Use Forkgram off of F-Droid. Its an open source app with extra features. You have to have the regular app to verify the login on forkgram. Then just uninstall the regular app. I only use it for news channels and mod’d app channels. I don’t use it for communications. Its not good for that.

It probably has worse privacy than e-mail or IRC, because it has the same level of encryption (transport encryption only, i.e. Telegram LLC can read your messages), but it also requires a phone number to use, linking your account to your real identity. In short, do not use it for communications if you desire them to be private.

Telegram talks a pretty big privacy game, but consider that the feature that actually enables end-to-end encryption, called “Secret Chats” in the app, is OFF by default. Couple that with everything else said in this thread and you start to see a picture forming. And it’s not pretty.

It was much better in the past in years 2017 ,now don’t use it.they put many limitations to custom clients and still not published source code of server as it was promised

It depends. By default, it uses a weaker encryption than WhatsApp. You can turn on e2e encryption, but not in group chats.

On the other hand, it has multiple FOSS clients, will work on pretty much any platform, and has a great UI.

If you want a fairly secure chat app that your grandparents can use, then Telegram is perfect. If you’re sending highly confidential stuff, then no.

It’s also suitable for project groups, because of the better tools (and moderation bots) available to the mods.

Just another application owned by multi miliionaire

Every text you send through Telegram is stored in plaintext. Telegram and authorities can access that without your knowledge. Also it will get leaked in a breach someday.

Now you decide for yourself if it’s private.

Its main “security” feature is that they are uncooperative towards most governments. If a government makes a legally binding request to signal, they recieve IP, Account creation date and other unavoidable stuff and signal is transparent about that. If telegram gets that request, they probably ignore it, but maybe they don’t and there is no way to know as a user.

Also telegram is the platform of drug dealers, nazis and conspiracy theorists. So even if it had e2e by default, I would still prefer using another platform.

I wouldn’t call it “big tech”. The biggest problem is that none of the chats are encrypted by default. And even if you do use “secret chats”, the encryption there doesn’t seem to be up to PAR with modern standards.

The creator previously refused to comply with warrants but since he was jailed in France, that’s pretty much over.

A good messenger is unable to comply, by design, because it simply does not store the data that these govts are after.

All I know is that every scammer under the sun uses it these days

The alleged the connections to FSB give me pause. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/06/10/investigation-uncovers-telegrams-potential-links-to-russias-fsb-a89400

its not private, but its FOSS, it has great mobile&desktop client

Telegram allegedly complied with a government to give them user data, and their e2e encryption was switched to be off by default. I know because when I started the chat with someone we raved about how it says ‘end to end encrypted’ before sending a message. Well, between then and when I decided to migrate off it, that private one-to-one chat’s encryption was switched off.

I say it’s okay, but only ensure that e2ee is on

Libre software app, we control it, good.

Relies on a service we do not control, BAD!