I use Telegram, but I’ve never really used channels. I know they exist, and you can browse local ones, and I’ve looked at some, and they’re all shit.
I mainly use it as an alternative to WhatsApp and similar because I use an iPhone (primarily) and my wife uses Android. So she can’t do iMessage, and I didn’t want to join Facebook or use some corpo-owned messenger. At the time (so this was like 7-9 years ago), Telegram was appealing, so my wife and I both downloaded it.
I get porn bots contacting me offering to sell me stuff. I block them. I figure it’s a scam at worst, or at best it’s a young lady who isn’t being trafficked trying to make a buck selling me what I can find online for free. Either way, I’m not interested.
I’ve heard tell of Telegram channels for illegal porn and piracy, but I’ve never actually seen one (of either). All the news around Telegram is kinda funny to me because my wife and I just use it to talk to each other.
Maybe we should move to Signal? But the problems people cite with Telegram with regards to privacy don’t affect us. We’re just a couple older adults using it for texting and sharing pics (not dirty, just at full rez, unlike what texting used to offer).
if it works for you and you’re happy there’s not much issue with continuing its usage. however imo it’s a pretty obvious honeypot, so gotta keep in mind anything you chat there can also be seen by the FSB/NSA whatever
signal is very privacy oriented and not as flexible as telegram. chat history, backup, multi device could provide worse UX. also their desktop client is electron unlike telegram that has nice native programs. (and this is just my opinion, but i can’t trust them for not being a honeypot because of their phone number requirement and extensive AWS usage…)
i’d choose XMPP or something if i were to move, but i still use telegram too…
I use Telegram, but I’ve never really used channels. I know they exist, and you can browse local ones, and I’ve looked at some, and they’re all shit.
I mainly use it as an alternative to WhatsApp and similar because I use an iPhone (primarily) and my wife uses Android. So she can’t do iMessage, and I didn’t want to join Facebook or use some corpo-owned messenger. At the time (so this was like 7-9 years ago), Telegram was appealing, so my wife and I both downloaded it.
I get porn bots contacting me offering to sell me stuff. I block them. I figure it’s a scam at worst, or at best it’s a young lady who isn’t being trafficked trying to make a buck selling me what I can find online for free. Either way, I’m not interested.
I’ve heard tell of Telegram channels for illegal porn and piracy, but I’ve never actually seen one (of either). All the news around Telegram is kinda funny to me because my wife and I just use it to talk to each other.
Maybe we should move to Signal? But the problems people cite with Telegram with regards to privacy don’t affect us. We’re just a couple older adults using it for texting and sharing pics (not dirty, just at full rez, unlike what texting used to offer).
if it works for you and you’re happy there’s not much issue with continuing its usage. however imo it’s a pretty obvious honeypot, so gotta keep in mind anything you chat there can also be seen by the FSB/NSA whatever
signal is very privacy oriented and not as flexible as telegram. chat history, backup, multi device could provide worse UX. also their desktop client is electron unlike telegram that has nice native programs. (and this is just my opinion, but i can’t trust them for not being a honeypot because of their phone number requirement and extensive AWS usage…)
i’d choose XMPP or something if i were to move, but i still use telegram too…