‎Telegram Messenger App

On 26 February 2014, the German consumer organization Stiftung Warentest evaluated several data-protection aspects of Telegram, along with other popular instant-messaging clients. The bug was fixed on the day of the publication with a $100,000 payout to the author and a statement on Telegram’s official blog. Telegram has defended the lack of ubiquitous end-to-end encryption by saying that online-backups that do not use client-side encryption are “the most secure solution currently possible”. The desktop clients, excluding the macOS client, do not feature options for end-to-end encrypted messages.

Messaging, features and security

Any Telegram content is synced between the user’s logged-in devices automatically through cloud storage, except for device-specific secret chats. In February 2016, Telegram announced that it had 100 million monthly active users, with 350,000 new users signing up every day, delivering 15 billion messages daily. In December 2014, Telegram announced that it had 50 million active users, generating 1 billion daily messages, and that it had 1 million new users signing up on its service every week, traffic doubled in five months with 2 billion daily messages. Telegram offers end-to-end encryption in voice and video calls, and optionally in private chats if both participants use a mobile device.

Anonymous user

Android version based on TDLib.The iOS version was discontinued, with its code merged with the main Telegram app. It is automatically updated and will most likely get new versions faster than the apps in the Play Store and App Store. This enables the building of clients for non-traditional platforms like KaiOS (supported by Telekram), or S30+/Mocor Feature phones (still in development). The built-in media viewer supports common media formats – JPEG, PNG, WebP for images and H.264 and HEVC in videos in MP4 container and MP3, FLAC, Vorbis, Opus and AAC for audio. Telegram has various client apps, some developed by Telegram Messenger LLP and some by the community.

When an online service requires such identification documents and verification, it forwards the information to the platform with the user’s permission. It asks users to upload their own official documents such as passport, identity card, driver license, etc. The gateway sends users’ Telegram name, username, and profile picture to the website owner, while users’ phone number remains hidden. It features a website widget that could be embedded into websites, allowing users to sign into a third party website with their Telegram account. In February 2018, Telegram launched their social login feature to its users, named Telegram Login. In July 2025, Telegram partnered with the rapper and media figure Snoop Dogg to release a set of limited edition collectible gifts alongside his music video “Gifts”.

Data Linked to You

Regarding Telegram, the report cites its lack of end-to-end encryption by default, its Russian origins and third-party open source intelligence as major critical points. The bug was patched prior to publication and Telegram representatives offered a €1,000 bug bounty. In September 2021, a Russian researcher published details about a bug with the self-destruct feature that allowed the user to recover deleted photos from their own device. In July 2021, researchers from Royal Holloway, University of London and ETH Zurich published an analysis of the MTProto protocol, concluding that the protocol could provide a “confidential and integrity-protected channel” for communication.

Telegram then gained over 70 million new users as a result of an outage which affected Facebook and its affiliates on 5 October 2021. Telegram (also known as Telegram Messenger) is a cloud-based, cross-platform social media and instant messaging (IM) service. Join the millions of users who have already installed 4K Video Downloader! He focuses on producing content that is both accurate and accessible for diverse audiences. Dinkar has more than 10 years of experience in content creation, including technical articles, travel writing, and product strategy. It also lets users stay anonymous through usernames, hiding phone numbers from non-contacts.

Status Saver Video Photo Save

In March 2021, Telegram launched a bonds offering to cover the debt and fund further growth of the app. The company agreed to pay an $18.5 million penalty and return $1.22 billion to Gram purchasers. In January and February 2018, the company ran a private sale of futures contracts for Grams, raising around $1.7 billion. In June 2024, Telegram launched Telegram Stars to facilitate in-app purchases of digital goods and services, in compliance with policies from the App Store and Play Store. Durov said the bond sale “will further solidify our position as an independent platform that is able to challenge the ‘Goliaths’ of our industry”.

On 24 April 2020, Telegram announced that it had reached 400 million monthly active users. According to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, as of October 2019, Telegram had 300 million monthly active users worldwide. By March 2018, that number had doubled, with Telegram reaching 200 million monthly active users. On 24 March 2014, Telegram announced that it had reached 35 million monthly users and 15 million daily active users.

User numbers

The gateway sends the user’s Telegram name, username, and profile picture to the website owner, while the user’s phone number remains hidden. Bots power Telegram’s gaming platform, which utilizes HTML5, so games are loaded on-demand as needed, like ordinary webpages. When a user chooses to hide their profile photo, they can set an alternative “Public Profile Picture” that will be shown instead. Hiding the status obfuscates the exact time the user was online and hides the statuses of other people respectively. By default, logging into Telegram requires either an SMS message sent to the registered number or a code message sent to one of the https://chickenroadapp.in/ active sessions on another device. In April 2025, Telegram launched secure group calls with end-to-end encryption by using blockchain-like encryption technology.

An investigation published in August 2024 by the BBC showed that Telegram has not responded to requests to join the US–based National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), nor from the UK–based Internet Watch Foundation, both non–profit NGOs. This was done without prior agreement or knowledge of the women, causing intense public backlash and demand for the group to be shut down. In January 2021, North Macedonian media outlets reported that a now-banned Telegram group, with more than 7,000 members, titled “Public Room” (“Јавна соба”) was used to share nude photos of women, often young teenage girls. It also provides an email address dedicated to reports of content related to child abuse. Telegram has been used to distribute illegal pornography, including child pornography.

According to press reports, prior to the bonds placement, Durov had rejected an investment offer for a 5–10% stake in the company as well as several undisclosed ones, valuing the company in a $30–40 billion range. A day later, the Mubadala Investment Company stated that Russia’s sovereign wealth fund participated in its deal undisclosed through the Russia-UAE joint investment platform to buy convertible bonds. The funding was required to cover the debts amounting to $625.7 million, including $433 million to investors who bought futures for Gram tokens in 2018 and included purchasers such as David Yakobashvili. On 15 March 2021, Telegram conducted a five-year public bonds placement worth $1 billion.

• In December 2015, two researchers from Aarhus University published a report in which they demonstrated that MTProto 1.0 did not achieve indistinguishability under chosen-ciphertext attack (IND-CCA) or authenticated encryption.
• For example, an article titled “Telegraph (blog platform)” published on 17 November would receive the URL /Telegraph-blog-platform-11-17.
• In December 2020, a study titled “Automated Symbolic Verification of Telegram’s MTProto 2.0” was published, confirming the security of the updated MTProto 2.0 and reviewing it while pointing out several theoretical vulnerabilities.
• Join the millions of users who have already installed 4K Video Downloader!
• By default, any account that is inactive for 6 months is automatically deleted, though the period can be shortened or extended up to 18 months through the Settings menu.

Bots

In December 2015, two researchers from Aarhus University published a report in which they demonstrated that MTProto 1.0 did not achieve indistinguishability under chosen-ciphertext attack (IND-CCA) or authenticated encryption. The EFF said that the results “should not be read as endorsements of individual tools or guarantees of their security”, and that they were merely indications that the projects were “on the right track”. It received points for having communications encrypted in transit, having its code open to independent review, having the security design properly documented, and having completed a recent independent security audit. Telegram’s default chat function received a score of 4 out of 7 points on the scorecard. It noted that while the message data is encrypted on the device, it could not analyze the transmission due to a lack of source code.

• Users with a Telegram Premium subscription have a number of “boosts” that they can give to channels, which allow the channel to “level up” and unlock features, such as the ability to customize messages or post stories as the channel.
• Secret Chats support perfect forward secrecy and switch encryption keys after a key has been used 100 times or a week has passed.
• In June 2024, Telegram launched Telegram Stars to facilitate in-app purchases of digital goods and services, in compliance with policies from the App Store and Play Store.
• In channels, users can start a livestream, that is able to integrate with third-party apps such as OBS Studio and XSplit.
• Pavel Durov has argued that this is because it helps to avoid third-party unsecured backups, and to allow users to access messages and files from any device.

For example, an article titled “Telegraph (blog platform)” published on 17 November would receive the URL /Telegraph-blog-platform-11-17. Non-Latin characters are transliterated, spaces are replaced with hyphens, and the date of publication is added to the address. Specific limited-edition gifts can be upgraded to a collectible version, unlocking a random appearance and other attributes. When typing in an emoji, the user is offered to send the respective sticker instead. The gateway is integrated with a bot, which is linked with the developer’s specific website domain.

Telegram also offers an API that allows developers to create bots, which are accounts controlled by programs. Telegram has public APIs with which developers can access the same functionality as Telegram’s official apps to build their own instant messaging applications. Telegram stated that it does not have access to the data, while the platform will share the information only with the authorized recipient.

Telegram comes with one default sticker pack, and users can install additional sticker packs provided by third-party contributors. Telegram introduced affiliate programs in December 2024 that allow developers to create an affiliate program for their bot or mini app. Interfaces can be adjusted to match the app’s theme even if it changes while interacting with the bot.

Premium features

Telegraph natively supports Instant View, a feature which lets users read full articles in the chat with no load time and without opening an external browser. These collectible gifts are registered on the TON blockchain as a form of NFT and can then be traded or sold both on the Telegram platform via the in-app Gift Marketplace or via outside platforms and marketplaces. In October 2024, Telegram launched Gifts, a type of virtual cosmetic item that users can purchase and send to each other in the app using Telegram Stars. In August 2022, Telegram launched an emoji platform where users could upload their own custom emoji, either in animated or static versions. Any Telegram user can join the affiliate program and be rewarded for referring others to the bot or mini app by receiving a commission from purchases made by the people they referred. Examples of platforms providing Telegram bot integration include respond.io, Manychat and Trengo.

They can respond to messages or mentions directly or can be invited into groups, and are able to perform tasks, integrate with other programs and host mini apps. The Devices submenu shows all of the active devices on a user’s account and allows them to remotely log out from those devices. Similarly, users can hide their phone number and profile photo from people based on categories such as Non-Contacts or by adding exceptions.

Whenever a new device successfully logs in to a user’s account, a special service notification is sent and a login alert is displayed in the chat list of their other devices. Once launched, a group voice chat will remain active and open to all group members until an admin specifically closes it. Group voice and video chats support picture-in-picture video, as well as sharing one’s screen, creating a recording of the call, noise suppression and selective muting. Telegram added group voice chats in December 2020 and group video chats in June 2021. Channels are one-way feeds where the channel owner or admins can post content while followers can only read, react and comment, if comments have been enabled. Groups and channels also support polls, which can be open or anonymous and can support multiple choices.

The desktop app runs efficiently even on low-end hardware, consuming minimal system resources and offering stable performance. Animated stickers, emojis, and chat backgrounds add personality without clutter. Telegram on the desktop is the version of the free popular cloud-based messaging app developed by Pavel Durov.