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The California-based secure messaging app Signal may have grown in popularity following the U.S. Capitol Riots, but another messaging app, Telegram, is also seeing an increase in user numbers.
According to Reuters, citing data from Apptopia, the Telegram app was downloaded 5.6 million times worldwide from Wednesday to Sunday.
Like Signal, Telegram allows its users to send texts, videos, and audio or photo messages with 256-bit symmetric AES encryption. It is “one of the 10 most used applications in the world”, with more than 500 million active users, according to the company profile.
The Telegram messaging app website can be seen on a computer screen in Beijing on Thursday, June 13, 2019 (AP Photo / Andy Wong)
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SIGNAL, THE GROWING SECURE MESSAGING APP
Founded by Russian entrepreneurs and brothers Nikolai and Pavel Durov, Telegram also does not make money from advertising, unlike other social networks, adding that it will “never” give access to user data to third parties. .
In an April blog post announcing the video calling feature, Telegram, which clashed with the Securities and Exchange Commission after a cryptocurrency sale went awry, said more features and ‘improvements, including group video calling, are said to come in the future.
“All video calls are protected with end-to-end encryption,” Dubai-based Telegram wrote in the blog post. “To confirm your connection, compare the four emoji displayed on the screen for you and your caller – if they match, your call is 100% secure with proven encryption also used in secret conversations and Telegram voice calls.”
The company has largely benefited from the fact that WhatsApp, a similar secure messaging app owned by Facebook, has seen a drop in user numbers, believed to be due to new privacy terms.
The new conditions, which came into effect recently, now state that WhatsApp can share certain information with Facebook, Instagram and Messenger. Instagram manager Adam Mosseri tried to defend the changes on Tuesday.
“The policy update in no way affects the privacy of your messages with your friends or family,” Mosseri tweeted. “The changes relate to a company’s messaging on WhatsApp, which is optional.”
Telegram appeared to recognize the reason for taking advantage of it, tweeting the popular meme with two Spiderman costumes pointing at each other, with the faces replaced with the Facebook and WhatsApp logos.
But as with Signal, there may be limits to using Telegram to send encrypted messages. End-to-end encryption may be limited if either party is not using Telegram.
The app has also come under heavy scrutiny for its user base. In 2017, Telegram may have been one of the communications sources involved in the suicide bombing that killed 22 people at the end of an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England.
Fox News has contacted Telegram with a request for comment.
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