Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Should you REALLY stop using WhatsApp?”.
I’M sure, by this point, you’ve heard about the whatsapp policy changes that have caused tens of millions to migrate over to the competing services, telegram and signal tldr millions of users across the globe are concerned about the security of whatsapp, given that it’s a facebook product. It’S unsurprising that people are worried because many have already been concerned about facebook itself. For the same reasons, telegram and more so signal have better public perception when it comes to security and privacy, they offer very similar functionality, free apps that allow users to chat, send images. Videos voice messages and files.
Both of these also offer end-to-end encryption, though telegram’s app doesn’t have it on by default. Instead, enabling telegram’s cloud encryption, it’s only secret chats that are entered and encrypted. Let’S look at the numbers, while getting typical users can be tough. We’Ve got the download figures here. Whatsapp understandably has the most downloads on android at 5 billion, as it has come, pre-installed on some smartphones before telegram comes in at half a billion downloads on android and signal comes in last, with around 10 million downloads. All three apps are available on android and ios, and each has a version of a web app that’s available on desktop, including mac windows and linux.
So, no matter what platform you’re on you’re, more than likely going to be able to use whatsapp telegram and signal all three apps are laid out fairly. Similarly, and if you’re new to any of them, it’s pretty easy to get set up and to navigate the different menus and options on the surface really they’re very similar. So what differentiates these messaging platforms and why are people moving away from whatsapp to signal and telegram? Let’S start off with whatsapp, because we need to talk about its current stance and what its changes mean.
So right now, whatsapp uses a proprietary end-to-end encryption protocol. That, on a very basic level, means that only the sender and the recipient can see the contents of the messages being sent. Even whatsapp itself cannot see the contents of these messages, and that includes you know attachments calls anything like that.
So what happened to make everyone migrate? I mean this seems like a pretty good system. Well, whatsapp users received a pop-up in the app on their phones. A short while ago that said, whatsapp is updating its terms and privacy policy. If you actually clicked on the terms and conditions – and you read it you’d find that part of the policy change is that whatsapp will now reserve the right to share personal data like phone numbers, ip addresses and payments to facebook and the facebook group. Now many of the people who read this or read a rumor also heard that whatsapp was then able to send all of your message.
Contents to facebook and other third parties, which is not true, but many, were quick to leave the platform for something else, especially as if users didn’t agree to these terms. They’D be locked out of whatsapp app on the 8th of february, not great, then. But what about telegram and signal makes them better, starting with the former telegram, which gains some 25 million users. As a result of this news is the more feature-rich of the two.
It has group calls custom themes, chat, folders and location features. It’S also got more users, meaning that your friend or family is more likely to have this on their device, which is better for convenience. It has to enter an encryption like whatsapp, so only the recipient and sender of a message can see the contents of that message, but only in the secret chats section, which is a small part of the full app in the regular telegram messaging service. Telegrams cloud. Encryption is at use, which means that the messages are stored on telegram servers. This is complicated because, whilst it doesn’t completely stop other entities getting a hold of that data, telegram itself said that it hasn’t shared any sort of information with third parties at all.
So it’s kind of a gray area. If you’re particularly worried about security, the less popular signal service is actually your better bet. It uses its open source signal protocol for end-to-end encryption in all chats with calls messages and attachments being included across the board. This means that, like telegram, secret, chats and whatsapp’s chat services, no one other than the sender and recipient will be able to see. The contents of the messages being sent signal also doesn’t store any contact information. That’S all client-side stored on your phone.
This app isn’t quite as feature-rich as the other two, though the app doesn’t support. Video calls across every single platform and group calls are completely omitted at this time, also, since it doesn’t have the user base of the other two. It’S less likely that the person you want to contact has signal which makes things awkward because then they have to sign up, and that adds an extra step. It’S not a fault of the service itself, but it’s something that any small app will have trouble with.
So then, if you’re looking for the most well-rounded chat app, it’s still whatsapp with its heaps of features and end-to-end. Encryption telegram isn’t quite as secure, but it does at least have more features than signal and signal is by far the most secure. But it’s still a long way off being one of the more complete packages like telegram and whatsapp, so that about concludes today’s video. If you want to learn more about signal, then check out the link in the video description to our article on it whilst you’re there. Please do hit like and subscribe to never miss a video like this one and whilst you’re down there.
Let us know what you think of whatsapp’s policy changes in the comments. I’Ve been ryan, thomas with android authority and i’ll catch. You later .