TELEGRAM - Zuckerberg plans to Integrate WhatsApp-Instagram-Facebook Mes.

[Zucca]

For your information:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/technology/facebook-instagram-whatsapp-messenger.html

so I installed Telegram (some friends told me to) and sadly here in Europe it is no so popular as the Whatsapp evil, but 30% of my contacts had Telegram already, so nooot too bad.

After one week of Telegram, I really like it. I don't want to use WA anymore but I am forced by my friends.
Beside the security/entcription, and other cool features (auto delete chat), I love the portable client for windows which does not require the phone to be connected on the network as WA does...

[BravoV]

Same here, currently running both WhatsApp & Telegram, and within my Whatsapp's avatar, I put the words ... ".. moving to Telegram ...", and starting to chat with friends that has Telegram installed.

[T3sl4co1l]

Picked it up to connect to a small circle of friends.  Very usable.  Connecting is a little weird (coming from desktop chat apps, anyway -- needs phone number and contacts), but you don't need to worry about that afterwards.  There's also a (rudimentary) plugin for Pidgin, if you need a free and open multi-protocol client.

Tim

[Monkeh]

The major concern I have with Facebook's integration plans is the potential loss of end-to-end encryption (despite claims that will be maintained) - something Telegram never offered to begin with.

May I suggest Signal?

[Zucca]

I will give a try with Signal, thanks for your suggestion.

I read now about end-end encryption and it looks like WA is better than Telegram.
However I feel the battle to be private on social is kind of lost one from the beginning.
The golden rule is not to use socials for sensible stuff. Period.

Since last weekend, I am google free (no gmail, no gdrive, ect...) and I discover how much features and cool stuff we can do outside the golden google cage... yes I had to take some $ out af my pocket (buy a domain and Fastmail account), but it was worth every penny. Finally I have a real email account and full control on it.

Interestly enough I jumped off the google boat for privacy reasons and then I discover that for me the most important point is the functionality / feautures that I was not aware when I was a google "slave".

Telegram until now is fantastic because of the user interface, portable and light client, and nice unique features there. If Signal can do better I will be there.

Thanks for your input.

[Zucca]

I like the encryption in Signal, but I miss the share my live location feature. Unfortunately only less than 1% of my contacts use Signal, so showstopper here for me.

Moreover Telegram stores the message in the cloud/server and not in the phone, which is of course a nightmare for the privacy. On the other hands this allowes to have a stupid SW client which has only to mirror the messages located somewhere. The multi-device management it's also super easy in this way. That's why the portable client it's a super light and it doesn't require the phone connected (like Whatsapp and Signal as I know, they need to update the phones messages where the messages storage location is).

Personally I like it Telegram a lot.

Anyhow I like the Signal strategy/try and I will leave it installed on my phone, let's see in the future.

[Zero999]

Am I the only person who things these apps such as WhatsApp are a total waste of time?

If anyone needs to contact  me, I give them my phone number and email. I see no need for anything else.

[wraper]

The major concern I have with Facebook's integration plans is the potential loss of end-to-end encryption (despite claims that will be maintained) - something Telegram never offered to begin with.

May I suggest Signal?

Telegram has end-to-end encryption.

[Wirehead]

I removed all those similar chat apps. If they need me, they have my phone and mail. Stick to standards, worry less 

[wraper]

Actually Telegram is banned in Russia (home country of founder) because they said to fuck off when requested to provide a way of decrypting messages. They choose war of exhaustion instead. To the point that 18 million IP addresses (Google, Amazon AWS...) were banned in Russia due to carpet bombing in attempts preventing Telegram working. But it still worked regardless (with occasional interruptions), while many other innocent services suffered instead. Now it dropped to 800k IPs banned.
https://usher2.club/en/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_Telegram_in_Russia

The technical process of this restriction began on April 16, 2018.[1] The blocking led to interruptions in the operation of many third-party services, but practically did not affect the availability of Telegram in Russia.

[Zucca]

Yestarday I turned off all the Whatsapp notifications. Life is better now.
Of course I would love to not have all those evil chat app, but what about my friends...

Anyway I see what Zuckerberg move will be, and I am prepared to unistall whatsapp forever.

[bd139]

Am I the only person who things these apps such as WhatsApp are a total waste of time?

If anyone needs to contact  me, I give them my phone number and email. I see no need for anything else.

Nailed it in one.

Being locked into a particular piece of software from a single irreplaceable vendor to do any sort of communication is quite frankly a fucking stupid idea. Look at Wechat for how bad it can go.

Email / phone is totally fungible. If you need additional security, you can layer that on top as required.

[Zucca]

As email is the evolution of the fax phone system, the chat apps are the evolution of the SMS GSM system. At least is what I believe/think.
Problem is to keep the good one and to avoid the bad ones... and to have friends with brain... wait... I am dreaming again.

[bd139]

IRC actually predates SMS by 4 years. ICQ/AOL/yahoo/msn were derived from the idea of IRC but centralising control on the vendors ecosystem. Even recent things like Slack are fundamentally enhanced, closed IRC type systems.

Friends with brains. Good luck with that one. My family uses WhatsApp and I’m treated like an idiot lepper for not joining in the “fun”. Even the ones who refuse to use Facebook don’t realise it’s the same damn company.

[JPortici]

Am I the only person who things these apps such as WhatsApp are a total waste of time?

If anyone needs to contact  me, I give them my phone number and email. I see no need for anything else.

When me and the guys are out in the mountains i prefer whatsapp, because i can share the location (i was also able to recover my phone once, which had fallen out of my pocket while in fresh snow. phew) and it needs very little data to send/receive messages and voice notes. Yes it's not a substitute for proper security features, or a walkie talkie for the backcountry.. it's just an example

[Monkeh]

The major concern I have with Facebook's integration plans is the potential loss of end-to-end encryption (despite claims that will be maintained) - something Telegram never offered to begin with.

May I suggest Signal?

Telegram has end-to-end encryption.

As an optional and limited feature. To be valuable it should be by default for all modes of communication.

But yes, I should have clarified that I meant for the whole platform.

[joeqsmith]

Am I the only person who things these apps such as WhatsApp are a total waste of time?

If anyone needs to contact  me, I give them my phone number and email. I see no need for anything else.

   

Same.   This and other forums are about as close as I get to a social app.  I rarely use email.  Given up on the news and rarely watch TV anymore.   Maybe one day I will buy a cell phone but its not something I am considering.    If you want to talk, it's face to face or phone. 

[edy]

Is not all this integration to serve one purpose? That is, so that Facebook has more personal data to scrub with their AI algorithms to figure out your preferences for advertising purposes? I'm sure they are doing that already, but by integrating the platforms they can perhaps improve on it or have the opportunity to play with the codebase to strip out security (or change the algorithms) to appease government scrutiny. This then serves as an excuse to move everyone over to the *new* system, since most of the apps would have to be using pre-existing protocols and security measures that Facebook may not necessarily agree with.

[gildasd]

In limited data situations, so far (in my experience) WA is the most reliable.

I have seen “sent” emails taking days/weeks to arrive (plain text stuff) or times Facebook simply does not load (and/or is blocked) for weeks.
So, not wanting to leave my wife and kids without or untimely news for 6 weeks  (yes, a daddy loves you message must arrive before the 19:00 bed time deadline), I do use WA.

No, using Iridium is not an option.

That said, WA is great because is has a small data footprint, the story from the OP sounds like bloat... So i might be switching to something else if that happens.

[Artlav]

and then I discover that for me the most important point is the functionality / feautures that I was not aware when I was a google "slave".

What features are these, if you don't mind sharing?

[Zucca]

What features are these, if you don't mind sharing?

First thing than comes in my mind is having my own domain and the freedom to create all the email/alias I want:
paypal@mydomain.com
ebay@mydomain.com
eevblog@mydomain.com
gmail@mydomain.com
trash@mydomain.com
xy@mydomain.com (two or one letters are useful when I have to spell the address on the phone)

and the peace of mind I will never change email address(es) again.
Of course if one of those addresses will be compromized by spammers I will simply deactivate it.
Mover I have 25GB just for emails. In Gmail I had 15GB shared will all the other google crap servicies (photo and Gdrive).
Yes I am a happy fastmail.com customer.
Bottom line is with a few $/month you can get much more than the free stuff on the www, I never invested better my money.
I don't mentioned the privacy... of course.

[Zucca]

IRC actually predates SMS by 4 years.

Interesting. First IRC Server from Wiki:

Was IRC available on portable devices back then? I am not an expert, just asking.
Oh maybe the pager/beeper device...

[bd139]

Yes and no. The first thing I ever used IRC on which could be called portable was someone else's tadpole sparcbook 3. That was about 1995 and it was dialled up into uunet (via SLIP - anyone else remember that?). After that the first truly mobile IRC device experience for me was a Palm Treo 180g in 2002.  So not portable as we have now for sure which is why SMS overtook it pretty sharply in the late 1990s. Alas I dragged a laptop around most of the time in the late 90s with FreeBSD and ircii on it and dialled up though.

Treo 180g - felt like I was in star trek. Bet I looked like a right dick

[Red Squirrel]

Am I the only person who things these apps such as WhatsApp are a total waste of time?

If anyone needs to contact  me, I give them my phone number and email. I see no need for anything else.

Yeah I don't really understand the need for them either.   I guess for internet friends, as you don't want to give your actual phone number to people on the internet.  Which is what traditional IM was great for, it's odd that most of those services died out.    I used to use MSN messenger until they pulled the plug.

[JPortici]

Er.. with WA you have to chat with other mobile phones so you need to know the number (well not exactly, you can start a chat with whatever number if you create the link correctly BUT from the app you can start converstations only with known contacts or other people from groups)

three random reasons to use it:
- Groups. Groups are awesome.
- Data Plans. We have had practically unlimited data for years, but we have to pay a lot for SMS and some times also for voice. It's become a cultural thing, my sister was in canada last year for 6 months and couldn't believe it at first that you don't use whatsapp en masse
- Things like live chatting with people from around the world. Altough there are other services like plain emauls or skype, people just want to use whatsapp to contact us for tech support. Some times we get international calls but whatsapp is just more handy. Voice notes, videos and photos in real time without the boatload of crap that comes along with skype which can't just manage to have a consistent video stream. And in some parts of the world WA works, Skype is restricted, emails aren't as handy.