Taking the “Telegram” to the future – A review of the Telegram messenger app.

Apps have made keeping in touch as easy as few strokes on your favourite keyboard. A wide range of apps that give you a presence on the appsphere, (apparently it is a new thing like the blogosphere!) are what give you that extra reach and users an extra medium to contact you when needed. Remember the time Facebook took over Whatsapp and there was an outage? It was a public outrage. Being cut off from the people you know on Whatsapp felt like losing an arm, no pun intended. It was in those two hours that a furious search for alternatives led me to Telegram.

Telegram Messenger is the app that got to pick dibs on users when Whatsapp went down for over 4 hours. Spurring almost 5 million downloads, Telegram messenger zoomed right to the top of the app charts right from Spain to Latin America. Let’s take a look and see why almost 100,000 people get it right everyday.

Telegram Messenger- Whatsapp Clone:

Telegram Messenger is a Whatsapp clone straight up, there’s no denying that. What makes it better than Whatsapp is that it is super secure. Unlike Whatsapp, Telegram offers IM that focuses on speed and security. On installing the almost 10 MB file, Telegram has you hooked when they put in the features that make it different from anyone out there. A slideshow-esque feel let’s you know simply what the best things about Telegram are.

Telegram has a set up that is just like any other app, the usual sign up with Name/Email address, a verification code and a user name creation dialog. Once we go through the steps, Telegram takes us to the default screen.

Telegram seems to have included a new option called, “New Secret Chat”. This option allows you to contact any one and have a “secret chat”. The secret chat is an algorithm that allows end-to-end encryption. Self-deleting themselves after a set time, the only difference between the two chats is that secret chats are not saved in the cloud service. They can’t be forwarded and the only way one can access it is by checking the device the message was originally sent from. Telegram is also being developed by third-party developers, across all platforms. Telegram’s developers have placed a huge bet attracting hackers to try to break their code! If that’s not confidence, then I don’t know what is.

With the same interface like Whatsapp, Telegram has made no serious changes to the user interface. An emoji set, audio note option, a message notifier, contact status, regular options to share pictures, media and the whole lot is available. The only change from Whatsapp, is that Telegram now allows you to share locations and documents. While Whatsapp does not have this feature, and could be an invasion on one’s privacy depending on how you see it, Telegram at least offers this option so you can let others know where you are, saving you the need of another app that does it.

Telegram developers, Nikolai and Pavel Durov designed the app to bypass Russia’s blanketing of secure messaging systems. Being a crowd funded project, the brothers have assured that their service is always free and ad-free. The developers have left the code open to further development and this process leaves them out of legal issues. They promise other services in the future, in app purchases and may include a virtual number in the future to ensure confidentiality.

Telegram also promises to develop a transparent method to ensure complete deletion of their data. That’s something people will look forward to if they value privacy. The only problem I faced with Telegram is that it has the look of Facebook all over it. I do not hate Facebook, I just love free apps. The look and visual design of Telegram is very Facebook which can be a reason why some may not like it. Whatsapp was taken over by Facebook, but still looks like the app we all know. Telegram looks like FB redesigned as an IM app. A redesign of the look and feel should increase the traffic Telegram receives. Well I’m off to Telegram some friends while I scout the next new app in the appsphere! Leave your comments in the section below and if you find anything I might have missed let me know.