telegram:
- very good android, ios, and desktop open-source apps they keep properly up to date (also a web client)
- stickers, emojos, gifs (and with better compression)
- useful bots (and inline bots)
- groups and good admin tools
- nicely including voice or video in chats
- now even favorites
- requires a phone number (not public)
- is not very secure (but above average)
- is centralized and not entirely open (they haven't been evil for now)
@CobaltVelvet I think Telegram is a very nice IM, Pavel Durov is crazy bad person and I don't understand why I'm constantly getting messages in Arabic with tons of flower emojis there.
@pony @CobaltVelvet they're likely in Persian (same script), and that's because Telegram is super popular in Iran and, I think, people there use it to meet new people and don't always know where those new people are from.
@abgd @pony @CobaltVelvet there was loads of Persian stuff here for a while (I may have filtered it as I can't read the language) but i translated some via Google and it was mostly just cat pictures and jokes like we would post. Now and then a Koran quote but nothing *too* heavy political/religious..
@vfrmedia @CobaltVelvet I know, they are just some Middle Eastern guys sharing their cats and families. With a lot of pink flower emojis. Only that I have no idea why they are sending it to me. It's not a complaint or anything, it's just a weird thing that happens there.