Developed in 2013 in Russia by the Durov brothers, Telegram has been ranked among the top and most popular messaging platforms in the world, with over 250 million active users. The application has been continuously improving with the sole aim of outshining its fierce competitors Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Viber, WeChat, among others.
I’ve been using Telegram for quite a while, and I can say the app, Telegram is the king of messaging apps.
Without even any context, WhatsApp kinda loses this challenge since its owned by Facebook. If you’ve been following any news, then you know that WhatsApp isn’t the best to use since any promises that the company has made about collecting and distributing any personal data have over the years been declared null and void. Apart from that, here are some of the other reasons why Telegram remains king:
Privacy
At least we all know a case or two where Whatsapp has extracted user information to be used by third parties without compensation, which is wrong morally. Telegram encrypts all messages to ensure personal information is safe from identity theft and also ensures that authorized crawlers only crawl messages sent.
Secret Chats
Telegram comes in handy when you want more secrecy in your messages. The feature uses end-to-end data encryption, which means only you and the recipient can read the messages. It is a feature I’ve only seen and able to use on Telegram. On top of that, messages cannot be forwarded from secret chats. When you delete messages on your side of the conversation, the app on the other side of the secret chat will be ordered to delete them as well. The messages are safe for as long as your phone is safe in your hands.
There is also a self-destruction timer where you can order your messages, photos, videos, and files to self-destruct in a set amount of time after they have been read or opened by the recipient. The message will then disappear from both your and your friend’s devices.
Open Source Features
As a long term user, I’ve witnessed several updates from the app every time introducing new features to its users. Video messaging, scheduling messages, timestamp links when posting videos are just a few of the updates I’ve witnessed. That shows how passionate the developers of Telegram are.
Their API is also open, and according to their website, they welcome developers to create their own Telegram apps and you can even accept payments from users around the world.
Messaging
Telegram has a unique feature unknown to its rival messaging up. The app lets you edit or delete messages after they are sent. It also allows a user to forward messages and media to another contact or group. Presumably, not all developers would think of such a feature, and that makes Telegram unique and a go-to messaging app.
Bots
Telegram was the first and so far the only messaging app that has introduced bots to its platform. Bots are third-party applications that run inside Telegram. Users can interact with bots by sending them messages, commands, and inline requests. As a Telegram user, bots help you get customized notifications, create custom tools, build social services, among other tasks.
Last Seen
Whatsapp either allows a user to set his or her last seen to everyone or no one. Telegram does it differently as you can select who can view your last seen and who cannot. To do so, open Telegram then go to settings> Privacy and Security>Last Seen.
Large File Limit
Telegram allows its users to send big files of up to 1.5GB. Isn’t that just impressive. This feature has made the app outshined its rival competitors by far. WeChat’s limit stands at 100MB, WhatsApp at 100MB, and Skype also 100MB.
More Members in a Group
While WhatsApp boasts a limit of 256 up from 100 members in a group chat, Telegram lets you add not just a couple of hundred but 100,000 members. These groups are dubbed “Supergroups.” These groups have pinnable messages, message history since the group was formed, replies, mentions, bots, and hashtags.
Hide Telegram Media
Sometimes It’s annoying how Whatsapp clogs up your phone gallery, especially if most of the pictures and videos aren’t of importance. Whatsapp only allows you to stop automatic downloading, but then the preview media is blurred, making it difficult to choose whether it is worth saving or not.
Telegram, on the other hand, has a feature in place that prevents the app from saving media on your phone. How cool is that?
Bottomline
What I love about this application is how its team of developers cares about its users and how they are dedicated to bringing the best out of the platform. That’s one of the primary reasons why I say Telegram is the king of all messaging applications.
