[lynndotpy]

This seems organic to me. I was a security researcher, and for years I've been telling anyone who would listen that Telegram is not as secure as their marketing says it is, while Signal is.

The reasons why are already pretty well listed in the thread above. Telegram's E2EE is hand-rolled and not the default. Signal's E2EE is always on, and it's _the_ industry standard protocol. (Outside of iMessage, I believe the Signal protocol is used on every well-adopted messaging service which offers E2EE chats.)

People also aren't aware that phone numbers and usernames are tied on Telegram. When a former friend of mine joined Telegram, I searched up his username, and found his _very_ explicit Reddit account. This identity compromise issue isn't mentioned more often.

You can add me to the list. There is no good reason to pick Telegram over Signal, unless you don't care about security. It DOES have more sticker packs.

[kelthuzad]

>People also aren't aware that phone numbers and usernames are tied on Telegram.

But you can, under Privacy & Security, switch Phone number visibility to "nobody". You can also change your username anytime you want to. A new feature called "anonymous numbers" allows you to purchase and use virtual numbers (they start with +888).

I think the bigger problem here is that Telegram has not e2e encryption enabled by default, which is definitely suspect.