I do not work for or have any affiliation with Telegram, but as one of the admins for StreetTT, a free community Table Tennis app, we were looking for a way to provide a safe chat group for our users. After researching free messaging apps we compiled a shortlist that included WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram, Signal and Facebook Messenger. But it was while playing Table Tennis at Kings Cross in London that one of the players there, an experienced telecommunications expert, told me to take a deeper look at Telegram.
From direct experience as an admin of large Table Tennis WhatsApp groups in Barcelona and London, each with hundreds of members, I will show you how Telegram gives you improved security, better privacy and new futuristic ways to use a chat group.
Hide Phone Number | Improved Security
Hackers and scammers try to obtain access to chat groups to find phone numbers and to connect these numbers with the digital identity of their owner, this results in more phishing attacks by SMS text message and by phone call. A phishing attack is when you receive a message that poses as one of your contacts trying to get you to click a link to trick you into giving away your personal, financial or business information.
Telegram allows you to manage who can see your phone number to prevent hackers and scammers from targeting you. In the Telegram app go to the Menu → Settings → Privacy and Security → Phone Number, then under Who can see my phone number choose Everybody, My contacts or Nobody.
If you would still like to be contacted without sharing your phone number, you can add a Telegram username. Telegram even gives you your own link so that anyone with an internet browser can use the link to contact you, www.t.me/username. In the Telegram app go to Menu → Settings → Edit profile → Username, then choose a username.
Control Contact | Better Privacy
WhatsApp messaging groups suffer from a further issue caused by the anti-social behaviour of just a few users. Examples of this behaviour includes sending unwanted messages and calls looking for romance, bullying and exclusion. While it is possible to remove people from a group once you have evidence of their anti-social behaviour, by this time the damage is already done. By comparison, Telegram gives you granular control of who can contact you. In the Telegram app go to Menu → Settings → Privacy and Security and manage your privacy for who can call you and what data you share even your profile photo.
Transfer Large Files | Full Quality Media
At StreetTT, we give our users the ability to upload their videos to appear on StreetTT’s YouTube. Using WhatsApp it is possible to send high quality files but you need to send them as a “File” rather than a video or picture, if not WhatsApp compresses your video or picture to a small file size, losing the quality from the original. Even when you use this workaround of sending your video or picture as a “File” to keep the quality, there is still a limit of 100 MBs. With Telegram you send your video or picture without compression, keeping the quality of the original, and the file size can be up to 2 GBs.
StreetTT bot | The Future
But Telegram goes way further. Using the Telegram bot APIs, we have been able to create our own StreetTT bot. When a user creates an event in the StreetTT app, automatically the StreetTT bot sends a message to the relevant local messaging group telling everyone about the event. The StreetTT bot even sends reminders on the day of the event. This is a simple example of a Telegram bot and we are developing it to provide further automated and interactive bot abilities, but even now there are already fully functioning shops on Telegram that are accessed from Telegram bots where you can browse and buy products, there are games, news aggregators, a new wave of apps that you access straight from chat.
I hope this information about Telegram is useful to you, it was a revelation for us. If you would like to join any of our moderated Table Tennis chat groups or create your own, please download the StreetTT app create a profile and add your own table all for free at https://streettt.com/.
And if you have any questions message me on Telegram https://t.me/streettabletennis
From direct experience as an admin of large Table Tennis WhatsApp groups in Barcelona and London, each with hundreds of members, I will show you how Telegram gives you improved security, better privacy and new futuristic ways to use a chat group.
Hide Phone Number | Improved Security
Hackers and scammers try to obtain access to chat groups to find phone numbers and to connect these numbers with the digital identity of their owner, this results in more phishing attacks by SMS text message and by phone call. A phishing attack is when you receive a message that poses as one of your contacts trying to get you to click a link to trick you into giving away your personal, financial or business information.
Telegram allows you to manage who can see your phone number to prevent hackers and scammers from targeting you. In the Telegram app go to the Menu → Settings → Privacy and Security → Phone Number, then under Who can see my phone number choose Everybody, My contacts or Nobody.
If you would still like to be contacted without sharing your phone number, you can add a Telegram username. Telegram even gives you your own link so that anyone with an internet browser can use the link to contact you, www.t.me/username. In the Telegram app go to Menu → Settings → Edit profile → Username, then choose a username.
Control Contact | Better Privacy
WhatsApp messaging groups suffer from a further issue caused by the anti-social behaviour of just a few users. Examples of this behaviour includes sending unwanted messages and calls looking for romance, bullying and exclusion. While it is possible to remove people from a group once you have evidence of their anti-social behaviour, by this time the damage is already done. By comparison, Telegram gives you granular control of who can contact you. In the Telegram app go to Menu → Settings → Privacy and Security and manage your privacy for who can call you and what data you share even your profile photo.
Transfer Large Files | Full Quality Media
At StreetTT, we give our users the ability to upload their videos to appear on StreetTT’s YouTube. Using WhatsApp it is possible to send high quality files but you need to send them as a “File” rather than a video or picture, if not WhatsApp compresses your video or picture to a small file size, losing the quality from the original. Even when you use this workaround of sending your video or picture as a “File” to keep the quality, there is still a limit of 100 MBs. With Telegram you send your video or picture without compression, keeping the quality of the original, and the file size can be up to 2 GBs.
StreetTT bot | The Future
But Telegram goes way further. Using the Telegram bot APIs, we have been able to create our own StreetTT bot. When a user creates an event in the StreetTT app, automatically the StreetTT bot sends a message to the relevant local messaging group telling everyone about the event. The StreetTT bot even sends reminders on the day of the event. This is a simple example of a Telegram bot and we are developing it to provide further automated and interactive bot abilities, but even now there are already fully functioning shops on Telegram that are accessed from Telegram bots where you can browse and buy products, there are games, news aggregators, a new wave of apps that you access straight from chat.
I hope this information about Telegram is useful to you, it was a revelation for us. If you would like to join any of our moderated Table Tennis chat groups or create your own, please download the StreetTT app create a profile and add your own table all for free at https://streettt.com/.
And if you have any questions message me on Telegram https://t.me/streettabletennis
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