-server encryption is pointless nowadays, when 99% of the internet is already encrypted this way.

That is quite misleading to a vast amount of people without tech background. I find it dishonest, even more so because Telegram actually does offer e2ee chats - and 1:1 voice/video chats are already e2ee, for what it's worth.

>That is quite misleading to a vast amount of people without tech background.

Not as misleading and potentially harmful as saying "Telegram is encrypted" as a blanket statement, because: 1. as I said, the client-to-server encryption is not noteworthy (almost everything has that) and it shouldn't be enough for privacy-conscious people. 2. even though Telegram does offer some e2e encryption too, its availability is quite limited and not representative of the typical Telegram usage.

Sure, I was being too dismissive there. But I don't like how Telegram gets brought up as a "private messenger", in the same context as fully e2e-encrypted messengers like Signal or even Whatsapp.

For all intents and purposes, Telegram is more similar to apps like Discord or Slack, seeing how most of the comms can be read by anyone who has access to the server. And Telegram can only be used with a phone number, so in terms of anonymity it's even worse than those.

> For all intents and purposes, Telegram is more similar to apps like Discord or Slack, seeing how most of the comms can be read by anyone who has access to the server.

This is absolutely true and a nice comparison at that, thanks! I will try to use that in the future.

Most of my non-technical friends using Telegram are convinced that it's more secure than WhatsApp. Even many non-technical news outlets are propagating these claims. It makes me incredibly sad.

They are promising a usable Signal, but instead are providing a Discord with mandatory phone number registration.

Why resort to such dishonesty? Just let the product speak for itself.

Is it? In WhatsApp all of your messages are E2EE. In Telegram it’s an option, only works in 1:1, doesn’t support desktop, and uses homegrown encryption.

> Can we stop comparing the lack of default-on e2ee in Telegram to "no encryption"?

No, because defaults matter. Users have a habit of never changing them.

It definitely is a Shibboleth: Everybody recommending it to me so far has done so either due to usability (which I get) or "because it's encrypted and more secure than WhatsApp".

The latter is a very good indicator of misplaced faith in shoddy news outlets propagating these claims uneditorialized.

  > "because it's encrypted and more secure than WhatsApp".

Sure, you'll find people believing and spreading misleading statements everywhere. Encrypted, compared to Whatsapp, is wrong. But secure? Sure. I much prefer governments getting access to my data via snooping than advertising companies being spoon fed my data with the intention of influencing my opinion.

Telegram does get access to your data, and them getting into advertisement is literally the topic of this discussion.

As a result, governments aren't getting access to Telegram, advertisers are.

I think that you should read the fine article. It seems that you are assuming things that are incorrect.

I mean, Telegram also supports fully-fledged microblogging (with personal channels) in a way Whatsapp just doesn't.

It's popular among college students where I live. I guess it initially spread among the the sizeable engineering student body, many of whom found it preferable over a Facebook-owned IM application, but less of a hassle than Signal.

I'm always suprised that people find Signal a hassle. For me, the experience is basically the same as WhatsApp's – minus the "Status" feature.

Yes, Telegram has the superior UI compared to both. But for me, if I had to name an alternative to WhatsApp, Signal is the first coming to mind. The biggest (only?) reason being the lack of e2e encryption per default for 1:1 chats and complete lack thereof for group messaging in Telegram.

And even if e2ee in groups wasn't important for me, the lack of e2ee support in the desktop client breaks the usability argument completely for me. It's such a pity, because I'd love to recommend Telegram if they'd just use some variant of the Sinal Protocol for everything, just like Matrix, XMPP and WhatsApp are doing it.

Telegram has more than 550 million monthly active users... so yeah, lots of us.

I don't personally keep in touch with people so I can't really say how it's like, but I do know that it's popular around my neck of the woods. On par with whatsapp, it feels like.

I read hacker news exclusively through Telegram channels. Yes we are here and there are many of us.

It’s very popular in Europe. I haven’t seriously used another chat app since 2015.