Is it Worth it : WhatsApp Terms vs Flocking to Telegram
The year 2021 has just barely begun and the internet is now flooded with many people announcing their ditching WhatsApp for it competitors such as Signal and Telegram.
In fact as of today 13/01/2021 Telegram through its app has noted that it has reached about 500million users, 25million being arrivals over the last 72hours.
This follows on the changes WhatsApp is effecting this year, especially in its privacy and use policies.
One particular requirement by WhatsApp that has many people sweating over their “privacy” is part of the terms that demands that WhatsApp users must submit all their private data to Facebook’s ad engine”.
A quick look around the internet and social media clearly shows this is what has got many people the whole world over riled. But for some of us this is really nothing new; in fact Facebook have been doing it for past 3years if I am not mistaken. Ever, asked for a number from a business associate, exchange WhatsApp messages later and two to three days later Facebook suggest the same person in “people you may know”? That's right Facebook has been doing it for years, and are only updating their terms this year only to save face, probably as a self protection from possible future lawsuits.
In fact the whole reason Facebook paid millions of astronomical money to acquire WhatsApp in the first place a couple of years back was to tap onto that “already collected data” that WhatsApp possessed. Currently millions can migrate to other applications as current trend but my guess is a little too late.
Now this sudden updating and declaration of the new terms and deadline of 8th February 2021 to accept terms could be an indicator of what I long suspected that ultimately WhatsApp will include and showcase ads within million statuses on WhatsApp. The terms means Facebook and WhatsApp will start following (which they have been doing anyway) what you do on Facebook and WhatsApp and most possibly on your phone and tailor suit Special ads for you to showcase on your statuses both on WhatsApp and Facebook.
This clearly means they wont only be “following”; they will have most of your private details such as contact lists, (consisting your mobile numbers and emails etc.). This is the sole cause of current anger and the ditching of WhatsApp around the world, many people feel Facebook deceived them bordering on just plain betrayal.
In fact the “Pável Dúrov”, Co-Founder of Telegram the company benefiting the most from this turn of events when asked about this sudden influx of users to his company has this to say:
I hear that Facebook has an entire department dedicated to finding out why Telegram is so popular. Imagine dozens of employees working on it full time. I am happy to save Facebook tens of millions of dollars and give away our secret for free: respect its users, ”
So in essence “Pável Dúrov” agrees with millions of users that WhatsApp ought to respect people’s privacy and stay away from peoples content such as their messages etc.? But as a tech junkie with some behind the scenes knowledge is “Mr. Pável Dúrov” being sincere or he is just riding on the wave of fleeing WhatsApp users?
My take after a quick look at the apps and their features, is though there are some fundamental differences they are almost the same in terms of features performance and security encryption;
They both are for example have support for stickers , picture in picture viewing, Video conferencing, Internet calling apart from the basic messaging feature we are all accustomed to.
Going further I should rather concentrate on the differences between the two apps before finally proffering my personal opinion of whether it is best to leave WhatsApp for the Telegram.
I found Telegram to be better then WhatsApp in the following areas:
- Cloud storage
Telegram allows storage of images, media files, documents and text messages on their cloud storage with capacity to log in and out without any hassles.
- The Username Feature
Now this should serve as one of reason why people flocked to the tool; The app provides for a service were users on Telegram are allowed to chat with other users even though those communicating do not have contact of the parties communicating.
- File Sharing of up to 1.5GB
Unlike WhatsApp, Telegram gives you ability to send any type of file of up to size 1.5GB.
- Secret Chat
Unlike WhatsApp the Telegram has one other security feature that is not available on the other app ; an end to end encryption chat functionality that allows users to set timers on messages to self delete after specified time. Users on secret chats cant forward their charts as well as take screen shots.
Well having gone through the apps it came to my attention that though Telegram(WhatsApp offers end-to-end by default) offers end to end encryption as the co-founder mentions in his profile -
<script async src=”https://telegram.org/js/telegram-widget.js?14" data-telegram-post=”durov/145" data-width=”100%”></script>
it is not available by default for all messages , one would have to use the “Secret Chat”. So users should take note of this when using Telegram.
The other point trumpeted by the Telegram team as in above given link is, it is open source. True, but I discovered the back to back end of it services are not open sourced. This clearly leaves unanswered questions when it comes to what happens at the servers?
For example the actual messages when they are stored on these servers are they in plain text format etc., or encrypted and who has access to the servers?
As previously listed on this article the selling point for “ Pável Dúrov” was the reason why people are flocking to his application was because they “Respect their Clients”.
But that is how far they are going to take it, and the millions flocking to their app would have to bank on their word but the FACTS remain and THEIR BACK END is closed, but there is no reason not to believe them, is there?
So for me personally, there really isn't any much tangible benefit in moving over to Telegram that I can vouch for in fact to cut a long story short there is nothing on the internet that could be trusted. If security and absolute privacy is your thing I would advice you to have a look at apps such as “Signal” and “Threema” which for me are an absolute safe bet as even within their servers they do not have or provide space to even store “Metadata” which for me is really what informs about a companies’ idea about it users “Privacy”.
https://seals.prod.privyseal.io/369bc02f-29f3-48dc-9c95-a1afce4271e5
