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Comment by snissn | Hacker News Reader

Isn't telegram just a really bad version of signal?

As far as I'm concerned, Signal is superior in every way. Telegram simply has gained a lot of publicity and increased its user base (which is critical for IM) thanks to E. Snowden.

> Telegram simply has gained a lot of publicity and increased its user base (which is critical for IM) thanks to E. Snowden

Why do you say that? Snowden keeps recommending Signal every time he's asked.

A friend and I downloaded Signal to try it out, and just couldn't get anything to work. I'm on iOS 8, the app would just crash anytime I hit any button to make an action (send a message, even delete my account). On his end (he was on iOS 9), it said it connected to me, but his messages just got lost in the ether in between us.

I mean, I'm a technical guy. I don't understand what either of us was doing wrong. Have you seen anything like this in your experience?

http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/3/9662724/signal-encrypted-c...

Seems like he changed his mind.

https://whispersystems.org/

Telegram has better cloud sync. Signal doesn't have a desktop app AFAIK, only a Chrome plugin which is still in development.

Only if literally the only thing you're looking for is security.

A big deal breaker for me is being able to use it without a phone number, and from desktop/sim-free devices, as well as from multiple devices simultaniously

People seem to use it as a normal IM client. They have a web UI and don't really claim to be all that secure (eg not trying to compete with Signal). I don't understand the benefit over the numerous other IM apps, everyone who uses it just says "oh i like Telegram better" or "my friends are on it".

Or a better version of iMessage / WhatsApp. Depends on how you look at it.

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