Telegram, a great app but two major flaws...

So, most of you probably heard about the chat app Telegram already. It's a app which is internationally known for better privacy than for example WhatsApp which is from Meta (Facebook). Although with the End to End Encryption Meta has been rolling out, this is up for discussion. One of the big things I love about the app is how easy it is to setup, as well as the big feature pack and the simple UI.

The good things

When setting up a Telegram account its nice and simple, put in your phone number, and off we go. Once you are logged in you can immediately start chatting or even join groups and watch channels. Once you are in a chat the UI is super simple, you can send messages, edit them after sending and even delete them without a time limit. This from a security point of view is of course absolutly brilliant.

After setting up an account you can make some privacy settings like only using your username instead of a phone number and setup two-step-verification. You can also download the Windows or MacOS app and use Telegram from your computer, which is also secure and pretty fast.

I can go on for a little while about some awesome features, one I can not forget is for example the "multiple accounts on one phone" feature. This is build in and I think absolutly brilliant.

Now the main pain points...

Automatic chats and notifications from newly joined contacts

Something you will start noticing super quickly is the fact that Telegram gives you a notification for every... single... friend... that... signs... up... and even starts a chat with them. Oke, yeah I want to chat with all my friends and family on the app they like best or if they want to switch, I'd be happy to use their prefered app. But that automatic notification and new chat... That's just all a bit too much if you ask me. Now this would not be an actual issue, if you could turn it off, but you can not which makes this an extremely annoying 'feature'.

The spam

Something that is also bothering me a lot is the fact that Telegram has SO Many spam groups where you get invited into once you join a public chat or if your phone number is somewhere online. Random people start messaging you with "business oportunities" or you're being invited into "new crypto founders" groups.

Overall I quite enjoy using Telegram's free tier and it works quite well for me, but I hope they will address these two main issues soon!