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٧ Telegram

Ultimately though, using Telegram doesn’t necessarily mean your messages are more private or secure than when using WhatsApp or other messaging apps. Server-side data leaks can still happen, and no amount of encryption will help if your end device is already compromised. A further privacy blunder is that Telegram notifies your contacts when you join it — unless you don’t give it permission to access your contacts. The app doesn’t warn you it’s about to ping your contacts, and that’s a big caveat for those who want to use Telegram to keep a low profile. Launch the Telegram app on your device and navigate to Settings -> Data and Storage.

If you’re in the West and you meet a new contact, the odds are they’ll prefer using WhatsApp to Telegram messenger. Popularity breeds popularity, and trying to dethrone WhatsApp is an uphill battle for Telegram. Telegram comes with some customization options absent from many of its competitors where you can choose the dominant app color, how the app opens links, whether or not the UI shows animations, and more. There is also chatbot integration where you can make use of bots to improve the experience. You can even create your own themes, bots, and full apps using the Telegram API. Over the years, Telegram has built up an extensive bot ecosystem that adds even more functionality to the app. Telegram is kind of a big deal for me. Final Thoughts

You can surely delete messages that you have sent, but did you know that Telegram has brought a new feature that lets you delete messages sent by other users too. That’s kind of weird, but this feature is for users who prioritize privacy over everything. To use this feature, just select the received message and tap on the “delete” button. Now, select “Also delete for X” and tap on “Delete”. The message will disappear from both ends without leaving any trace. Telegram allows you to customise your app interface to your liking. To achieve that, users can choose from a number of themes and colour combinations in the app. These will change elements like the colours of chat backgrounds and messages too. If you are a group admin on Telegram, Slow Mode is what you need to stop unnecessary spam and make the conversation more orderly. After you turn on the slow mode and choose the time interval, group members will have a restriction to send one message in the defined interval. Say, for instance, if you choose the time interval to be 15 seconds, after sending one message, the group member will have to wait 15 seconds to send another message. It will definitely raise the value of each member and individual messages. You can turn on Slow Mode by tapping on the Group name -> Edit (pen icon) -> Permissions -> Slow Mode. Telegram is all about privacy and security, and it isn't beholden to larger companies like Facebook.

Polls are a feature of Telegram that work with channels and groups. They are used for a variety of things, from organizing leaderless protests to deciding where to have lunch. Locate users near you