Whatsapp vs Signal vs Telegram
Whatsapp vs Signal vs Telegram: Discussion
Before moving onto the discussion on Whatsapp vs Signal vs Telegram, let's discuss these apps individually.
Whatsapp messenger
Whatsapp messenger, free messaging, with voice and video call. Apart from this, a user can also send voice messages and text messages, photos, videos, documents, and other media.
Whatsapp messenger is an American freeware which is owned by Facebook. Whatsapp can be accessible on Android devices and on iPhone devices as well. It also runs on the web as well as long as the user of the Whatsapp app is connected to the Internet. Whatsapp has more than 2 billion active users.
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Signal Messenger (Software)
Signal Messenger Software app is an end to end encrypted messaging app, which is developed by the Signal foundation in 2018. The app can only be used with an active internet connection. Users can send the messages individually person to person and group as well. Signal Users can send voice messages and text messages, it also includes files, images, video, and other media. The Android version of the app can optionally function as an SMS app.
Signal's software is free to download from the app store and it is open-source. it also has an official client app for iOS users as well as a web app on desktops.
The Signal Foundation is an NGO that was founded in February 2018 with an initial investment of $50 million by Brian Acton. As of June 2020, Signal had more than 32.4 million total downloads, and the app had approximately 20 million monthly active users as of December 2020.
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Telegram Messenger (Software)
Telegram app is also free for the users just like Whatsapp messenger and Signal Software. This app is also end-to-end encrypted optionally. Users can use the "Secret Chat" feature for the end to end encryption which is optional. Users are allowed to send text messages, voice messages. Telegram users can also send media to another telegram user like photos, videos, and other files.
Telegram messenger was initially launched for iOS users on 14 August 2013 and it was available for Android users in October 2013 by Nikolai Durov and Pavel Durov. It surpassed 500 million monthly active users. It was the 8th most downloaded app worldwide in 2020.
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So, as WhatsApp has recently updated its privacy policy, it took rose the controversy around the globe. Now the main question that arises here is
Is our personal information safe on Whatsapp?
This question is keep coming since then the WhatsApp has updated its privacy policy. But now the Whatsapp has issued its clarification regarding its privacy policy. which is mentioned below
- Whatsapp can't see your private messages or hear your calls and neither can Facebook
- Whatsapp does not keep the logs of who everyone is messaging or calling.
- Whatsapp does not share your contacts with Facebook.
- You can set your messages to disappear.
- Whatsapp cannot see your shared location and neither can Facebook
- Whatsapp groups remain private
- You can download your data.
This question is keeps coming and it's become a riddle by now because no one is getting a satisfactory answer to the question. They say that their data is end-to-end encrypted and there nowhere the data can be shared anywhere.
Now even though WhatsApp has cleared the rumors on this, because of these lot of questions, there are two other messaging apps known as Telegram and Signal which have come to light as well.
Now let's have a look at these apps what kind of features these apps provide and what kind of data these apps collect in return.
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Features | Signal | Telegram | |
End-to-end encryption | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Group Chats | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Group voice and video calls | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Status or Stories | No | Yes | No |
Chat Backup | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Disappearing messages | Yes | No | No |
Self-destructing messages | No | No | Yes |
So the first feature is end-to-end encrypted which all these three apps provide but in the telegram, the end-to-end is optional by the user. If a user wants a conversation to be end-to-end encrypted, he has to use the secret chat option. This option will be safe. Hence, the normal chats are not end-to-end encrypted as they are on the WhatsApp and signal app.
To protect the data and privacy of a user, it protects the metadata as well. It makes the signal app one step ahead of these apps. The signal app work as a sealed sender, this means even the signal app not going to know who is sending messages to whom.
All three apps provide group chat features. Whatsapp has a limit of 250 people in a group and if we talk about the telegram app, it has a limit of 2 lakh people can get added to a single group. It has many more features like a bot, polls, quizzes, hashtags which will take the experience to the top level.
The group voice and video calls feature are available in all three apps. But WhatsApp has one additional feature which signal and telegram did not have i.e. Status or stories, where user can upload a short video of max. 30 sec. and photos as well.
Talking about the chat backup, WhatsApp provides two options to get your backup which is google drive and on the cloud, wherein telegram, users are allowed to get their backup on their own telegram cloud drive. And in the signal app, it provides you to backup your data on your mobile-only.
Whatsapp and signal provide the feature of disappearing messages while telegram doesn’t.
Talking about self-destructing messages, the telegram has an upper hand to WhatsApp and signal.
What data does each app collect?
Types of data | Telegram | Signal | |
Device id | No | Yes | No |
User id | Yes | Yes | No |
Advertising data | No | Yes | No |
Purchase history | No | Yes | No |
Contacts | Yes | Yes | No |
Email address | Yes | Yes | No |
Location | No | Yes | No |
Payment information | No | Yes | No |
Performance data | No | Yes | No |
Customer support | No | Yes | No |
Other user data | No | Yes | No |
So, by now you have got enough idea that which app is collecting what kind of data, what kind of features these apps are providing. These are those points that can not be neglected by a user.
So my suggestion would be to choose accordingly.
