All Telegram client apps are open source, and licensed under GPLv3. Only Telegram’s server-side source code is proprietary.
End-to-end encryption is not necessarily a net positive: as discussed in the link above, it carries some costs over client-server/server-client encryption. Arguably, it’s better to give the user the option to decide when to use which, based on their weighing of the respective pros and cons, than to always enforce one option over the other.
A quick update: as far as I was able to tell, Telegram doesn’t support secret group chats (protected by end-to-end encryption), so I now use Signal for sensitive group messaging. I still prefer Telegram overall, which is my main messaging app, but I also think that Signal is far superior to Messenger and WhatsApp. I wanted to share this update because my earlier comments may suggest that I have a much more negative opinion of Signal than I in fact do.
Thanks so much for your thoughtful comment, Pablo! I really appreciate it.
Some reasons for the EA community as a whole to use Signal over Telegram:
End-to-end encryption is by default (in Telegram, you have to enable it manually, and you might forget to do so)
The code is open-source (Telegram’s is proprietary and thus could have security vulnerabilities or backdoors)
Signal proactively protects your metadata, and your privacy in general
A couple of clarifications:
All Telegram client apps are open source, and licensed under GPLv3. Only Telegram’s server-side source code is proprietary.
End-to-end encryption is not necessarily a net positive: as discussed in the link above, it carries some costs over client-server/server-client encryption. Arguably, it’s better to give the user the option to decide when to use which, based on their weighing of the respective pros and cons, than to always enforce one option over the other.
A quick update: as far as I was able to tell, Telegram doesn’t support secret group chats (protected by end-to-end encryption), so I now use Signal for sensitive group messaging. I still prefer Telegram overall, which is my main messaging app, but I also think that Signal is far superior to Messenger and WhatsApp. I wanted to share this update because my earlier comments may suggest that I have a much more negative opinion of Signal than I in fact do.