Telegram is not sending text messages because I don't have a premium account. And many features are locked in premium.
Currently, Telegram doesn't allow users to create or log in to accounts via third-party apps. Also, I need an official telegram (a must from the Play Store). (Not even the apk from their own website.) To receive a login code.
Do you guys ever feel that telegram has become so much worse?
Telegram does send number verification texts to non-premium accounts. That's how people get onboarded into telegram.
Telegram is on f Droid, and the source code is on GitHub, for their open source client. You can build the client right now.
I noticed another commenter said it's not end to end encrypted, the open source client and the secret chats are end to end encrypted, but they are not the default.
Last time I checked, the secret chats had some severe downsides that make them unusable as normal chats.
And if you want to bring open-source to the conversation: Signal is AGPL licensed, both the apps and backend. Not that it matters because of the E2E encryption.
In the comparison chart telegram's not ideal, but it's far from the worst.
Telegram does have a lot of benefits that simplex and signal don't. Nearly a billion people have it installed. You can connect to people using just aliases without giving away your phone number. So there is utility there
I agree without, Telegram secret chats are annoying and due to some bug I can't even select text and/or accept spell checking corrections on my iPhone. Signal however... that's just e piece of shit messenger that never syncs anything properly between devices without delays, errors etc. and for what's worth their desktop applications aren't native and I fucking hate electron shit.
Why can't we just get over the chat app mess we're in and bring back XMPP with encryption? I don't get most of the people here, all for federation and shit but when it comes to messages they suddenly forget that XMPP is the original and truly open messaging solution. You can message anyone by email no matter what's or where's their server. Pretty much like lemmy, true interoperability.
I'm not paying for Telegram and I haven't noticed missing out anywhere because of it. I'm using the APK file instead of the Play Store version because the latter censors Russian media channels (and I hate censorship). I wasn't even aware there were premium accounts.
I'm in 2 dozen channels, have a few friends who mainly use Telegram instead of the competitors and I haven't noticed a single issue, except for their homegrown encryption scheme.
The secret chats are E2EE. And I am not using it to send text messages. I am saying that Telegram is not sending me a text message login code because I do not have a premium account.