Why such a misleading title? It’s the TON foundation partnering, which isn’t related to Telegram. TON used to be a Telegram product but they dumped it, likely due to SEC not letting them launch it in the US.
There's no doubt whatsoever that TON was, at one point, an official Telegram project. There's posts about it on their blog [1] and sections of their Terms of Service which describe it a feature "incorporated into the Telegram Messenger application" [2]. There are also a number of features being offered by TON with explicit support from Telegram itself, e.g. purchasing Telegram Premium with TON [3], "collectible" Telegram usernames [4][5], "anonymous numbers" for Telegram accounts [6][7], etc.
Even if TON isn't legally the same entity as Telegram, they're hand-in-glove with each other.
I know that, but Telegram pulled out of the project after their legal battle with the SEC. As I said, it's fine if you have suspicions that they are still tied, but unless there is falsifiable, this is indiscernible from a journalist not understand what they are publishing. Given the state of tech journalism nowadays, that's my bet.
> I know that, but Telegram pulled out of the project after their legal battle with the SEC.
They've tried to legally distance themselves from the project, but they haven't "pulled out". Telegram has gone well out of their way to develop and release new features which rely on TON / Fragment, like the "collectible usernames" feature I mentioned, as recently as last year. This isn't something that TON could have developed on their own; it required support not only from the Telegram apps, servers, and API, but also administrative support from Telegram to seize some usernames from users and make them available to TON/Fragment for resale.
I'm not sure what you're trying to suggest is "falsifiable" here. These are all things which are visible to end users; anyone can verify them.
I don't trust the encryption, but I especially don't trust the WhatsApp backups - and if I disable cloud backups for my messages, it asks me every few weeks if I don't want to turn it on, and I have to choose "never" every single time. And if the people I talk to back up, it's in their cloud anyway.
Its secret chats do what they promise. Not as handy as Whatsapp (only work on one device and both partners need to be online for the key exchange) but it does the job.
Telegram focuses more on big public groups anyway where this doesn't matter so much because anyone can join. This is really what I use it for too.
Actually just deleted it from my phone this morning. It's beyond garbage. I cringe every time I need to open it. But I realized I never really need to open it. So it's gone. Awful app.
I pay for TG premium and it offers a lot for the little it costs. The value is there IMO. The uptake isn't yet but I guess they're banking on that coming in the future like most startups.
Slack DOES have a good income source (buisness use)
Discord and telegram have premium but discord is way more used and have streaming features (really costly) and telegram premium is not that widespread and no one but power users need it
I think he meant telegram premium, not the app.
Its widespread for the wrong reasons, many people think its secure, its not, its one of the worst.
It basically has no encryption at all.
Its based in UAE, with a mere legal presence in Germany, their official explanation is that durov is financing it sincd its beginning in 2014, how? From his VK money.
This could've been believable, if telegram worked like WhatsApp with Minimum storage requirements, but its totally the opposite with huge hosting xosts and no clear funing source.
> Developers can use JavaScript to create infinitely flexible interfaces that can be launched right inside Telegram — and can completely replace any website.
