Umm I think I'll just delete you instead

It is time for Signal.
- I don't get how people expect services to stay free while also being against any kind of subscription or ads and barely donate to support these projects.
  This isn't an essential feature they're paywalling. I don't even remember the last time I sent a voice note, let alone get one from a stranger. Feels more like a thank you from the devs for supporting them
  
  I'd understand paying for an active feature, like to SEND voice messages, but not having to pay to restrict spam sent my way.
  
  Also it's not like voice messages auto play, so this really isn't a necessary feature
  
  Why don't they charge to use telegram infrastructure.
- No thanks

So we want free apps that offer everything and don't take your data or advertise. It must also have constant security updates and a fleet of developers keeping it running. Good Luck finding that unicorn.
I actually like this development. I'd much rather pay for a service with money over my privacy.
- Signal literally exists. Free.
  
  It’s only free because they’re trusting users to donate. That method of generating income for their developers could stop working at any time. Lots of FLOSS projects struggle to find kosher funding.
  
  Signal literally exists. Free.
  Signal has fewer features than non-premium Telegram. Both are open source, neither can be used with alternative servers (unlike Matrix).
- Signal uses donations to keep running. That's one of the reasons why they don't need to do this kind of crap. Kinda like Firefox.
  It's sad to see that slowly but surely the Internet gets divided into the more and more useless giant sector and the free and open sector, which just doesn't get the attention it needs to be attractive enough for most to switch over. And then there's also this weird shadow area where I often hear those pirate chanties from...
  
  Firefox wants to rely on donations but in reality 90% of their funding comes from an advertising company.
- Sounds like the best open source projects out there. How bout we use our tax money to fund great free software for everybody?
- People like you are really good for my business and I love it. Thank you🥰

signal is the perfect messaging app for normies
- I would generally agree with you, if it could allow you to sign-in on multiple devices, and share message history. I understand why it doesn't do either one, but it does cripple the experience
  
  Technically, you can sign in on multiple devices and share history. I share between my phone and multiple desktops. You just can't do it between two mobile devices.
  
  But… you can't sign-in on multiple devices and see the message history there?!
- > signal is the perfect messaging app for normies
  But Signal doesn't let me restrict receiving voice messages either. I only found options regarding calls, not voice messages.
- its a sacrifice one must make. also whatsapp is closed source so e2e is as good as nothing

I definitely prefer premium over my personal data being the product for "free".
As I get older I'm appreciating paid electronic services and content when done responsibly in exchange for a private ad-free and well done experience. But it's taking a lot to get over my decades of conditioning assuming everything on a computer and internet should be "free".
I've enjoyed my kagi premium search trial and seeing the prices is a bit much. But getting really good search results and having the webpage or search run so fast and seeing my ad blocker greyed out because there were no ads and trackers to block is surreal this day and age.
I just wish we had a better way of trusting telegram. The only thing encrypted by default is secret chats. I'd buy premium if it made all chats including group chats started by the user encrypted by default.
- Yeah, problem with the fremium model is that they usually still collect and sell information on their premium users just the same as their free users. The premium just add some semi-essential features that they cut out for the free users. And finding truly 100% premium services that don't sell personal data is rare these days because that's where the money is for now, information. I don't mind paying for a good service, but I won't both pay and share my personal information, that's just paying twice.
- The issue is that is that now they have your billing address and credit card number
  
  privacy dot com.
- I totally agree with you, but it's the damn cable model all over again.
  Pay us so we don't have to make money by selling you stuff.
  Hey, we can still make money by selling them stuff.
- Kagi is really, really good.

Never noticed because I've never received a single voice message in the 5+ years of using it. Then again, I only use it with friends and not large communities. I've had spam messages, but they're rare and just text talking about crypto.

And thats why I switched to Matrix and set up a Telegram bridge.

I'll stick with Signal thanks
- Signal can block voice messages? How?

I avoided using telegram when it asked for my phone number.
- > I avoided using telegram when it asked for my phone number.
  So you don't use Signal and Element either?
  
  Element does not require a phone number. Signal does, and yes I don't use it for that reason.
  
  Nope

Annnnnnnnnnd......Signal!
- Signal is superior in all the important security ways anyway. You're not losing much except stickies and emotes or whatever.
  
  Signal is only good at doing one thing, and that's encryption. It lacks so many useful features that Telegram has.
  
  I know, I only use Signal ! But tell that to all the others who explain to my why Whatsapp is so much better...
  
  Normies are missing all Telegram has, and that's not security.

I switched all of my friends and family to telegram in 2013. I deleted it 2 months ago. 10 years.
Telegram was so great. Always cutting edge, released so many features before anyone else, and the app always stayed extremely lightweight. What broke the camels back for me was them destroying transfer speeds for free users.
I have 1gbps internet connection, and videos and photos take FOREVER to download and send on telegram. Trying to send a short 30 second clip on telegram takes a good 90-120 seconds, even on the lowest compression.
Meanwhile snapchat and other apps take 3 seconds and look better?
They are trying to push their premium so hard, which is fine, gotta pay, but I'm sorry there's no chance in hell all of my friends and family are paying $7 CAD each per month.
At this point I've just switched to RCS messages for all of my Android friends, and Snapchat for my stubborn iOS friends.
- For a long time it was ran on money that Durov made from VK and it's selling deal and had no ads, almost perfect development. It was a ton of money obviously, but we all knew it would run out sooner or later and then everything would change. I bought premium once because I wanted to support the project, and I still use it. Hopefully I won't have to use anything else, because I hate almost any other messenger.
  Edit: forgot "would"
  
  EXACTLY.
  Everyone else here is forgetting that Telegram is still pushing the limits and it's still one of the best app for messaging (the best in my opinion though), if they're recurring to this, it's because money aren't unlimited.
  Shut the hell up you people: Telegram still isn't invading privacy and using anti-user practice, the hell you complaining about?
  
  Thank you. I would love to support telegram with premium because they've done so much in the past couple years but can't because I can't buy premium where I live.
  The main thing that frustrates me is not being able to turn off the emoji interface in their official app.
- Serious question - isn't snapchat an absolutely horrible messaging experience? The messages literally disappear, the app is shit, and the messaging interface is shit. And you can see when someone is actively reading the message. I hate all of that.
  Do people seriously use it for day to day messaging with people?
  
  Well I don't really care to save chat logs from my friends. If they send something "important", I can save it in the chat so it never disappears, or I can screenshot it.
  They only disappear after 24 hours unless you save them by tapping on them. Depending on your relationship, that could be a good thing. I mean Telegram added disappearing messages for a reason.
  Yes, millions and millions of people use it daily. It's the easiest way to send videos and photos to friends. I send so much stuff to my girlfriend and vice versa that doesn't sit in my messenger and clog it up. Meanwhile my Telegram chats are full of tens of thousands of photos and 99.9% of them are garbage that I wish didn't exist still like selfies of me making stupid faces.
  I'm not acting like snapchat is private, or that screenshots don't exist. They do, I don't care. It's just nice that if I send my friends a stupid selfie, or my girlfriend a lewd, they are not sitting in their messenger for them to come across a few months or years later making shit awkward.

I keep forgetting why sometimes I even use Telegram. It's just there. I don't want their dumb subscription.
- You can use it without premium.
- I just use telegram for the occasional bit of sailing the high seas

What bugs me about Telegram is all the messages by scammers posing as pretty women. I seriously get one every day.
- I never get those, can't you just block them?
  
  I do. But new ones pop up every day
- My friend who's very non-privacy conscious gets these messages a ton, but I've never received one.
  I assume it has something to do with him giving him number to some sketch company a while back
  
  Ye I gave my number to a recruiting agency many years ago when I was looking for a job. The first time I received spam/phishing via Telegram they said they were recruiters. I blocked them but the spam keeps on coming from different accounts that get deleted on the same day

WTF?
- Well I don't think you can turn off receiving voice messages in other messengers, either. It's a weird premium-only feature, but eh, at least they're not making things worse compared to the baseline.
- You can just turn off receiving all messages from any user. This is specifically for people who told their friends that they don't want to listen to voice messages and want texts, but friends still use voices. Every one I know has a friend like that.
  
  But even then they have a feature to transcribe them for you. Also Premium though, hehe

Just use another Client.

telegram, originated from our russian friends, and they use it heavely to push their views, eventhough i think that everybody should be able to express their views, still i would not like that my kids would use it, hence it is blocked @ home.

Using telegram for years. Its the best messenger.
Don't have any troubles. I can use e2e-chats if needed.
I truely trust them. Besides, their Android client has the best Android source code I have ever seen. Very good resource.
- Your response reads like a paid AstroTurf comment.
  Putting the ability to block or restrict receiving something behind a paid subscription is batshit crazy. That is an extremely shitty thing to do and will just result in people not using the service entirely as soon as they try to block something like spam or harassing messages. Just because you don't run into any problems with how you use it, that doesn't mean there aren't issues people run into daily.
  
  I'm always wary of those who support enshittifying decisions like these. There's almost always an agenda, or an astounding level of ignorance.
  
  I can block user without problems. Plus I can decide for each one my own privacy settings.
  I don't see it. There isn't even any option to buy premium. And I just updated...

I will never understand why people switched from WhatsApp to telegram. Tg is just Russian WhatsApp.
- Also, never sold any data to any authorities, all the security issues came from users not paying attention to privacy settings. The stigmatisation of telegram as 'russian messenger', even though the team that made it and maintains it left russia a long ago, prevents this software from getting its rightly deserved popularity
  
  Telegram is in every way better. My primary reason for prefering Telegram over anything else are bots (API specifically). I mean bots functionality is so awesome that I can't properly describe how awesome it is. <3
  
  Telegram by default does not send end-to-end encrypted messages (only in secret chats) and thus can be considered very unsafe as the server owner can literally read all your messages.
  They give the user the impression that they are similar secure to e2e encrypted messengers but really are not since most users just start a normal chat.
  This also means that, in theory, surveillance is very possible and likely as the russians are not really to be trusted by anyone. Privacy nightmare.
  
  Plus the best stickers ever.
- Telegram is an infinitely better user experience then WhatsApp.
  
  Signal all the way
- What are the kids using nowadays? Signal?
  
  Signal
  
  Kids? Instagram
  
  Matrix
  
  Yes Signal is goog
- Whatsapp doesn't have even a tiniest bit of telegram functionality, most importantly, bots. The person who made this post bitches about weirdly specific functionality that doesn't affect you at all. I have a telegram premium (which is dirty cheap) and I never knew I could ban sending VMs, nor I had any reason to do so. Even in the free version you can restrict people who can write to you (e.g. only your contacts), if you don't like to get VMs from your friends, just tell them. Also, security-wise, we all know that whatsapp gives your data to whatever US authorities ask and tg never did anything like that. All the security risks came from users not paying attention to privacy settings, like exposing their mobile number.
  
  I have a telegram premium (which is dirty cheap)
  Is it cheaper than USD 4.99 per month? That's the cost I could find online. Premium is not available where I live, so I cannot just take a look.
- It has the absolute best and fluid user experience of all messengers I've tried so far, especially in conjunction with the desktop client.
- As I remember it, nobody had cared about Telegram until Signal started gaining some traction as a more private WA alternative. Telegram just rode that wave, plus I suppose it has better support for large groups I guess? The fact that those aren't even encrypted just gets lost.
- Telegram is literally what WhatsApp wishes it could be. Also Pavel doesn't get along with Russia.
- Telegram is not Russian. The creator is, but that is about it.
  
  I think they are referring to the large Russian user base.
- yeah go to matrix instead, or signal
  
  Enjoying Matrix, there seems to be an actual focus on privacy. We're using it for the development comms for Kbin. Feels like an alternative version of discord
- Telegram has much better Windows/iPad apps, open source client, faster, more customizable, support for sending lossless-files, etc. It's a much better app, and not owned by Meta
- I really hate whatsapp design for some reason
- My eyes are bleeding...
- TIL telegram is Russian and bad. dang.
  
  It's not. The founder is russian and created vKontakte but basically had it taken away from him by Putin. He's outspoken against the regime and just because he's born in Russia shouldn't mean he should be seen as part of that crappy government.
  
  No. He was born Russian, but has moved out of it after his other social platform VK was confiscated and now owned the Russia. He lives in ~~Germany~~ Dubai, where he placeed Telegram's HQ.